I’m sure all masked culinarians who sally forth in still-treacherous quests for ingredients are looking forward to coming home with everything on their shopping lists. Maybe we won’t take the typical near-ridiculous abundance of the average (U.S.) supermarket so for granted in the future.

So last time around, I found myself wishing I had something to moisten my biscuit, especially in the morning. Alas, I was running low on condiments.

Since I’m a whole-foods cook now and avoid refined sugar, I don’t tend to buy a lot of processed stuff — including preserves — but I’d never actually experimented with starting from scratch. How hard could it be?

Turns out it was ridiculously easy to get jam out of these berries. Fresh raspberries, that is, which were on sale at Sprouts. I’m looking forward to experimenting with blueberries and possibly strawberries, but I barely needed to do anything to these babies to make them yield up a load of tasty jam.

(It’s really more of a small batch, like 2/3 cup, but you can always double it.)

Ingredients

• 6 oz raspberries
• 3 T coconut sugar, or to taste (I like mine tart, of course)
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/2 T arrowroot powder dissolved in 1/4 c water

Bring the first three ingredients to a boil in a small saucepan. No need to mash raspberries, they’ll dissolve on their own. Stir as you add in the arrowroot slurry and let the mixture thicken. I let the mixture boil down, lowering the heat a bit, for about 15-20 minutes — it’ll be thicker when cold, but the consistency should be like a thick gravy or cheese sauce. Pour into a small glass jar and let cool before refrigerating.

(Note: if using blueberries, they will likely “pop,” and you may want to add a touch of acid like lemon juice to counterbalance their sweetness.)

Serve on a nice warm biscuit or anything else that would benefit from its gooey, seedy goodness.