Blueberry season in the South is quickly approaching.
This delicious Better Homes and Gardens conserve requires only 4 cups of blueberries and you can use either fresh or frozen berries.
Be sure to use pure maple syrup and not maple flavored pancake syrup. Some who have reviewed this recipe in the past have not liked the maple syrup flavor, but I think it adds a wonderful flavor.
If you use a nut chopper to chop your pecans, make sure to sift them in a large hole strainer or pierced colander to sift out the really small pieces of pecans. Use the “pecan meal” in your oatmeal.
The recipe instructs you to cook the conserve for about 30 minutes until thickened. That will depend on the temperature it’s cooked at. Mine took about 45 minutes after I gradually increased the temperature of the burner. The conserve had been simmering (lightly bubbling) but not enough.
Since you are processing the filled jars for 10 minutes, it’s not necessary to sterilize the jars. Just heat them up in the water bath canner along with the water you will be processing them in. When the water reaches 180 degrees, you can put the filled jars back in.
This recipe does make the 5 half-pints it says it does. If you get more, you probably didn’t cook it down long enough.
You can try the adaptations in this link, but I like it just the way it is in the original recipe. Here’s a PDF of the recipe.
