Two New Blueberry Jam Recipes!

When you have an over abundance of a harvest, do you make the same thing in excess, because you know it works, it tastes good and you’ll probably use it all, and even if you don’t, you can give some away…. Or do you branch out… Try something new, odd.. Maybe even a little weird?

In my personal opinion- When in doubt, always choose new, odd and maybe even a little weird. It’s a regretless desicion when you have 25 lbs of blueberries to do something with, and you can only eat so much blueberry pie.

It is with this mindset, that we approach these recipes. We have two different types of spiced blueberry jam we are making this year. The first is going to be a Blueberry Serrano Pepper Jam. This is a new and exciting recipe for us- exciting because we are using peppers from our own garden.  

Our very own serrano peppers- and a chocolate sweet pepper

The second is a standard blueberry jam infused with a blend of warm holiday spices. This is one we discovered almost by accident last year, while trying to make blueberry chutney. The jam was a keeper, the chutney, not so much. It’s kinda like blueberry pie in a jar, sans crust.

For the Blueberry Serrano Pepper Jam you will need

• 4 cups of crushed berries
• 7 cups of sugar
• 1/4 cup diced hot pepper – discard the seeds if you like a milder spice. We left ours in, and Mr. Gillis swears he barely tastes the heat.
• 1/4 cup diced sweet pepper
• 1 full box of Certo(2 pouches)
• 1/4 cup lemon juice

The essentials

Also, grab all your canning supplies.

Now, in your jamming pot, mix together your berries, peppers, sugar and lemon juice. Bring to a rolling boil, stirring constantly. Once at a boil, add in your Certo. Bring that back to another rolling boil. Put your kitchen timer on for 1 minute.

Looks just like regular blueberry jam, except with little green bombs of fire.

Once that goes off, it’s time to boogey and get it into your jars. Process in your canner for 10 minutes. Enjoy on anything.

Now, the second jam, the blueberry pie jam, is… Well, it’s sweet, a little tangy, aromatic and spiced with the holy trio- cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. Time to gather your ingredients.

• 4 cups crushed blueberries
• 6 cups white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tbsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp fresh grated ginger root
• 1 whole box Certo (2 pouches)

In your jamming pot, add everything but the Certo. While stirring constantly, let it get to that all important rolling boil. Add in the Certo, get it back to boil. Set your timer for one minute, keep stirring the entire time.

Once the timer goes off, get the jam into your jars, get the jars into your canner and process for 10 minutes.

We didn’t get any pictures of this batch because we had a very fussy 11 week old that didn’t care that we had already gotten started. It happens.

Well we are just about done with our blueberry harvest. It’s all frozen at least. I’m trying to talk Mr. Gillis into a blueberry sauce or maybe a blueberry moxie jam. But, for now, our green beans are coming in. Which leads  me to the topic of my next post- Spicy Dilly Beans!

Until that time- have a wicked good evening.