jamming it up

After my farmer's market bounty from a couple of weeks ago (and then another trip after that), I have been jamming it up.  I have made lots of strawberry, peach, and plum preserves.  Even though I have gotten some good reviews from the preserves and jams from this season so far, I must say I was already a tad bored.   I love it that there's no end to preserving!
I wanted to use all my fruit, but I needed some new recipes.


As a result of the little guy at the farmer's market who sold me an entire flat of blackberries for $3 (if you can even believe that), I had to find something to do with them.  I don't so much dig on the seediness of blackberries, so I was trying to avoid just making blackberry jam.  I did quite a few batches of the strawberry jam that my husband is SO fond of, and since that recipe worked so well I used that as my base.  I tried at great length to find that recipe on the Food Network website, to no avail.  I went back and looked at my June 2011 Food Network magazine and found that this one actually from the Ball website and can be found here.  It calls for lemon juice, and although I've made it with that and with vanilla we like it best with neither of those add-ons.  


For my "black strawberry" concoction, I used that same strawberry recipe, but I cut the amount of the strawberries in half and used half blackberries.

It turned out great!  Or, I think it did anyway. :)


I had used all my strawberries, but still had a few blackberries and tons of plums.  
One of the nice things about making jams and such is that you can generally search the internet and find a recipe to suit whatever fruit you have on hand.  I searched and found a recipe for blackberry plum jam.  It is awesome!  If you don't so much care for super sweet jams, this may be the one for you.  It's really tart and delicious!  I love it when a recipe works out well on the first try!  The only thing I did different than called for was to use 4 ounces of blackberries instead of 8 just because that's what I had.  I made up the other 4 ounces in plums instead.  

My husband told me this week that I need to have some Kelli's Jellies business cards made. 


He tells me my title should be Baller Jammer.


That guy cracks me up...sometimes. :)