God Bless the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave

Happy (late) Independence Day!  On this day, I feel a pride and love for the nation that I get to call home.  Thank you to all who have sacrificed for our freedoms, both past and present!  I love quotes so here you go.

Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.  ~Louis D. Brandeis

Due to inclement weather, Jason and I decided to spend our Fourth making fireweed jelly/syrup.  Step 1: pick fireweed.  The fireweed here is just starting to bloom so it seemed as good a time as any.  We jumped into our rain gear and headed up the road.  We decided to try the ridge behind our house to gather our flowers.  As we climbed, soaked, up the ridge, I reminisced about the fireweed that we had seen by the side of the road, vowing to return if the climb did not pay off.  We found a small area of fireweed and stopped to pick flowers near the top of the ridge.  As we picked, I heard a noise in the distance.  Jason was busy enlightening me on some topic and did not notice the noise until I asked him what "that" was.  Though we never saw the bear, we managed to get down the mountain in record time!  After that, we were more than happy to gather our flowers by the side of the road :) 

Tacha, my little helper

 For those of you who may also want to try your hand at fireweed jelly, pick only the flowers.  Apparently, including the stem will cause a bitter taste.  You need several packed cups of flower but it actually can be obtained fairly quickly in a couple good patches of fireweed.  It took us 2 hours to gather about 12 packed cups.  Rinse flowers and then pack flowers into the bottom of a pot.  Add enough water to pot to reach just below top of packed flowers.  Less is more with the water.  You can add water after boiling to dilute the fireweed juice if needed.

It took us about 25 minutes to boil and obtain the fireweed juice.  Our 12 packed cups yielded 5 cups of a deep purple juice.  We decided not to dilute our juice.  Next, strain the juice through cheesecloth to remove any flower parts/chunks.  I scooped and squeezed the flowers out of the pot prior to straining.

Then, just follow the recipe.  We were rewarded with a delicious, beautiful jelly.  We also made 2 jars of syrup by only adding only a 1/3 of the pectin called for by the recipe to one batch.  We are delighted with the results and definitely recommend the recipe (see below)!  

Fireweed Jelly

 For fireweed juice: Harvest about 8 packed cups of fireweed flowers. Rinse thoroughly and put in 2 quart pot. Add just enough water to make water level just below top of packed flowers. (Juice should be a deep purple color when finished. If too much water is used in boiling process, juice will be a brownish color. More water can always be added after flowers are boiled to increase amount of juice.) Boil flowers in water until color is boiled out and petals are a grayish color. Ladle juice into jar through cheesecloth to strain.

 

2 1/2 cups fireweed juice
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon butter
1 (1 3/4 ounce) package dry pectin
3 cups sugar

Directions

Warm fireweed juice, lemon juice and butter on stovetop.
Add Sure-Jell, bring to boil and boil hard for one minute.
Add sugar and bring to full boil for one minute. Skim top of jelly.
Pour into pitcher(makes it easier to fill jars)and skim again.
Fill sterilized jars leaving 1/8 inch space at top. Process in hot water bath for 10 minutes.

- compliments of Food.com http://www.food.com/recipe/fireweed-jelly-208809

Alaska Fun Fact: The population of Alaska is only 626,932 and compared to the population of bears in Alaska, there is 1 bear for every 21 people.  Alaska has the highest concentration of bears (Grizzly, Black and Polar), numbering at 100,000.