Lower Sugar Chokecherry Jam Recipe

Last weekend I made chokecherry jam and jelly. 

I don't ever remember the chokecherries being ready this early! This has been such a strange year.

Making chokecherry jams, jellies, syrup, and wine is a tradition of sorts around here. It's been done for as long as there's been people here I suppose. Everyone's grandmother had the best chokecherry jelly recipe. 

If Ellie and Fiona had their way, they'd have kept them all to themselves!

I have fond memories of picking chokecherries by the bucketsful, of the delicious smells in the kitchen, and the ping of the jar lids as they sealed. My mom used to make chokecherry/crabapple jelly. Ah, memories...

Not many people still carry on the tradition around here, but me...well, I do.

Being that we eat paleo we don't eat as much jam and jelly as we used to, but I still like to make my own. Plus, I'm convinced most things that grow wild are better for us. In fact:

100 g of raw, pitted chokecherries contains 379 mg of potassium, 67 mg of phosphorus, 60 mg of calcium and 27 mg of magnesium, along with lesser amounts of sodium, iron, zinc, copper and manganese. That same 100 g also has 168 IU of vitamin A, 347 mcg of lutein, 90 mcg of beta-carotene, 21.1 mcg of vitamin K and 5.5 mg of vitamin C. Chokecherries also contain a bit of vitamin E and the B vitamins thiamine, riboflavin, niacin and pantothenic acid. 
source: Nutritional Value for Chokecherries 

Lower Sugar Chokecherry Jam
8 cups chokecherries washed and stems removed
3 cups water
1 and 1/4 cup organic cane sugar
1 package Sure-Jell for less or no sugar (pink box)

Cook chokecherries and water in a large pot over low to medium heat until very soft. Stir as needed.
Strain mixture through a cheese cloth or colander to get pits out. I use a colander and potato masher to get as much of the fruit as possible without the pits.
Return mixture to stove over medium to medium-high heat. 
Mix together 1/4 cup sugar and the Sure-Jell. Add to the chokecherry mixture. Bring just to a boil, stirring constantly. Stir in remaining 1 cup of sugar until dissolved. Let boil for 1 minute stirring constantly.
Pour directly into hot jars and water bath can. I usually process in a water bath for 15 minutes.
Makes 2 pint jars of jam.

I use much less sugar than traditional recipes; I also use organic real cane sugar. Still, I wouldn't call this a paleo recipe, but it works for us. Those used to much sweeter recipes (many would call for double this much sugar) may not like this one, but I love how it's tangier and tastes more like chokecherries than traditional recipes. Yum.

A First Harvest?

How about another edition of "What I've Managed Not to Kill So Far!"? OK, OK, since the mass execution of the heirloom seeds I haven't really killed...much. But because of it we got the garden started much later than we'd hoped (we're talking the first and second week of June) and started most everything from seeds instead of seedlings. Best laid plans I guess...


With our short growing season (at just above 7,000 feet it's really more like 3 seconds) it's a toss up as to whether we'll wind up with much of a harvest this year...here's hoping for a late frost? Indian summer?


This summer has also been exceptionally hot and dry. We've watered the best we can, but we can't afford to just turn the hose on (we tried in June and our bill was $70 higher!). Mostly we have been hauling water in buckets from the creek. Talk about a workout! 


Between the late planting and the hot/dry weather I had almost completely given up hope, but the last week or two things are starting to come around. While not everything has exactly thrived this hot dry summer, we've done the best we could and I'm pleasantly surprised by what is doing well!

The corn is in a race against the frost...will it have time to mature before it turns cold???

Our first zucchini! Considering how zucchini generally goes gangbusters around here we should do well here.

There's about a half a row of beets doing well. Before we got the electric fence put up around the garden the deer munched their tops off, but they came back!

We planted several varieties of cucumber, but so far the only ones looking promising are these pickling cucumbers.

The strawberry patch is doing amazing (in spite of the vampire pumpkin plant trying to snuff it out). I just picked 4 to 6 of these thumb-sized strawberries from each plant!

Speaking of the monster pumpkin plant...the pumpkins on it are growing like crazy.

Just that one pumpkin plant already has 6 to 8  fair sized pumpkins on it!

The tomato plants along the north fence are putting on like crazy.

The tomatoes in the greenhouse however only have a few.  Any idea why they're not putting on more tomatoes?!

We're even still getting a few blueberries.

There are also lots of beans, peas, and lettuce I didn't take pictures of. 


It looks like the broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, carrots, onions, and a few other things are just plain not going to make it, but we may just pull this thing out and have a decent first harvest after all! 


Cross your fingers.

Misadventures in Wanna-Be-Farming

This week has been...hilarious. There's really no other word for it. 

Darran built Ellie and Fiona a nice big pen out by the creek. With this being such a dry year it's the only place that's green and has enough groceries to sustain them. They have lush green to eat, plenty of space to run...it's a goatopia really. 

Ellie and Fiona's thoughts on it:

Alrighty then. Moving on...


Top on my list of things to start this spring was a strawberry patch. I love strawberry patches. My uncle had the biggest strawberry patch when I was growing up and since then one of the things I've wanted most in life is a big strawberry patch. What can I say? I'm easy to please.


I was so excited when I had pretty much killed everything else, but my strawberry patch was thriving!! 

Then, I saw this strange plant growing at one end. It wasn't a weed, but it wasn't a strawberry and it was in my strawberry patch! Darran said not to pick it, that it looked like a pumpkin, squash, or cucumber. My bet was pumpkin. You see, we had mixed some of the soil that had been composted by the chickens into the strawberry patch when we planted it. Last October we had fed the jack-o-lanterns (which had been grown with heirloom seeds) to the chickens. One of those crazy heirloom seeds had planted itself in my strawberry patch via the dirt from the chicken pen!

Yep, it's a pumpkin.

The dang thing is on steroids or something.

It's completely trying to snuff out my strawberries.

It's overgrown several strawberry plants.

But, I leave it be because with the luck we've had with the garden Darran thinks it may be one of the few things that produce.


So, we'll have tomatoes and pumpkins come fall I guess. Oh, and speaking of tomatoes:

They've finally started to put on tomatoes!

The gate to the tomatoes on the north side of the house has been open for weeks. We figured out that the goats and chickens don't much like tomato plants. In fact, they'll go in and eat the weeds around them. Nice. Anyway, Red chicken doesn't go in there. At. All. 

Darran weeding the tomatoes with Red's help.

She's a good helper.

Unless one of us is in there. Then she's right along with you the whole time. Scratching and pecking, rooting around, and just going to town like a kid at Christmas. Then, when we leave, she leaves too. Silly Red.


Oh yes, and speaking of Red chicken! Darran was putting a new door knob on the back door (much to Fiona's chagrin, she had just about figured out how to open the previous lever-type one. I wish I was kidding.) and Red chicken spent the whole time trying to sneak around him and get into the kitchen.


One last thing...We've had two more new additions this week. Yesterday the boys came bringing home frogs from my parents' house. Darran promptly built frogtopia:

Shall we take bets on whether Fiona teaches the frogs a thing or two?

Life is funny. We are grateful.