Can Jam April - Herbs: Blueberry-Mint Jam

When the April CanJam was announced as herbs, I wasn't very excited.

Herbs?

I want to start using things from my garden for the CanJams, but chives are the only herb growing out there right now. Sure I have a tsp. of a few other herbs that are starting to sprout up, but I didn't want to chop off their little baby heads.

I just did garlic-onion jam last CanJam, so I also didn't want to use the chives.

I still have a freezer full of blueberries from our berry picking vacation, so I knew that I wanted to use blueberries, but what herb goes with blueberries?

At first, I thought about Lavender. This Lavender? No the herb lavender!

I've heard of Blueberry-lavender jam, but my Mom suggested mint (Thanks Mom!).

Mint?

Really?

That's so weird - it just might work!
I just happened to have homemade mint extract in my freezer too. I made it last summer from the huge mint plant (bush) in my backyard. Sorry there aren't any pics of the mint extract process, I made it before I started taking pictures of everything.

So here it is:

Blueberry-Mint Jam

4 cups blueberries

2 cups mint extract (directions below)

1 Tbs bottled lemon juice

1 tsp butter

4 cups sugar

1 pkg no sugar needed pectin

Bring blueberries, mint extract, lemon juice and butter to a rolling boil. Boil for 10 mins and then add sugar. Return to a boil. Boil for 10 mins. Add pectin and return to a boil. Boil at a rolling boil for 1 min. Transfer to prepared jars and process in a boiling water bath canner for 10 mins.

To make mint extract: Take fresh mint leaves, remove the stems and measure the mint leaves. Put mint leaves in a bowl. Add boiling water to the bowl - if you have 2 cups mint leaves add one cup boiling water, if you have 1 cup mint leaves add 1/2 cup boiling water - you get the idea. Let mint leaves steep until cool or overnight in the fridge. Strain mint leaves from liquid and pour mint extract into ice cube trays. Freeze mint extract or skip the freezing and use in the recipe above.

Blueberries and mint extract

Boil!

Spoony likes the taste - yum!

With sugar and pectin.

In the jar.

Glossy

Spoony! Did you eat it all?!?

Nope. He saved a few jars.

Jars fresh from the canner.

I found a few mint sprigs in the garden and sacrificed them for this picture.

Poor plant babies.

So.................what does it taste like?!?

Yummy!

Fresh, clean, very blueberry-ish with a nice minty aftertaste, but not overpoweringly mint. In fact, if you didn't know there was mint in this jam I don't think you could pick out the flavor. It has an intriguing flavor, but like the Carrot Jam, no one would ever think blueberry-mint jam.

Oh, also this jam took me exactly 1 hour to make from start to cans sealing on the counter.

Berry Picking Vacation

I went on a berry picking vacation, to Bayfield, WI, with my mom this last week-end.

Cottage that we rented.

We went to the farmer's market to pick up ingredients for dinner.

While there we had to stop and take a few pictures in the community garden.

Bayfield harbor and Lake Superior.

View of lake again.

We picked gooseberries and currants at the Good Earth Farm.

The currants were hard work! They are so tiny.

Picking gooseberries.

Then we picked blueberries at Rocky Acres Farm.

Yum! It is the start of the blueberry season, so we got to pick the giant king berries.

Lots of blueberries to pick!

They were HUGE!

View of Lake Superior.

After picking blueberries we went to the Bayfield Art Fair.
I found a prize for next month's giveaway!

While we were at the Art Fair we found a mushroom.

We took it home to cook it for dinner with our farmer's market finds.

Yummy! Our dinner - Eggs from my girls, summer squash, tomato, onion, garlic scapes, mushroom (we found), smoked Lake Superior white fish and vegan bread from the farmer's market.

Too soon it was time to go home, but we had a couple more stops to make before we left.

Us with our blueberries.

We stopped at few local shops.

We had to pick up our almond wine bread from The Candy Shop before we left town.

And a few coconut clusters.

We ordered the wine bread the night before, because they sell as soon as they are baked.

They go from oven to someone's home!

Then we stopped at the Bayfield Apple Company to pick raspberries.

We also bought a jar of currant jelly.

They are hard to pick and it is worth every penny!