Joy of Jam

My jams are not perfect crystalline jelly concoctions of sugar and fruit. They are more thick, compote like, opaque brews of witchery. This is because I am akin to a person who does not like to read manuals on how to work electronics. I do not follow recipes, to sort of quote the fearsome pirate Barbossa, "it's more like, hmm, guidelines". This has lead to some interesting creations and me jams are one of them.
Tasty but not Smucker's. and you know what? That's what makes homemade, unique items special. It's also what makes regional foods regional. Uniformity is for soldiers. Milk and butter used to taste different depending on the season and the grasses the cows ate. My jam has less sugar and more fruit than store jams, but the jelly isn't glassy and clear and sometimes it's not jelly at all, but it goes on toast and down the hatch all the same.

so my recent vats of witchery include peach and raspberry. Peaches for the afore posted Sauvie Island and Raspberries my other half picked up from the Saturday farmer's market. The raspberry, I can attest is lipsmackworthy, the peach, well, the leftover peach-juice jelly made wonderful oil free banana muffins and bread. The jam itself is a mystery! but it looks might fine. How could not with fruit like this:

Other Jams of the season include these concoctions :
blackberry with ginger and mint
blackberry with cinnamon and honey
peach with ginger
mixed berry
blueberry
I hear they are tasty. I have only sampled peach with ginger and chardonnay, which was a limited run, I think there is only one jar left. It is more a topping for yogurt and ice cream than a jam, but the black berry with honey and cinnamon was good, rich but good (honey has a strong flavor in jam when you boil off most of the liquid cause you don't have pectin...)
Each batch gets better in technique and consistency than the previous.
And with labels like these:

who dosn't want some witchy pirate jam? hmm???
yeah, I thought so.

(home made bread by Matt)