Blackberry Jam

A couple of days ago, I stumbled onto this clever video (narrated by the brilliant food journalist, Michael Pollan) that talked about the importance of cooking your own food (as opposed to eating processed food). His diet tip? Make your own junk food. Just think about it: how often are you going to want to bake your own Oreo cookie, deep fry some french fries, or churn your own ice-cream? Probably not very much.

In that very same spirit, Zach and I decided to make our own blackberry jam over the weekend. We made strawberry, raspberry, and mixed berry jam last summer but we never tried our hand at blackberry. So since they were on sale at the store this week, we bought ourselves 17 boxes and went to work.

Canning is a tedious process especially when you're working in a small kitchen like ours. But, the thing is, you always forget about the hard work when you have those gorgeous jars of jam at the end of the day. In sub-zero temperature days, these pretty jewel-tone jams remind us of the warm days of summer!

And then you immediately start thinking about your next canning project ...