Oh boy…   its that time of the year… time to start canning and preserving some of the awesome local goodies.  I wish I could say that these were all blueberries from our plants but in reality, there are about 20 token Moby berries in the mix only!  Our bushes are growing pretty good, but still not too heavy in the fruit production stages.   Maybe next year!  But they are local berries from a place apparently just over the Michigan border.

We took our 6 pints and the first step is to puree them in a blender or food processor.  That’s always fun to use the food processor.  We got it on Craig’s List for $10 and it’s pretty cool.   It’s not the latest and greatest, but that little dude works good!

Next step is to pop them into your crock pot and cook on high for one hour. Then give a good stir, lower to low heat and cook for a good 6 to 8 hours. Use a butter knife or a spoon across the lip of your crock pot to vent the lid a bit. This allows the steam to come off the blueberry mush and render down. I did stir it a time or two when I thought of it. The recipe said you could just let it go, but well, I just had to peek and stir! Didn’t want to burn the bottom at all.

When it was all done and quite reduced, we transferred the stuff to our little Presto Pot. I like the Presto Pot for making jams and jellies and such. The heat control on it is wonderful and it’s quite deep and all. I use it for my water baths as well. It can get very hot, very fast and 3 jars will fit in it nicely to water bath and all. But since I needed to get the blueberry puree good and hot again, I scooped it out, measured it and got it warming up. It was 5 cups full of puree.

I got it to boiling, just like you would a jam or jelly. Then added 1 1/2 cups of sugar and got it hot and boiling for a good minute and a half or so. Then turn off the heat, stirring constantly so the mixture doesn’t burn. I knew it was already thick enough and didn’t need any pectin or anything like that. I had clean, hot sterilized jars waiting, 6 of them, but in the end I only needed 3 pint jars. I had a big dollop left so I put it in a little dish and cooled it in the frig so that I could sample the butter quicker!

After I jarred it, I did a boiling water bath for 10 minutes for each jar. Popped it on a thick towel to let it cool overnight. You test the seal by pressing in the middle of the lid. If it pings, then it’s not canned properly and needs to go in the frig. These were perfect and ready for the pantry!

My goodness, this is going to be so perfect on hot toasted bagels! Or on a stack of pancakes in the winter… or just on toast… I had to get some of Grandma Mildred’s pretty bread and butter plates out for a test piece of toast with the dollop from the frig and oh, boy, was that good. Like a super thick jelly, not quite a jam, not quite a jelly… but a fruit butter! We are definitely going to try apple butter this year, just as soon as our apples ripen up! (we have 9 on the tree this year!!! So much better than our first year… where we got ONE… but boy, was that a beautiful first apple!!!)