Yesterday we had another big canning day with Joel and Marie. The weather has been gorgeous here for several days, so we went to Discovery Park in Magnolia and picked some buckets of blackberries.

Here’s the view inside my blackberry bucket partway through the picking. The red, unripe berries are there by design: apparently they have extra pectin, which is good for making a thick and easy jam.

We used the recipe that I included on this blog way back here. We had 15 cups of berries, so we increased the sugar proportionally, and I increased the number of limes to 4 (from 2.5). I also zested the limes and threw that in too.

Our stove quickly looked like the scene of a murder as the jam bubbled away:

I let the jam get to about 222°, and then we canned it. It turned out really thick this time, much thicker than the jam I made in 2008. I think it’ll be OK, though; the scrapings at the bottom of the pan that didn’t fit in the jars (pictured below) were delicious and nicely textured.

Here are two finished jars. We ended up with 12 cups of jam, which is consistent with my suspicion that I cooked the jam down a bit more this time. (Last time I got 6 cups of jam from 6 cups of berries.)

Meanwhile, we made some bread and butter pickles from some cheap little pickling cucumbers I found at the market yesterday. We got six pints of these. I should have photographed the process because the pre-canning pile of cucumbers and spices was quite pretty, but you’ll have to imagine it.

After the canning was done, we relaxed with vegetables, bread, peanut butter, and the debut episode of The French Chef with Julia Child (boeuf bourguignon). Joel and Marie had brought an adorable plum and apple pie and some Earl Grey ice cream from Molly Moons, so we had a huge and delicious dessert too.

I stole this picture of the pie from Marie:

We have tentative plans for one more pickling extravaganza in the near future. Maybe dill pickles?