Where Did the Time Go?

It's unclear what happened this year. I haven't canned anything since those blueberries and I even stopped baking bread for a while, breaking a 10-year streak of not buying sandwich bread. There is definitely a lack of motivation involved, for many reasons, but there is also less produce coming from my farm share since I changed shares, and I have not had "the right day" (the right combination of weather, time, and picking partners) to go foraging for blueberries or elderberries or picking strawberries. I have been out of town A LOT, which means I missed the aforementioned blueberries and elderberries when they were in season. Legion has suffered a bit from my travels as well, but I seem to keep being able to rescue it. Hopefully that trend continues.

My red currants were the only thing that did well in the garden this year and I never planted any other vegetables. I think I may have to give up on the low bush blueberry plants, each one produces about one blueberry despite being covered with flowers in the spring. 

In the freezer I had stored just under 1.2 kg of red currents from early summer. I already have jelly from last year, so I decided to make jam instead. It will be seedy. Hopefully that is ok. 

1.18 kg red currants

3 cups sugar

1/3 cup water

This was cooked to about 220˚F and then processed in boiling water for 10 minutes. Made 5 8-oz jars and 1 4-oz jar.

I hope the fall gives me more energy, and that I can climb out of this hole in which I have fallen.

Keeping Currant

One of the types of plants that we put in the front garden, which is an edible garden, were several red currant bushes. This is the first year the berries were plentiful. Enough to make a batch of jelly.

The first thing I noticed is that while I was preparing the juice it smelled similar to crabapples. Almost a little cinnamon-y. It's also very pink, which made a nice bright red (think Kool-Aid) jelly. One batch of jelly used 6.5 cups of juice, 7 cups of sugar and a box of pectin, and made about 10 cups of jelly. 

Also today, I made mulberry jelly from the juice of the berries I picked from our tree in the backyard. Four cups of juice, 3 T. of lime juice, 5 cups sugar and 1 box of pectin, made 12 half-cup jars and one 12-ounce jar. This is a good start to this year's gift stash!

Jellied Plans

The farm share sent along a bunch of mint. I don't use fresh mint a lot in my cooking, maybe I should, but the first thing I thought of was making mint jelly. I haven't made any in years, because both of the kids stopped eating lamb and that's generally what we would serve it with. However, the kids are spending a lot less time eating at home, so I thought making a batch would be nice. 

Mint leaves were steeped in 4+ cups of water for 10 minutes, then the resulting tea was combined with 5 cups of sugar, 1 package of powdered pectin, and 3 drops of green food coloring and one cup of blue. This made just under 6 cups of jelly.

My red currant plants finally started producing and I have enough to make a batch of currant jelly this year, which I will do when I harvest the rest of the berries. As I do with mulberries, I extract the juice and save it for when I have enough volume. So far I have 5 cups, I need 6.5 cups so I'm close. I also have about 5+ cups of mulberry juice, but I currently have 10 jars of mulberry jelly and 4 jars of mulberry syrup in my inventory so I'm not sure what to do about that. Maybe gift stash?