June for our family means olallieberry picking. When we moved to California many years ago we were introduced to these berries which are related to a blackberry and are actually a cross between a loganberry and youngberry. Nearly every summer we have gone and picked lots of berries and frozen them to use in baking or just poured over ice cream all year long until berry season arrives again.
This year we just finished our berry trip.
We were put into a fairly new area for picking with lots of space between the bushes. However, the bushes really had a lot of ripe berries on them and our boxes quickly went from empty to filled.
Because school had just gotten out there were lots of children with their moms picking berries. One group of children would yell "jackpot" whenever they found a big cluster of ripe berries. Hilarious! Then it rubbed off on us adults too.
The next day at home most of those berries were turned into almost seedless jam. The recipe is simply the one for blackberry jam off the package of low sugar pectin. No fancy add ins or spices or anything, just plain olallieberry jam.
The jam making did mean more purple stains though. Even worse then the picking. My wooden stirring spoon might never recover. I think this winter, when I am eating toast with jam or thumbprint cookies filled with ollalieberry jam, I'll be so happy to have this jam that I won't even remember the sacrificial spoon.
-- marcella
Oooooh, that looks *good*, Marcella! I don't have canning equipment or ollalieberries, but I'm drooling.
Congrats on all your ribbons! I LOVE the baby quilt you made for the lucky friends baby - you know I love Moda. I think I might have to sacrifice my clean kitchen for some of those onion rings. Wow, they look amazing.
The jam is so pretty to look at. I have the jars all tucked away now for Christmas gifts.