jam and pickle making day

Decided to have a jam making session to reduce the amount of stored fruit in the freezer. I tend to make use of whatever fruit is available rather than following any particular recipe. Today’s was cherry and blackcurrant and I added some chopped crab apples for extra pectin. As long as you remember to mix low pectin fruit with a high pectin type you can’t really go wrong. Unless you want just strawberry jam, in which case you’ll need to add some pectin.

six jars of cherry and blackcurrant....yummy

Talking of jam making, I saw a recipe on t’internet today which recommended keeping jam in the fridge after opening. WHY? The whole point of jam is that the sugar preserves the fruit and even if you do get a bit of mould on top you can always scrape it off. There seems to be an obsession with some people that all our food should be sterile. I’m pretty sure that many of the allergies and intolerances suffered by people today are because they’ve never been exposed to anything that might trigger an immune response and when they eventually are exposed their bodies over-react. Sterile food, sterile homes, sterile offices....give me muck and mould any day!

Soap-box session over.

In yesterday's decent weather I pulled some beetroot and am currently boiling a couple of pounds ready for pickling. I love the earthy smell of beetroot cooking in their skins and keep a couple of small ones back from the pickling to slice and use in sandwiches.

These were grown in a 12 inch square pot. Beetroot are a good vegetable to grow if you have limited space

Because of stuff left from last year the preserve cupboard is now full. Mind you, I've done a lot more pickled onions than last year.  I found seeds for a variety called de Barletta in either Lidl or Aldi and they quickly make a perfect pickling size bulb. They can also be easily grown in a container which is even better.