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Recipe: blueberry jam

We’re just a couple weeks away from summer and everyone I know is busy doing stuff. I can’t keep track of who is where and doing what and when anymore (forget about keeping track on Facebook, the only thing in my feed the past few days has been the Red Wedding). We have been working on so many things around here that the local flora has been popping up like a surprise party.

suprise! gold banner

Last year, when I started on my canning kick, I felt like I was in a frenzy to grab up the local peaches and ripe strawberries and ripe local luscious wonderful tomatoes. But when I said (in my head) that I would like to make some blueberry jam, I found that organic blueberries were prohibitively expensive. At $6 a pint, one batch of jam would cost me $36 for the blueberries alone. Screw that, I said to myself. Besides, I had a hundred pounds of tomatoes to can. No blueberry jam.

My friend, Laura, gave me a heads up on a one-day special at Whole Foods Boulder last Friday: $1.99 per pint of organic blueberries. Hello?! I was in town that day. I bought a case. Weekend project: blueberry jam.

you are mine

six pints of blueberries

all you need: sugar, lemon, cinnamon, nutmeg, pectin, and blueberries

The first thing to do is squish the blueberries. I tried mashing them with a heavy meat tenderizer and they sort of went zipping out of the bowl. I set the meat tenderizer down and decided to squash them by hand, one by one. The point is to break the skin so the juices release and come into contact with the sugar otherwise the sugar will be too dry and may burn during the jamming process. It’s a good activity for non-skilled associates (children, spouses, other relations, friends, even strangers), but I don’t recommend asking the dog to help. I found it to be rather therapeutic. Also, my fingers didn’t stain (much) because blueberry guts are almost colorless and the skins didn’t seem to release much of their deep color on my hands.

i’m crushing your head (who remembers that skit?!)

mix the sugar with the crushed berries

zest and juice the lemon while the berries boil

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Recipe: garlic shrimp pesto pasta with roasted tomatoes

There is still good snow in the backcountry despite the warm temperatures. It’s the intersection of spring and summer which means we did the bike-hike-ski on Sunday. Throw your skis on your pack, hop on your bike and ride in as far as you can (basically up to the snow). Then you can either hoof it by foot or by ski into the high country depending on how strong the snowpack is. If you wind up postholing and cussing a lot, then put the skis and skins on. Ski the (safe) slopes to your heart’s content then ski out until you hit mixed terrain. Put the skis on the pack and hike to the bike. Ride on out. In June. Awesome.

the snow was firm enough for walking

alpine lakes starting to thaw

breaking for lunch

jeremy skiing out

and you end the day with sunset like this

that tranforms into rosy hues in minutes

After a long day of (fun) exertion and exposure to the elements, I’m lucky if I can find the energy to dial for take out. But this past week I threw together a pasta dish on a lark that Jeremy loved so much he asked if we could have it again. It’s relatively easy to make, so we had it for dinner.

olive oil, pepper, fettuccine, pesto, salt, garlic, butter, tomatoes, shrimp

prep the tomatoes for roasting with some olive oil, salt, and pepper

roasted

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Recipe: crème de cassis (black currant liqueur)

I have been waiting nearly a year to post this recipe. Why so long? It’s because I foraged a seasonal item and then spent a month macerating it such that when it was ready, no one anywhere was going to find it. So let’s rewind to early July of last year when I went foraging with my gal pals. I can get single-minded at times which can be a good and a bad thing. In this instance, my eyes were on black currants, because I had it in my head that I would make crème de cassis.

we found golden currants

and black currants

i love the fatties

Even though currants may be past the flowering stage now (they’re flowering in the mountains, but done on the plains), Wendy has a nice and informative little post on currants and how to identify them. These suckers are everywhere. Even my shooting partner has one in his yard, but the crows always eat the berries before I can get over there. Imagine my delight when I scored about 1.5 lbs. last year! [Pro tip: wear dark colored clothing when processing the currants.]

the loot

i plucked off all of the stems and non-berry bits

labor intensive

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