Canning 101: 2 Peach Jams and Blueberry Honey Jam

I bought 2 lugs of Colorado peaches at the grocery store yesterday....boy were they nice! I also picked up 2 pints of nice-looking blueberries and thought as long as I was in the mood to make peach jam, I could easily make a small batch of blueberry jam to go with.

All in all, I canned 17 quarts of peaches, 6 half-pints of peach jam, 5 half-pints of spiced peach jam, and 3 half-pints of blueberry honey jam (one of which never made it to the shelves!)

I found a nice recipe for Blueberry Honey Jam on http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2014/06/26/blueberry-jam-honey-sweetened/. I like this recipe because it's a small-batch recipe, and I didn't have to spend a lot of time working on it. The recipe also works for most berries and fruit, with the exception of apples, and I also followed this recipe for one of the peach jams I made today. They both turned out delicious!

Blueberry Honey Jam

INGREDIENTS

• 1 quart blueberries (approximately 1½ pounds)
• ⅔ cup honey (8 ounces)
• ½ lemon, juiced

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Pour the berries into a low, wide, non-reactive pan and mash.
2. Add the honey and lemon juice and stir to combine. Let the mixture sit until the honey begins to dissolve.
3. Place the pan on the stove and bring to a boil. Cook, stirring regularly, for 10 to 12 minutes, until the jam thickens.
4. To make the jam shelf stable, pour it into clean, hot jars. Apply lids and rings and process in a boiling water bath canner for ten minutes.
5. When time is up, remove jars from the canner and place them on a folded kitchen towel and let them cool.
6. When the jars are room temperature, check the seals. If the lids have gone concave and don't wiggle at all, they are sealed.
7. Any unsealed jars should be refrigerated and used within a few weeks.
8. If you don't want to process the jam, just pour it into a jar, let it cool, and put it in the refrigerator.

For my peach jam recipe, I basically used the Blueberry Honey Jam recipe, although I did use sugar instead of honey.

For the spiced peach jam, I had a few peaches leftover from the first box, so I added a few spices that I normally add to a peach pie. I think it turned out delicious!


Spiced Peach Jam

Approximately 2 quarts diced peaches
1-1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon good vanilla
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

Place diced peaches in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and mash with a potato masher. Add remaining ingredients. Heat to a boil, stirring frequently. Cook at a rolling boil for approximately 10 minutes, or until the jam thickens.

Ladle into hot half-pint jars. Seal. Process in a boiling-water canner for 15 minutes.

Yield:  5 half-pints