Foraging in the kitchen

Last night I looked up serviceberry recipes. Serviceberries are apparently also called Juneberries or Saskatoons. I really wanted to actually make something with all that fruit, not just eat it plain. I ended up making jam using this recipe. It's pretty simple - just fruit, sugar, a little water and lemon juice. Apparently the berries have enough natural pectin that it's not necessary to add more - it makes sense, since they're similar to apples, and that's what storebought pectin is made from.

I had an empty jam jar from the grocery store, and I sterilized it in boiling water. Then I washed the berries, put about half of them in the food processor and pulsed it a few times, and put everything together in a pot with a little water. The original recipe was for four cups of fruit; I had about two and a half. I actually reduced the sugar by half again, as comments from several jam recipes had said it turned out very sweet - and the fruit is already quite sweet. I didn't have a lemon to add zest with, but I did have lemon juice, so I added a squirt of that, then got it simmering and let it cook until it thickened. I carefully spooned it into the sterilized jar, and screwed the lid on tight. Later, when it had cooled some, I checked and the lid had sealed! I'm still keeping it in the refrigerator, but it was interesting to see that the lid resealed under the correct conditions.

I did keep some of the jam out, scraping it from the pot into a small container to try later! I've just been eating the blueberries and huckleberries, but if I get a lot the next time I pick behind the house, I may have to do some more recipe searches!