Reduced Sugar Honeyberry Jam Recipe

What I've Been Eating Snapshot:

Lots of eggs, of course. This was diced Spam and dehydrated spinach, two eggs, soft mozzarella and a splash of hot sauce. Yummo. Over three years later and I still love eggs in the morning, thank goodness.
The second pic is of a slice of herb-y pork roast on romaine with a little onion, bbq and pickles. I was a cheater pants and used regular bbq. I did eat another slice of plain meat and had thrown out my coleslaw as it had gotten too spicy from sitting in the fridge for two days.












What I've Seen This Week:
Below is a photo of my lemon drop evening primrose that bloomed this past week, started maybe a week and a half ago. Peonies also bloomed nearly two weeks ago and no longer appear as beautiful as the second pic below. Mostly they are just small heaps of delicate petals upon the ground surrounding the bushes.

The photo below and left is of the honeyberry (or haskap berries) bushes that Dad planted at least several years ago - there are for sure two varieties, possibly a third, planted in there. The photo to the right is a zoomed in pic so you can see the berries. They are pretty tart, though once in a while I'm surprised with a sweeter one. I'd say they are very comparable to blueberries, when considering the size and texture. I made a batch of mixed berry low-sugar jam using them. It actually came out sweeter tasting than I'd like, so I will give it another go and reduce the sweetener/sugar even more. My recipe includes sugar as it was a compromise so that other family members can enjoy it as well. I intend for the next batch to be sugarless.

Mixed Berry Jam
(reduced sugar, my own recipe, made 2 & 1/2pints)
1c honeyberries
1.5c chopped strawberries
1.5c wild blueberries (I used frozen)
1/2c blueberries (mine were frozen)
1/2c sugar
1/2c xylitol
1/3c water
4tsp lemon juice
2 & 1/2T powdered pectin

While you can make according to the directions on your pectin packaging, I merely placed all but the lemon juice and pectin into a heavy bottomed saucepan and heated so the sweeteners would dissolve. As it heated I buzzed a stick blender through it to help break down the fruits. Then I let it come to a gentle boil and added the lemon juice, stirred, added the pectin slowly, and stirred. I let it boil for about a minute, maybe two. 

I then removed the pan from the heat and ladled into my prepared canning jars and processed in a hot water bath for approximately 15mns. Your canner instructions should tell you how long to process. Mine actually stated 10mns. My canner is huge, though, and just wouldn't come to a nice boil. Hence the longer processing time and the fact that I am storing mine in the fridge - just to be on the safe side. Please do follow your canner and canning book directions to ensure a proper seal if you intend to store without refrigeration.

Frugal Front This Past & Current Week Snapshot:
>trying to do some deeper cleaning as this occupies time slots that may have me "window shopping", which inevitably leads to real shopping
>digging down deep into the freezers to find things to make meals with to cut back on grocery shopping and less wasting
>purchased a prepaid gas card for the work Jeep so that we can pay at the pump and avoid going into the gas station where we may be tempted to buy junk food and drinks
>continuing to work on homemade Christmas gifts, finishing two (photo below)
>had a paperbackswap credit to use (still have one more, I think) and received that book yesterday
>browsed our library's book sale for free entertainment, as well as checked out a Johnny Carson dvd
>picked up a printout of our auto and home insurance declaration pages so I can do a little comparison shopping
>called our dentist to see if we can get a discount if we pay cash and in full on a nearly $500 dental bill for the kids, they will take off 10%
>entered codes on Driscoll's berries site to receive printable coupons which allowed me to pick up a couple more containers of strawberries for just over a dollar a pound
>had picked up and spread grounds for gardeners from Starbucks
>corralled D and A's various face washes that have been hanging around in the bathroom and started to use them myself as they apparently get bored with using the same product over and over - ha ha
>worked on getting health insurance straightened out more and found a dentist that will take D and A as the previous dentist no longer accepts the insurance we have, hence the $500 we owe because they were wishy-washy about whether or not they took our insurance - grrr...
>found some Sevin insect dust that I'd purchased a couple years ago and used on the cabbages as I've noticed something's been nibbling on them

Are you being frugal? (Also, a reduced sugar grape jelly recipe!)

What kind of squash is this? Is it a delicata?

I stopped in at a grocery store that I don't typically shop. They had a huge bin of all sorts of squash and gourds all jumbled together and they labeled them only as, "assorted". Not very helpful. I assumed they were edible. They were very good.

