Blackberry Chipotle Freezer Jam

My cousin sometimes lets us come raid the blackberry bush at their farm when they've got a surplus.  I was itching to make some freezer jam, but didn't want to make plain ol' regular boring blackberry jam.  No...I wanted to do something INTERESTING.

...in retrospect, I really should have split the batch, and been boring with half and then played with the other half, because now I have 6 pints of INTERESTING jam when I would occasionally really like some regular ol' blackberry freezer jam.  But not to worry. I'll share the recipe for both, so you can learn from my mistakes.

INGREDIENTS (makes 4 jars):
4 cups crushed blackberries (you can use a potato masher or pastry cutter, but I'd shy away from a food processor, otherwise you'll end up with puree. A few pulses with a stick blender might work well.)
4 Tbsp Instant (no cook) pectin (or one 1.35 oz packet)
1.5 cups  Sugar
2 Tbsp lemon juice

DIRECTIONS: 

Combine the pectin and the sugar and mix well, then add the lemon juice and the blackberries, and stir well until fully incorporated.  At this point, if you're making straight up regular blackberry jam, you can go ahead and divvy these into half-pint jars.  Let sit at room temp for 30 minutes, at which point it should be soft-set. Then you can put one in the fridge and the rest in the freezer for later.

However, if you want to ramp things up a bit, then add the following to the mix:

1/4 tsp Chipotle powder (per jar)
1/4 tsp Cumin (per jar)
1/4 tsp Cinnamon (per jar)
1/4 tsp Tabasco Chipotle Sauce
a pinch of smoked salt (per jar)

I'm providing these as "per jar" ratios so that if you want, you can make a full batch of the base, and then make the Chipotle version in one or two of the jars.  Just make sure you label them appropriately! 

The Chipotle version is pretty versatile. It makes a great grilled cheese (like this one), or you can put it in a Crockpot with a pork tenderloin for a delicious dinner. And of course it goes great on a biscuit.