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| Spiced Cranberry Jam ~or~
by sherri_ at 10/29/2009 5:32:21 PM
"I Just Never Learned When to Quit"
We had our first hard freeze on Oct.17 & 18. That's VERY early, darn that global warming. I had to spend my Saturday bringing in *all* the garden -- except for the tomatoes. I had the hubris to decide I could take my warming mats from my grow station out to four of the six 4X4 boxes I have tomatoes in, cover them with fabric and save the tomatoes, hoping that 26F wouldn't get to the two boxes next to the house.
I was right. I am still growing tomatoes. THANK GOD.
But, That Darn Global Warming meant I now had to can everything...all at once. So I spent a week working up carrots, brussel sprouts, potatoes, onions, herbs, etc. etc.
That left me with the berries. I like to pick them and bag them and dump them in the deep freeze because (a)I just don't have time to work them up when they come in, I've GOT IMPORTANT YARD/GARDEN WORK TO DO, dagnabbit and (b)you actually get more juice from the berries if you freeze them first, it breaks down the cellular walls. More juice = more jelly.
I'm all about the jelly. It's World Famous, even, ever since I shipped some off to some friends in Oz and England.
After clearing out all the berries I picked, I found the huge bunch of bags of cranberries that I'd dumped in the deep freeze and forgot about last January...I had to get them, they were on clearance for a quarter a bag!! I'm the only one who will eat cranberries (or brussel sprouts and broccoli, bunch 'o' heathens I live with)...but even I can't eat a dozen bags of cranberries.
Got to turn it into jelly, cuz I'm all about the jelly. How can even a heathen refuse cranberry jelly? And it makes a pretty jar of jam for gift giving.
The first recipe I came across was Cranberry-Banana jam and it just so happened I had a bunch of brown bananas I needed to mash up for the deep freeze to turn into Banana Nut bread as part of my Holiday Baking/Gift Giving.
Pretty good stuff! Now I must try the second recipe: Spiced Cranberry Jam. Sounds yummy. Cloves and allspice and cinnamon and cranberries.
Now I've cleared out the cranberries, I see a ton of frozen applesauce that's been sitting in the bottom of the deep freeze for about a year.
I'm thinking Apple Butter, cuz I'm all about the jelly. I'm also thinking I really need to learn WHEN TO QUIT.
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