Mum has been to stay, so we decided to sort out my preserve mountain as I now have bags full of raspberries in the freezer ready to make jam with, but I wanted to know what I had before I started again. As you can see, way over 100 jars in storage. A few dating back to 2004!! Over a dozen bottles of fruit in light syrup - we opened raspberries, blackberries and plums to have as dessert tonight, the remainder will make a fab crumble on Sunday. Mum has taken about 50 jars to give away to friends and family in Surrey and I have a box full to take to Devon when we next go down to see the family. At last my shelves aren't groaning under the weight of all of those bottles. Some examples of the preserves were curried rhubarb chutney, marrow and ginger jam, gooseberry jam, cherry jam, damson jam, green tomato mango chutney, medlar jelly....oh the list goes on and on!
my mum made sosme wonderful plum jam from her tree last year the small tree was drooping with fruit and the jam was delicious almost had a honey taste to it as well as the fruit sadly this year it doesnt look like we willg et a fraction of the fruits it wore its self out last year poor thing and we had a major aphid infestation i am sure i will get to sample the fruit though again recipes for tomato chutney i must search for is delicious with local lancashire cheese
Oh boy EJ what a wonderful collection of jams and preserves!! How I wish you were visiting Scotland as I have a hungry gnome here just crying out for some home-made goodies. Ian says he'd love to try your curried rhubarb chutney - he'd live on curry given half the chance.
Chuckle... look at that mountain! It's my kind of mountain. That's a good variety too. My partner did tyhe same thing before we started jamming this year and found that we had so much, that we will have to curtail how much we put-up this year. I always say..."Better too much than too little". You have some interesting-sounding chutneys there. How many jars of raspberry jam do you think you'll get this year? Great work, miss!
That is a great mountain! Nice variety there too! I'm intrested in the curry rhubarb also. I got so much rhubarb i never know what to do with it all. I end up freezing it then in winter make apricot/rhubarb marmalade. If you can post a recipe on the curry one, i would be intrested to know. Soooo how many jars of raspberry jam did you get?
I will dig out some recipes and get them posted. Haven't made the rasp yet....hopefully I will get to the allotment Monday and have another major pick, then I will weigh all the fruit and go and invest in the expensive part....the sugar!
That mountain sure looks temptingly delicious and a lot of work. The mountain of jam/jelly I used to make didn't stay on the shelf that long...which is one reason we have cut waaaaay down on eating them. Many years ago I would have a mountain that contained blueberry, mustang grape, plum, pear, strawberry, crapapple and apple jelly from store bought juice. They used to be a major part of holidays gifts to family and friends but then most everyone also started cutting down on the sugary foods so I don't make much anymore.
Yeah EJ...that is the expensive part. Here they have special sugar for jamming. It is called geleisuiker and it is sugar with pectin mixed-in with it. You can buy normal or double strength. The girls at the cash register at the supermarket already know me well. --and have a snide remark ready when I come through. hahaha I always buy huhe amounts...and at the end of the season, I buy-in for the strawbs and blueberries the following year because the price goes down about 1/3.
