Labor Day labors: dried tomatoes, ginger-pear marmalade, low-sugar blackberry jam...

J

junebug

Well-known member
I'm collecting home-canned, home-grown Christmas gifts. So far I have the above-mentioned marmalade and jam and:

strawberry jam

raspberry jam

blackberry jam

sweet relish

pickled green beans

pickled beets

dried apples

dried pears

dried sour cherries

dried plums

DH has been in charge of drying, except for the tomatoes. Left on my list are more pickled beans, more relish (this time with some hot peppers), plum chutney, and maybe some salsa. If I get really energetic, I'll pick some more blackberries, and make more low-sugar jam. It's really good!

We have LOTS of plums, pears, and tomatoes. Anyone have any must-try recipes?

 
How do you make the jams low-sugar? Just cut the amount? Doesn't...

that effect the "jelling" of it? Curious, I ofter thought of doing that, but was afraid I'd mess up the physics of it all! TIA

BTW, I like broiling tomato slices with a little garlic minced over them. After they come out of the oven, a thin drizzle of olive oil on top. Yum.

 
I used Ball "no sugar needed" pectin. There are recipes in the package, but not for blackberries, so

I winged it. Honestly, it didn't set as well as I'd like, and if I'd had another package of pectin, I would have thrown it in. But it is really tasty. Last year, I made plum jam with no added sugar and one package of no sugar needed pectin, and it set really well.

Here's my recipe for the blackberry jam:

5 1/2 cups total seeded blackberry pulp from ripe blackberries and one small, ripe, cored, peeled pear (I ran about 3 quarts blackberries and the pear through my food strainer three times.)

1 tsp citric acid (This is supposed to help it gel and also acidify it, though I read today that blackberries are plenty acidic to be safe.)

1/2 cup water

1 package no sugar needed pectin (This contains dextrose, so the resulting product isn't actually "no sugar.")

Put everything in a large pot, and bring to a boil. Test the gel by cooling a spoonful on a spoon that has been sitting in ice water. If it's too runny, add more pectin. Since there's no sugar added, there's no need to bring it to a boil again after adding more pectin.

Pour into sterilized jars, leaving 1/2-inch head space (more than for normal jam). Wipe rims, and put on lids. Process in boiling water for 10 minutes.

 
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