raspberry jam

The  day started like most days, with a filling breakfast and a little blogging about the night before. After some editing on my husband's latest home video, we decided to don our bathing suits and find a body of water. So my brother, his girlfriend, my husband, and I set out to the neighborhood pool of a friend. The pool was over crowded. People of all sizes and nakedness were sardined into an area and almost disproving Pauli's exclusion principle. Needless to say, we weren't staying. I jumped on the Google Maps iPhone app and found the nearest lake. Forty-five minutes away. We were all decked out in our swim wear and weren't going to let a measly forty-five minute drive stand between us and water. When we arrived at the lake we saw the boat docks, but not the "I don't have a boat, but still want to get in the water" dock. I'm still not sure it even existed. We continued up the mountain road until we saw a sign for a fishing hole. I'm a smart enough cookie. Fishing hole = water. After a poison ivy avoiding trek through the woods, we found ourselves at the side of a beautiful lake. There was a large boulder that we could jump off (after checking the depth and safety of the water), and no one for a hundred yards. It was our own little haven. I lamented not bringing my camera, but my brother reminded me that when you don't have pictures you can remember it exactly as you wish to. Sorry, you'll have to use your imagination.

At this point you're wondering, why did she title this post "Raspberry Jam"? Give me a minute. I'm getting there. After satisfying our water urge, we got back into the car to start our trip back. Just a minute later we saw some women on the side of the road picking berries. Wishful thoughts were spoken, followed by the confirmation of a clean bucket in the car, and that began our second adventure. We pulled over, and the four of us tackled the surrounding bushes. Before we got back into the car we had picked four cups of raspberries. On the way home my iPhone assisted in picking the recipe we would use, and we stopped to pick up some jelly jars.

Here are the basic steps:

1. Mash the berries and boil them.

2. Add the pre-warmed (a tip I got elsewhere on the web) sugar.

3. Move into sterilized jars and let the jam become more jam like.

4. Spread on homemade biscuits and enjoy!

Four cups of sugar made four and a half jars of jam, and my brother Chris liked it so much that he insisted on paying us for a jar. It was delicious!