Why Arms Full of Scratches Makes Me Happy

My arms look like they went through a battle with a thorny bush.  And that's exactly what they did when we went purple raspberry picking.  All 5 pounds of purple raspberries were worth the war wounds.  I have never been a huge jam fan.  Generally, I don't eat a lot of toast for the sake of toast.  I make a pretty damn fine english muffin from scratch, which I prefer toasted and topped with an egg overeasy, a thick slice of tomato from my CSA, some Dragon's Breath cheese from Keswick Creamery which I buy at the Dupont Circle farmers market, and a big squirt of spicy brown mustard. 

After some thought and an assessment of the huge load of berries I had, I decided to make a small batch of Purple Raspberry Freezer Jam, which doesn't require you to cook the berries and uses a special freezer pectin made by the king of canning, Ball.  I love this jam.  I now have an existential crisis every morning trying to decide if I want to slather jam on my english muffin or fry up an egg.  I usually compromise by doing an open face egg sandwich and putting gobs of jam on the other half.  I also discovered that this jam is very tasty mixed into greek yogurt, and I bet its also magical slathered on top of a cheesecake.

I had to order this pectin online because I don't own a car and neither of my two local groceries stock it.  It runs about $2-$3 and one packet is enough for 4 cups of mashed fruit.  I love this recipe because its so easy.  Mash up enough fruit to turn into 4 cups.  Add sugar to your desired sweetness.  I only added about 1/2 cup because the berries were at peak ripeness.  Add the packet of freezer pectin.  Stir for 3 minutes as it thickens.  Spoon into small airtight containers, tupperwares, glass, whatever, let sit for 30 minutes and then pop in the freezer.  These stay good for at least a year. 

The beauty of this jam is that the fruit maintains its wonderful fresh flavor.  Traditional jams are often cooked, and packed into jars need to be processed in boiling water, which changes the flavor of the jam.  Raspberries, any kind, are best used raw and still warm from the sun from the raspberry field.  And that is exactly what this jam captures.