Making Jelly on the 4th of July....

What better way to celebrate the 4th than by making blackberry and gooseberry jelly.  Again, jelly making is buying your pectin (I use SureJel) cleaning your berries and following the directions.

This is my Grandmother's colander. Anyway, that is what we always called it. She gave it and her rolling pin to me before she died. The rolling pin was given back to my mother for a while but is now back in my possession. And I treasure both of them. And still use them.


Wanted to get you a good shot of the wooden part of the colander.

Here's the berries being cooked down.

And here's the final product.

I also had enough gooseberries to make 5 pints of gooseberry jelly. Doesn't it make a pretty pink colored jelly? Over-Ripe gooseberries are purple so throw some of both colors in while you are picking.

Give making homemade jelly a try. It really isn't hard and the flavor beats anything you buy from the store by far!!!

Count your blessings if you have acreage or have access to land with blackberry vines or gooseberry bushes on them that you can pick.