Blueberry Basil Jam

Berry Picking Time!
I heard about a cool place to visit in Broken Arrow - Thunderbird Ranch.  Kailyn was already scheduled to take the ACT, but Kelsie was up for some blueberry picking.

It was pretty crowded with families when we first got there, but the blueberries were plentiful.  We quickly got into a blueberry picking ninja zone and filled up 2 buckets! Now Thunderbird Ranch has this awesome deal - you share 2 and get one free.  At first I thought we would just buy our haul, but they were quite impressed when we walked to have our buckets weighed.  When I asked the owner how much he thought we had, he told me he bet about 15 lbs.  That's a ton of blueberries!  Kelsie and I decided to share, which means we got 5 lbs. of blueberries for FREE!

Quickly searching Pinterest... we decided to try to the blueberry and basil jam recipe... with a little tweaking, of course!

Blueberry Basil Jam
4 1/2 cups sugar, divided
1 box of No Sugar Added Pectin
10 cups of blueberries
big bunch of basil leaves - we probably used a little more than one cup
zest and juice of one lemon
1/2 cup of water

Mix the pectin and 1/4 cup of sugar and set aside.  Use a food processor and pulse the blueberries in 2 batches - chop, but don't turn it into mush.  Transfer each batch into a large heavy pot, but on the last batch save about 1/4 cup of the blueberries in the food processor.  Then add the basil leaves, zest and juice of the lemon, and the water - totally process this batch.  Add this and the pectin mix to the chopped blueberries in the pot and bring to a boil.  Add the remaining sugar and return to a boil.  now you need to get it to the rolling boil stage, and when it reaches this point - set the timer for 1 minute.

Make sure your water bath and canning jars are ready to go.

Put jam into jars, leaving about 1/4" head on top.  Put lids on and it's water bath time.  Once the water returns to boil, set the timer for 10 minutes.  Put the jars on a towel to cool and then listen for the joyous popping sound.

Ken's comment - this jam is mind blowing delicious!