More preservation

On the same day as I was collecting apples (see previous post), the beautiful wife was being visited by a friend who also happens to be a very talented artist (we have two of he paintings). The Artist has a damson tree in her garden so she arrived with two and a half kilos of damsons. I am a huge fan of this humble type of plum. They are not really edible straight from the tree but they have such depth of flavour once they meet heat, alcohol or sugar (or, indeed any combination of the three).
This is where free food is at its best. It is not necessary to have friends with lucky gardens. Damsons grown in our hedgerows they are often planted as part of a hedge for their ability to provide very good shelter from wind. They can be harvested, along with their friends the bullaces for a small investment of time. Also, in a good year, almost everyone who has a damson tree will be only to glad to give them away as they can be fantastically prolific.

Damson Gin in its early stages.

When I had begun to deal with the apples and was starting to diminish the bags I had been given I moved on the damsons.
A cheap bottle of gin was purchased and as many damsons as could fit were squeezed into my largest lever top jar. A healthy 100gms or more of sugar was added and then the whole lot topped up with the "Mother's Ruin". A few shakes over the following days made sure the sugar dissolved and I now have a jar of deep maroon liquid with fruit suspended in it sitting on my work table. It get a turn or two every evening and by the end of November, will be ready to strain off and pop back into its bottle. I plan to use the residue fruit in a late Christmas cake, or maybe I shall just eat them with ice cream.

Finished Damson Jam

This left me with quite a lot of damsons, as of yet unused. Not being one for waste, I got the sugar into action. My damson jam recipe is one of those that is mathematically very easy to work.

Damson Jam
A quantity of damsons
The same quantity of granulated sugar
85ml of water per kilo of fruit.

Put all the fruit, whole into a preserving pan and add the water. Bring to the boil and break up the fruit on the side of the pan. This should release the stones and they should rise to the surface. In truth this is a bit more of a faff than the cookbooks tell you but it can be done reasonably swiftly. i popped the stones in a sieve and forced the last bits of flesh off them with the back of a spoon. when all the stones are out add the sugar and stir in to dissolve. Boil the jam up to setting point and pot.

The generosity of preservation.

It started, as many good things do, with apples. In truth, it started with a phone call about apples. A colleague from school, who lives near called and invited me over to take as many apples as I liked from the tree in her garden. The tree was laden with large ripe fruit, easy to pick and heavy in the hand. I returned with two large carrier bags full and all sorts of ideas about what I would produce.
I have said before that I love this time of year, the huge quantity of food treats available during late summer and early autumn mean that I spend a great deal of my time trying to decide what to cook next. This summer has been quite strange with fruits ripening at strange times and certain treats being harvested at the same time. This is a time of abundance and at such times most people are prepared to share their bounty. This is the first of my blogs about preserving this year and so far I have made nine different preserves (if you count Damson Gin) and to date the major ingredients of each preserve have not been purchased. They have been grown in the tiny plot at Corner Cottage, donated by friends or picked in the hedgerows around this lovely little village.
There is a sense that making jams, chutneys and ketchups is the preserve (sorry) of middle class ladies who live in the country or at the very least leafy suburbia. This may be true but it should be nonsense. My very first experience of making jam was when The Beautiful Wife and I lived in Wembley. I picked blackberries from a piece of common waste ground behind Neasden Sidings and made a glorious jam. As for the economics, you could probably buy a cheaper jam at the bottom end of the grocery market but that is not a fair comparison. The fairer comparison would be with high quality, high fruit content jam at about £2 a pot. My Spiced Apple Jelly costs about 60p a pot.
In terms of waste reduction there are clear reasons to use up all the surplus of this season in order to have treats in less abundant times. This sounds very old fashioned but why on earth would you buy chutney in March if you made a batch from left over vegetables in September and still have a cupboard full of such treats.
Having a stash preserves also gives you the opportunity to be generous. I consider it very bad form not to provide the fruit donor with a couple of pots, but also, most people who visit us here will be walking away with a pot of jam or c
hutney this coming year.

Spiced Apple Jelly

Couple of lemons
Apples (Cookers are best) However many you get!
Sugar the amount will be dictated by the amount of "jelly juice" that is caught
Spices (Stick of Cinnamon, 5 or 6 cloves, couple of slices of ginger)
Mug or two of water.

Raw materials at the start

First pop the water in a preserving pan or stockpot, then quarter the lemons and add them to the water. Chunk up the apples and add them to the lemon water add the spices and boil. Boil until everything is very soft and mushy. This is where the clever stuff happens. Put all of the pulp in a jelly bag or piece of muslin held up by any sort of frame, suspended over a bowl. (The first time I did this the muslin was suspended between the taps and handrails of my bath with a mixing bowl to catch the "jelly juice"). You can leave this for quite a while, even overnight, three hours normally does it. The juice you have caught (I call it Jelly Juice) should feel a bit slippery to touch.
Measure the volume of the liquid in pints. Add the liquid to the (now cleaned) preserving pan and add sugar to the juice with a ratio of 1 pint to 1lb (old fashioned, I know). Help the sugar to dissolve by stirring over a moderate heat and then boil until setting point is reached (105 degrees c. but you get a feel for it pretty quickly)

Boiling up to setting point

 Pot the jelly carefully, avoiding the scum* and pop the lids on. Label and enjoy.
* I keep the scum in a jar to stir into gravy as no-one will ever know. 

Potting up the jelly

Preserving the summer to eat in the winter.

A few weeks ago I ranted about the fact that we do not need fresh strawberries on our Christmas dinner tables. Much better, I suggested, to make jam. In a very rare display of following my own advice I have been producing preserves with any fruit that croses my path. It started with some raspberries from the kitchen gardener and then came the visit to my mother in Devon.
My mum hails from the Northeast and whilst living in the South for 55 years has softened the accent it has not changed that region's unending ability to understate almost anything.
So, when we arrived and were told to pick the remainder of the blackcurrants, redcurrants and goosberries left in the garden, I felt a slight feeling of diquiet. "There can't be very many left" she asserted.
A few hours later and having avoided the wasps and the rather agressive gooseberry thorns I returned to the kitchen with4lbs of blackcurrants, over 3lbs of gooseberries and just under 2lbs of redcurrants.
On our return to Corner Cottage I set to with the fruit and some sugar. We now have four jars of gooseberry jam, 9 jars of blackcurrant jam and 2 jars of redcurrant jelly. Adding this haul of conserves to a couple of jars of raspberry jam made earlier in the summer and we are set until next summer arrives.