Wednesday 11 August 2010

Blackberries

It has begun. Well, it sort of began about a month ago with all of the elderberry cordial I made. But foraging is in full swing!
I grabbed my little basket, which is far too small really and headed out for my secret foraging spot!


It's still a bit early in the year, but I thought I'd give it a go anyhow. The berries on the ends of the bunches were the ones that were ready so I went for it!
However....there are some risks involved....
The evil nettles. horrid, horrid, horrid stinging nettles. They always get me. always! I don't know about you, but I get welts from nettle stings and even a minor brush will still be stinging the next day!
The green bits are bits of Doc leaf that I rubbed all over my stung self. And yes. It works.
Thank you Doc Leaves!
After the unfortunate incident I continued on my way.
What's the story morning glory?
The single & most delicious raspberry on earth.


I remember finding a single raspberry last year. Just ONE! I sort of remembered where I'd found it. Sure enough I found the same thing! One single raspberry! Incredibly yummy too!
The best spot! 

My basket is way too small! 
Blackberry manicure.
This little lady faired better with the nettles than I did!

I got my berries home, washed them & picked out any creepy crawlies that came with them. Heated them up, mashed them down, squished them through a sieve. Added an equal amount of sugar a good squeeze of fresh lemon juice and cooked it for about 30 minutes all together.
What I've got is a huge jar of very jammy, very sweet & extremely fruity seedless blackberry jam!
It is even better than it sounds! Yum!
I'll wait a week or so and go down for my second forage! Hmm....what shall we make with those berries?
Do you have a fave blackberry treat or recipe?
Posted by felicia at 10:39
Labels: , , , ,

4 comments:

  1. katia11 August 2010 at 11:26

    hi felicia! i i wouldlike to be in those berry fields! i love british countryside! so you'd love cordials..i will post my cinnammon one these days..do not miss! huges

    ReplyDelete
  2. felicia 11 August 2010 at 14:54

    Katia! It is wonderful to hear from you! We'll have to do a cordial exchange! I'll send you elderflower and you send me cinnamon! But I have to wait until Spring to find more flowers!
    Hope you are well! Hugs back to you! x

    ReplyDelete
  3. Heather Roberts13 August 2010 at 08:12

    You any bright ideas how to make jam with already stewed plums Mrs Jammy?! Obvioulsy I'll have to defrost them, re-heat and seive them to remove the stones, but beyond that I'm a bit stuck! How do I know how much sugar to put in when I don't know how heavy they were before stewing? xx

    ReplyDelete
  4. felicia 13 August 2010 at 11:28

    It's fine! From the recipes I've seen it's double the sugar to plums (hopefully they still have their skin on otherwise you'll need to add pectin). So you'll just need to measure volume instead of weight and add double the sugar and a bit of lemon juice and some people add a tiny bit of butter believe it or not!
    Dunno if you need this info, but someone else might:

    you're adding your sugar to warm plums and cooking on low till the sugar's all dissolved and then turning the heat up and boiling the plums hard until setting point is reached!

    p.s. you can save some time by not sieving you can just fish the stones out with a spoon before putting the sugar in...unless you don't want any bits of fruit in your finished jam in which case sieve away!

    Hope that helps!

    If you and A are around while there are still blackberries we should make jam here! The damsons will be ready soon too!

    ReplyDelete

whatcha thinkin' love?

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)
 
Top Bing