There are tons of fruit trees around my house, apple, pear, plum, not to mention the berry vines, black Berry, huckleberry, salmon berry....so since I don't need a lot of jam, and I can freeze it as needed can I make small batches of jam in my slow cooker...how about grapefruit marmalade or orange/pineapple jam? Is there a slow cooker jam cookbook out there?

I just went to this site & looked but didn't see any recipes for jam. That is a great site though. I love my crockpot!

http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/

This site had some Chutney's & compotes & apple butters so I bet you could get some ideas there.

http://www.crock-pot.com/Recipe.aspx?rid=461

ohhh that sounds yummy

I made Apple Butter in the slow cooker once ... Can't really remember the details though.

Freezer jams are so easy and quick to make. I wouldn't want to dirty my crockpot and have to wait hours for jam to cook if it was possible.

Sue

I made some apricot butter in my CP that was to die for!

These might help

http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008...am-recipe.html

http://busycooks.about.com/od/condim...papricotpreser

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/slow-co...er/Detail.aspx

Thanks everyone for all the recipe info....I will definately be making myself some jams and butters this summer. Firtst the Chrerries, then the plums and pears, blackberries and lastly the apples...what fun.

I made some yummy apple butter. And with a lot of fruits and berries, you could mix and match.

Since you have a lot available, try lots of different things. Just because it hasn't been done before, or you can't find a recipe, doesn't mean it can't be done.

What I would suggest is to find the oldest farm woman (or man) you can, and ask HER (or him) what she had done with these fruits and berries that most people do NOT. Might surprise you.

You can also dry a lot of the fruits and veggies. One of my best memories is going up into the attic and getting a paper bag of dried green beans. Seems that when Grandma hung them up on strings she'd sewed through them, she called them leather britches. They got hung out of the weather on the porch, and since most porches then were in the front, you could always tell if a housewife was thrifty and hard working by the curtain of drying beans.

jam made in the regular way can be decanted into jars of any size and if stored/cooked correctly will last a couple of years or more.

this sounds interesting, were these kidney/string beans and how long did they take to dry----------AND when dried how were they used?

It seems to me that you could just try throwing washed mashed fruit in the cooker, and see if it cooks down to preserves.
It is not likely to scorch....perhaps cook on low?
Add sugar or not, no water needed usually....

I used to slow cook blackberries this way on a woodstove.
It makes lovely jam!

I also knew some ladies, who had a flat porch on a roof who mashed fruit and spread it out on clean cloth in the hot sunshine, and made a kind of enjoyable "fruit leather"candy
out of their apricots and berries. When it gets leathery and tough, it peels off the cloth easily. They protected it from bees and flies with a raised layer of nylon netting over it.

mmmm apple butter is AWESOME on rice cakes!