On the frugal front:
1.) I put my dried heirloom pea seeds in an envelope, labeled them, and placed that envelope in a sealed baggie, then into the freezer for a couple of weeks. I'm not sure if this is the right way to save them. But it's my current plan. I also cut a couple pieces of pantyhose and fit them over two drying flower stalks on one of my heirloom lettuces out in the garden. I then cut a couple of stalks that had fallen over and put them in a window to continue to dry. When the buds dry up I will shake them into a bag and see if I get any seeds. Again, I don't know if this is the right way or not. But it's the plan that I have right now. I have a second type of heirloom lettuce out in the garden. But it never sent up any flowers or stalks. So I'm not sure what to do with that one. Guess I'll just count it as a loss and maybe plant a little earlier next year and hope that that longer season will provide seeds to save. Suggestions are welcome, of course.
2.) I received a Keurig sample in the mail. It has 4 cups in it. It's going in my Christmas stockpile of little goodies. It will likely be given to my s-i-l (no, I don't think she reads this...) as part of their family gift. I'm planning on doing one big stocking of random goodies for her, my brother, and their two young teens. We'd agreed to not doing any gifts this year. But I can't help myself sometimes. Also received two sweet coffee drink mix samples that will go in a stocking for someone else.
3.) Low-sugar Grape Jelly! Finally made some! This was made with a quart of grape juice that I thawed from our freezer from Dad's grapes last year. I did have to add some sugar, as our grapes are extremely sour and the xylitol & stevia hadn't quite done the job. This was frugal as I had everything already.
4.) Canned applesauce. Unsweetened, of course. Love having this during the winter months. Normally I freeze applesauce. But there's no freezer space right now. Also dried some apple slices and rings. Plan to do some more of those.
5.) Picked the last of the broccoli from the garden. Used it to make beef & broccoli.
6.) "A" ran out of dining dollars at her college. Rather than spend a ton of money at the store to feed her for the week, I went through our freezer and divided some veggies into single servings so she can make a couple stir-fry meals, baggied a couple chicken breast strips so she can add to those, found a block of cheese, gave her a bag of garden green beans and a bag of sliced almonds to dress them up with, baggied up a couple servings of spaghetti meat sauce and found a box of pasta in the pantry. We still need to stop by the store and pick up some toilet paper and a small package of steak/beef for another stir-fry option. Oh, and I found a small package of frozen hamburger and a packet of meatloaf seasoning, for which I had recently just bought some disposable mini-loaf pans. She'll also take some dried apple slices for snacking and a couple small potatoes from the garden.
7.) I've been unplugging a couple of power strips each night that our laptops, television and game system are plugged into. There was more than a $40 difference from our last bill. But the air conditioning that Ma & Pa use now and then hasn't been used either. So I can't really tell. Anyone do this and notice any savings?

Low-Sugar Grape Jelly
(adapted from Ball pectin package) 
(makes 2 pints)
3 & 1/3c unsweetened grape juice
6tsp lemon juice
2 - 0.4oz packets Ball Low or No-Sugar Needed Pectin
1tsp butter
1/2c xylitol
1/2c Stevia In The Raw
30 drops liquid vanilla stevia
1/4c sugar


Heat juices over high heat. Whisk or stir in pectin gradually. Bring to boil, stirring constantly. Add butter, stir until melted. Mix xylitol, powdered stevia and sugar in a bowl, then add to juice mixture. Bring to boil again, stirring constantly, and boil for 1mn. Ladle into two clean pint jars and place lids on. Let sit to cool for about half an hour. Then store in refrigerator.

Quick Raspberry Jam - No Pectin

One of my father's friends needed a berry picker for a couple of short rows he has in his yard in town. I wasn't expecting much, but ended up with a couple of full buckets. I already had a few bags of frozen raspberries from our own raspberry bushes in the garden. So I was looking for something quick and easy to do with this unplanned acquisition. I decided to make jam without pectin. It turned out better than I'd expected in the end. The consistency was not as thick as jam typically is. But, as it turns out, the thinner consistency makes it even easier to spread! I'm more of a lime fan than I am a lemon one. So I switched the lemon out for lime.


Recipe: Mix 4 cups somewhat mashed berries with 4 cups sugar and 4 Tb lime juice. Heat at medium to simmer about 20-25mns, stirring often. Remove from heat, let cool, fill container to about 1" from the rim (to allow for expansion) and freeze.