Thanks for the great idea. I just discovered a bag of cranberries (most of which are still good) in the depths of the produce bin. Now I know what to do with them!

LOL, the strawberry-nectarine combo is delicious! I didn't have enough early strawberries from my garden for a batch of jam, my eyes fell on the nectarines in the fruit bowl, and I thought "why not? How bad could it be?" I made it with no-sugar pectin and 3 cups of sugar - it's tart-sweet, which is my preference anyway. :-) From now on I guess I'll be more careful to skim, although that jam was gobbled up way too fast for it to have been a problem. Thanks for taking the time to answer my question!

I've been making blackberry jam without pectin (it was $3/box in the one grocery store I found it in, and I've been making *lots* of jam!). Very similar recipe - 5C ripe berries 1C barely ripe (a little red, but still soft/juicy) berries 4C sugar Mash berries and add sugar, let sit overnight. In the AM, put a saucer in the freezer, start the jam in a Dutch oven on High heat, add 2 Tbsp lemon juice, stir to prevent sticking. I've found that when it starts foaming up you can lower the heat slightly, stir it down, and after a while (it takes a while as you said to get the knack, but roughly 25-30 minutes) pull it off, dribble a little on the saucer, if it runs off right away you need to cook it more. If it looks like it's starting to set up, put the saucer back in the freezer a couple of minutes (with pot still off the stove) and then pull it out - it should be firm, if not, put the pot back on the stove and turn the burner back on, give it a few more minutes at a boil and test it again. I set my DW to come on in the wee hours and run it on "Sanitize", time it so the cycle is done about 30min after I plan on starting the jam so everything's hot when the jam is done. I also start the stockpot boiling when I start the jam. The first couple of lids I pull out of the DW basket after I fill the jars, and put them on, I start a teakettle boiling and put hot water in a Pyrex cup, put the other (2, I only make 4 jars at a time) lids in there while I fill the last 2 jars, this means that the first 2 jars get processed a couple of minutes longer than the last 2, but I process at a rolling boil for 8-10 minutes, then turn off the burner and let them set for another 5 min, usually the lids seal as I'm lifting them out or shortly after. Put them on a cake rack over a towel (to catch drips), and when they're cool enough to handle I carefully unscrew the rings so I can dry them off - otherwise I'm afraid they'll rust. Then I leave them alone for 12 hrs or so til I need the counterspace to make dinner, I put the rings back on and put them in the original box in the basement. I've made 30 jars (28 half-pints and 2 pints) of jam in the past 2 weeks. The first batch came out thin (I forgot to test for gel), the 2nd too thick (I used a meat thermometer and I think I let it boil too long), the rest (20 half pints) has turned out just fine using the saucer method. I *did* make 1 jar of "syrup" this AM for my niece who likes it to soak into the bread and doesn't like seeds, and 1 of the first pints I poured the liquid off through a sieve, reused the fruit today and used the syrup to make seedless jelly (boiled in the microwave, then processed with the jam) for my parents. I had to add some sugar to the jelly to make it a little sweeter, but didn't add any to the syrup so I hope the 4-yr old likes it. If not, I'll tell her mom to heat it in the MW and add sugar, she can make jelly (and just refrigerate it). I don't know if it's just the difference b/t blackberries and raspberries, or maybe the lemon juice, or the pectin recipe, but my aunt's raspberry jam using pectin is much sweeter than my blackberry jam. I did find low-sugar pectin today at Walmart and want to try making low-sugar jam for my DS - but that's another thread.

So, I made the above jelly with the following changes to the recipe: Used 1 1/2 cup dried chopped apricots, 1 1/2 cup dried chopped peaches, 1 1/2 cup dried chopped cherries. I also doubled the vinegar and added a little more sugar (mainly cause the fatalli pepper, even though I deseeded half of them, were SOOOOOOO hot). I kept the onion, bell pepper, and hot pepper the same as the original. I also ended up NOT adding pectin since I was going for a glaze consistency, I found the sugar alone was fine. Now, this mix tasted excellent and we used it on chicken thighs as a glaze. It was sweet and fruity and hot all at the same time and the chicken looked beautiful with the chunks of dried fruits and the shiny sugar glaze. However, it was very very chunky since I added all that extra dried fruit. My question this time is can I use commercial fruit juice preps that are not 100% fruit to increase the fruity flavor but not add more chunks of dried fruit to the mix? I think I want to back down the amount of dried fruit (I want more glaze than fruit) but I want to maintain the very fruity flavor I got from the extra fruit. I have black cherry extract (100% cherry) and then I have apricot and peach nectar that are only 45% fruit and have some water and sugar added. I want to mix these, possibly cook down to eliminate volume, add some dried fruit for looks (but not near as much as before), then make the rest of the recipe as written originally? Any problems here? Any suggestions?? thanks Kendra