Cookies and Jam. (or Jelly)

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

Well, the housemate has started her Holiday baking cycle, so she pulled out another two gallon bags of black raspberries from this summer's crop from the freezer to 'make room'. Which meant I had to process them into jam... But she got out of the (darn small) kitchen so late that I'd be up late into the night if I'd gone for the 3-4 batches of jam those would make. So I decided it was time to finally fire up the food mill.

I got an 'original, all-metal Squeezo strainer' (Made in the USA) with the additional screens, including the berry screen, as a Christmas gift last year from the housemate's parents, and had yet to use it til tonight.

Setup was really simple, it clamped nicely onto our dining room table, and all I needed to do was rinse the parts off, put it together, put a large bowl under the end spout to catch the discarded 'mash', and a container under the drain pan to catch that lovely antioxidant-rich juice. Oh yeah, and crank the handle a lot Once done, it cleaned up quickly and easily.

The two gallon bags of berries ended up making right about 64 ounces of black raspberry juice, and a couple of large bowlsful of seeds and mash to put out for the birds in under half an hour. The food mill worked wonderfully, the juice went into the fridge for tonight, and I'll work on making jelly instead of jam either tomorrow or the next day, rather than spending the next six hours or so making multiple batches of jam. If I can find a mold at the craft store, I'm thinking of trying my hands at making jel sticks that I can then dip in dark chocolate. I've bought orange and red raspberry ones before, and I think making my own would be fun.

So it's two thumbs up for the 'All-metal Squeezo strainer' food mill. I just wish we'd had an apple crop on the trees this year so I could have done apple butter and apple sauce as well.

[NJCher]

1. I drool

Thinking about 64 oz of black raspberry juice.

If you could even find it, it would cost a fortune at the store.

Anyway, sounds like an ambitious project, but you're lucky to have the Squeezo.


Cher

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

4. Black raspberries are simply hard to find in stores, period.

You basically have to go online to get them direct from growers, or live in an area where they are grown, and go to fruit and veg stands or you-pick farms.

We've still got two bags left in the freezer, so we'll wind up with another 64 oz or so when I do those as well, on top of the 27 jars of black raspberry jam I made a week ago.

The jelly recipe only gives 2 cups of jelly for each cup of juice, so if I do it all as jelly, I should get about 30-32 8 oz jars of jelly, rather than the 50-60 more jars I would have if I'd done it as jam. But not having to crunch through all the seeds makes up for it, I think...

[grasswire]

2. oh my grandmother used to buy those orange sticks

I never thought about making them. Hmmm.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

3. We get the same consistency when we put in too much pectin.

Putting in roughly half again the pectin the Ball recipes for jam call for gives you a really thick, almost rubbery consistency similar to the sticks. But there's probably a recipe out there to give an exact ratio.