With the promise of a jar of jelly he allowed me to pick the berries, despite the fact that he didn't even know what they were! Most people I have spoken with around here actually think they are poisonous.
Let me show you what the berries look like.
As you can see the damned things are minuscule and I need three cups of juice from them to make just one batch of jelly. I want to make more than that. I had to get permission from some other people to pick from their bushes too. Likewise, they didn't even know what they were.
Okay, finally I'm ready to remove the berries from their stems. This de-stemming process is a tiresome task, the tediousness of which reminds me of what the school secretary used to do to little kids with head lice. She perched them on a chair and pulled nearly microscopic nits from their hair with a fine-toothed comb, strand after single strand. Well maybe this isn't quite that bad, but still.....
They're pretty aren't they? Next step is to coax them to give up their juice. I did this by heating them on the stove then putting the warm berries in a clean cloth and squishing the hell out of them.
The color that the berries stain your cloth is one of my favorites. I've always liked this pale fuchsia color---well at least ever since 1974 when I got married the first time and made the bridal party wear it.
Okay, glad those days are over. Now back to the jelly. I used Sure-Jell packets and lots of sugar to make the jelly. You have to bring the juice and other ingredients to a full rolling boil (that is a tongue-twister for me) that can not be stirred down. It is important to have a pan big enough for the contents to boil up and stay there. You'll have to trust me when I say, "a small pan just will not do".
Now we're ready to jar up the boiling hot jelly and I think this little tool is well worth the investment. It funnels the liquid into the jars no matter what size you use.
I wound up with 15 half-pint jars of jelly, some of which will be given away. However, considering the effort I put into this project quite a few will need to stay on my shelf!
And now for the final step..............................
It's the best jelly I've ever tasted too! Here's the link for the jelly recipe.
