Now that the heat wave has ended, and I have no more room in my freezer for essentials like meat, bread, butter (and ice cream!), I decided to can some of the blueberries I froze earlier this month. First was a riff on the Blueberry Lime Preserves I came up with based on a recipe from Linda Ziedrich's The Joy of Jams, Jellies and Sweet Preserves (hers uses orange juice and lemon juice). I decided to give it a more adult flavor, and a little heat, using a tablespoon of chipotle powder and a little bit of Triple Sec. This will probably take some time to mellow (like salsa does), but I'll bring it to market by the end of the month if I open a jar and find it's ready.
That was the morning's work. After a trip to the dentist and the grocery store, we came back home for lunch and I started on the second recipe. Actually I had started it last night, when I cooked some blueberries and put them to drip in a jelly bag. I used the berries in the chipotle jam, and then used the juice in the second recipe. So I combined recipes from my favorite jam cookbook and the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving to make blueberry syrup with wild blueberries (again frozen). I thought it would be nice to have a blueberry syrup made from real blueberry juice (instead of that artificially flavored high fructose corn syrup stuff you get at diners), and just enough tiny tart wild blueberries (my favorite) to make it interesting, without making it a preserve. I may have to modify this recipe, because the one I based it on (Huckleberries in Syrup) didn't call for cooking the berries, the jars were filled with berries and then the simple sugar syrup poured over. I only filled my jars 1/3 of the way with berries, so the berries are floating. I wanted to keep the fresh taste of the wild berries, but next time I might have to boil them in the syrup a little rather than just pouring it into the jar of berries. Oh well, live and learn. You'll just have to stir the syrup to distribute the berries before pouring it on your pancakes (or waffles, or ice cream). Actually, I think this would be best warmed up first...
I've got 7 jars of this syrup ready to go to East Granby market tomorrow. Of course, I have other jams too, including the two different kinds of strawberry I made in June.
After making syrup, it was time to pick, I did get 5 pints of blueberries (and should have take more/bigger containers since there were more ripe). I don't know if I'll have time to pick more before market tomorrow, but if I don't, there will be more ripe later this week and I can always freeze them (if I can find room after today's grocery trip!).
