Giving me the raspberries

With two lengthy rows of raspberry plants on a year where they really produce, I'm kept quite busy keeping up with the fruits of my labor. Honestly I only want to freeze so many; I'd rather enjoy them now. (To freeze mine, I lay them on baking sheets in the freezer and once they are frozen individually, then I bag them.)

And when I had nothing in my cupboards and fridge but wanted breakfast I miraculously had all the ingredients to make the oatmeal muffins out of my great aunt's 1974 Betty Crocker's Cook Book (page 48 at the top) 

I half filled the cups, poked some raspberries in and then finished filling in with batter. Delish.

That used up...a handful of berries. I still have a lot of berries left. Then I found this flavored water recipe - yum! So I made a pitcher of lemon raspberry water. Also delicious. And refreshing! (and blogging has now murdered my proper sentence structure.)

That used up another small handful. Thankfully my mom knows me and my fruit snacks and bought me a food dehydrator earlier in the year. I dug it out and washed it and it had this great tray that meant I got to try fruit leather - one of my very favorite things.

I followed these instructions and it required almost no sugar at all. I added a small amount because my berries - at that point - had been a bit sun deprived and needed a flavor boost.

Also I learned to spread what I think is a fairly thick puree and just let it dry for a looooong time. This works much better than a thin layer which wants to flake. I also think if you used oven safe plastic wrap this would be even easier. I kept a small bowl of puree in my fridge for three days and made fresh fruit leather each day.

The rest? Raspberry jelly. (I used a mesh strainer and some seeds still made it through! Ah well.) I used the instructions found in the pectin box.

I have a glass topped stove and if I remembered correctly you can't use a canner on them because of weight and heat issues so I turned my jars upside down after I'd filled and put on my canning lids. The heat from the jelly is supposed to seal the lids for you. It worked, by the way, but I didn't get my jars as full as I'd thought (tie hair back next time) and my brother was looking at the jars and asked,
"Why is your jelly.......................levitating?"

I told him, "Because I made it like this."