About 45 years ago, my great aunts, Clara and Alta Perkins, along with my grandmother (their sister) Mattie Jones, would routinely “can” things. My two most favorites were green beans and strawberry preserves. The strawberries were small wild ones that grew in the cow pastures. The preserves were nothing more than the berries, sugar, and maybe some lemon juice. The berries would go in whole, and put on a hot biscuit or toast, were beyond compare.

Fast forward to our Isle of Man home, where blackberries grow like weeds – along the road, along the walking paths, and like a forest down in Groudle Glen. Groudle Glen, mind you, is 100 yards from our front door.

I had picked a couple of quarts of berries earlier in the season; Lisa turned them into a cobbler (with a pistachio/almond crust) that had the Facebook crowd drooling on their Macbooks. A couple of weeks ago, I collected another couple of quarts and froze them, just in case. I threatened to make preserves – Lisa and others said “Oh – pressure cooker, hassle, jar sterilization, yada yada…”

Which was just the dare I needed.

With Lisa away in Edinburgh, I bought real Mason jars and a funnel at the local kitchen/cooking store and spent two hours on a Sunday morning making blackberry preserves. The lids even popped concave as they were supposed to.

The result was four 1/2 liter (17 oz) jars of deep purple deliciousness. The preserves are a bit too runny to win any FFA prizes, [1] but the flavor is off the chart. Combined with almond butter on whole wheat bread, it’s a mind-blowing lunch experience.

[1] My recipe was for strawberries and I think the blackberries have more water in them. I’ll just cook the juice down longer next time.