With my daughter's help, I was able to put up ten 8-oz jars of low-sugar apricot jam. I also prepped enough apricots for two more batches and froze these, seperated into the two batches, with the required amount of sugar. I used the Ball packet of pectin for no-sugar jam as my store was all out of the Sure-Jel brand. It set really nicely. I'm sure glad I used a recipe calling for half the normal amount of sugar, as it was still plenty sweet for me. I'm going to try putting up some no-sugar strawberry jam, sweetened with Splenda, tomorrow. I'm going to use frozen strawberres, frozen without any sugar added. Next on my list will be Marionberry jam. I may have mentioned it before, but Marionberries are primarily our "blackberry" here in Oregon, both cultivated and wild. They are sweeter than CA's blackberries and have smaller and less-woody seeds. I might just manage to do some blueberry jam as well. I am fortunate that there are several berry farms in my area that grow blueberries, Marionberries and raspberries, although I can pick my own wild Marionberries just about anywhere around. I've got some peaches in the freezer right now, and I plan on making "Peach pie filling in a jar" with them later on. Every fall I make "apple pie filling in a jar" with Granny Smith apples, and this comes in really handy for a quick pie, cobbler or crisp. I like to give homemade gifts to my family at Christmas time. I have some 4-oz jam jars, and I think these will make really nice gifts for my family. I can send several different kinds of jams and they'll cost less to ship than the bigger jars.
