Perhaps the name "sunberry" (for those who do not know English - "sun berry"), someone hears for the first time, but if you say that we are talking about the nightshade, the situation immediately clears up. Sometimes this berry is called "blueberry forte" or "Canadian blueberry."
A very tasty and healthy product that can fill the body’s need for vitamins and other essential elements throughout the winter. However, for this, the harvest taken in the autumn must be processed competently and in time.
- How to choose berries for storage
- How to freeze sunberry for the winter
- Drying fruits
- Jam Recipes
- Cold jam
- Cooked Jam Recipes
- Harvesting Sunberry, Faded with Sugar
- The juice
- Pickling
How to choose berries for storage
If you grow a plant at your dacha, you will not have problems with identifying the fruit. In the forest plantations and other natural conditions, this berry, being the result of serious breeding work, does not grow, but you can still find a slightly “wild” specimen in some abandoned plot.
The bush of this type of nightshade has a height of about half a meter, fructification accounts for about the beginning of autumn.The berries are shiny, dark purple, located in clusters of a dozen pieces. The size of each fruit corresponds to the size of a medium-sized cherry (a couple of centimeters in diameter). Taste, let's face it, for the amateur, although the berry is quite juicy.
It is necessary to collect the berry only after full ripening. (as it was said, this usually happens in September, but the period may vary depending on weather conditions and the climatic zone).
If the harvesting involves puriing, then the selection of fruits can be taken less strictly, in all other cases we send only solid, non-cracked berries to the basket in the basket.In no case can one eat the rotten fruit and, especially, with traces of mold. 
How to freeze sunberry for the winter
Freeze and Dry - a good way to prepare a product for those who are going to use it for medicinal purposes, because in fact, and in another case, the fruits are not subjected to heat treatment, and therefore, almost all the beneficial substances in them are saved.
The lack of freezing compared to drying is only that it requires a certain place in the freezer, which is not available in all hostesses.
In addition, thawed berries are not very marketable and can only be used as raw materials for compotes or additives to various sauces (recipes using the Sanberry berry can be found on the Internet or come up with your own,using your imagination and taste preferences), while drying is good, for example, in baking, in teas, and you can also nibble it on cold winter evenings. 
But you can freeze the berry by spending just a few minutes of effort.
Fruits we touch, we get rid of garbage, leaves, damaged berries. Do not wash them before freezing., but if the raw materials are too dirty (for example, there were long rains before harvesting), rinse the berries under running water, put them on paper towels or other moisture absorbing material and dry well.
Then we lay out our solar berry in a single layer on a flat surface (if possible, so that the fruits do not touch each other) and send to the freezer for a day.
We unfold frozen fruits into containers that are more convenient for long-term storage and are sent to freeze again. Until spring, such material will survive without problems, unless it is thawed and re-frozen.
You can freeze the sunberry, covered it with sugar, However, this does not make much sense, since the fruits are stored in a pure form, and sugar can always be added during subsequent use.
On the other hand, a sweet product seriously limits the direction of its use, because natural berry can be added to meat, fish, salad dressings and other "non-dessert" dishes. 
Drying fruits
For drying, the fruit must be prepared in the same way as for freezing. The prepared raw material is laid out on a towel or other clean litter and dried on the windowsill for several days until almost complete dehydration.
It can be dried in the open air, but the material must be protected from wind and possible precipitation.
In fact, natural drying is the best way to prepare, but if there is no space or time, you can speed up the process using an electric dryer or an ordinary oven. 
Before drying, the berries must be sorted, washed, dried. Then the fruits spread on a sieve in one layer. Drying is carried out at a temperature of 50-60 ° C for 2-4 hours, stirring occasionally.
Jam Recipes
As it was said, the best that can be made from the sunberry is jam, and there are a lot of unusual and original recipes for this winter treat. Here are some of them.
Cold jam
Sunberry contains a large amount of vitamin C, which, as you know, in addition to many other priceless qualities, is also an excellent natural preservative.
That is why Canadian blueberries can not only be harvested without heat treatment, but also “exploited” this quality of berries for useful harvesting of other fruits.
For example, cold jam can be made from mixed puree sunberry and apples.
We clean the apples from the skin and the core, mix them with blueberries forte in equal or any other parts (bearing in mind that the berries should be enough to keep the jam from souring or fermenting), smash the fruit with a blender, add the same amount of sugar sand and leave for half a day to let the fruit juice and "opened." That's all.
It remains to decompose the delicacy into prepared containers (for insurance it is better to sprinkle them with boiling water or hold them under steam), pack tightly and wait for the winter.
In addition to apples, in the composition of cold jam with berries, the sunberry is “friendly” with other fruits. Especially well suited to them a variety of citrus.
Cooked Jam Recipes
Sunberry jam is a real delicacy.
Cooking 75% sugar syrup. When the water boils and the sugar in it is completely dissolved, pour the washed berries into the pan (the amount of fruits and sugar should be the same by weight), bring to a boil, turn off after five minutes, let cool.
Heat again, boil, turn off, cool. After the third "call" before switching off, we add freshly squeezed lemon juice (you can, of course, use citric acid, but we are preparing a natural product, it is better not to save on it) at the rate of about two medium lemons per 1 kg of berries.
If desired, you can also throw a few leaves of fresh or dried mint, cinnamon or even cloves, if you like its rich aroma.
Hot jam is poured into a sterile container and tightly closed, after which we turn the cans upside down, cover with a blanket and leave to stand for 24 hours.
Subject to the conditions of sterility such jam can be stored at room temperature for at least a year.
Harvesting Sunberry, Faded with Sugar
Sunberry, ground with sugar, is prepared using the same technology as cold jam, only without apples and other additives. In this case, a conventional sieve is used instead of a blender or grinder.
The process is rather laborious, but very gratifying: the product is literally airy, because we only use the flesh, all the peel is spent on expenses.
The juice
Before pressing the juice, the sunberry berries should be heated in a microwave or on a stove, stirring gently. Before that, splash some water in a container with fruits so that the berries do not burn. Squeeze the juice using a juicer, add honey (about 20% of the volume), pour it into clean bottles and store it in a cellar or in a cold store. 
Pickling
This non-standard method of harvesting Canadian blueberries will definitely surprise your guests. We select ripe fruits, fill them with boiling water, after a couple of minutes, discard them in a colander, let the water drain, then put them into sterilized jars and pour boiling marinade.
Close the container, turn it upside down, cover with a blanket and let it cool for a day at room temperature.
To prepare brine per liter of water, we take 2 tablespoons of salt, 4 tablespoons of sugar, black peppercorns, allspice, cloves and bay leaf - to taste. Boil the liquid for a quarter of an hour, and before pouring it into the jars, add 2 tablespoons of 9% table vinegar.
Sunberry is a rare product that is much tastier in winter than during the season of its ripening. But this is not bad, because in September on our table is still full of various vitamins.
But in the cold season - the very moment to pamper yourself with a cup of fragrant tea while holding an incredibly fragrant and not like jam or other delicacy from the sunny berry.
