Canning/preserving

I will give making fruit jams with erythritol a try these weeks,as I do not consume sugar.
Due to lack of time and space, I rarely ever make homemade pickles or jams, or veg preserves, but I love eating them.
A very popular one is Ajvar here, a tomato,eggplant, baked bell pepper,onion spread. It is lovely on buttered toast or as a topping to minced meat. Salsa sauces,red ones, are also very pop, to use with pasta.

I do admire everyone putting the effort in doing preserves, it tastes amazing.

Fairly recently a friend told me her Mom, age 76 or so, makes 200 kg bell peppers and 200 kg tomato etc ajvar, and I was impressed.

Also,I remember many years ago, a guy I was dating migrated far far away, broke up, and in the first sorrow wave, my best friend drove over to my place and talked to me, and brought over her homemade Salsa. It was such a warm friendship gesture.

I plan to buy erythritol today.

Perhaps plums? Or oranges? Will post whatever I decide to make.

Once I made a lovely mandarine jelly. Delicious. But somwhere around then,I stopped sugar consumption, and a part of it was wasted,sadly. My current me would do something with it and gift it away, cake,tart...guess I was overwhelmed and uninspired.

Happy cooking, mjd! Glad to hear from you🖐️🤗😊 will you post your preserves?
 
karadekoolaid said:
I founded a Preserves company in 2004 - called it Masala Sabe Bien (masala tastes good). The company closed in 2015, due to government restrictions on supplies. I probably made around 3 million jars over the years, and when we closed, the products were in all the major supermarkets in Caracas. I´m currently working on compiling the recipes so I can publish a book, with a bit of luck. My products were chutneys, jams, jellies, marmalades, pickles (both Indian and European style) and hot sauces.
So I´m happy to share my experiences in the area, although I never preserved meats or fish ( unless you count Bacon Jam!)
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That sounds like a lot of knowledge and skills.
Would have loved to buy some of your preserves, if I were closer.
Sorry you had to close, but excellent idea and undertaking.

At some point there was a regional new brand Grandma's kitchen or similar that had wonderful Ajvar and green tomato pesto, their pricing was higher, but quality was amazing. Unsure if they still sell/exist...will pop an eye onto the supermarket shelves...
 
Yes, it was great! I participated in lots of "International Gourmet Shows" in Caracas, and actually met heston Blumenthal and Massimo Bottura, if only briefly!
I´m going to look for an ajvar recipe to try it out. Sounds right up my street!
 
Erithrytol - had to look that up because I´d never heard of it!
About 2012 I had a visit from a Tate & Lyle executive - they´re the people who invented sucralose, which you can buy as Splenda.The lady wanted to make marmalades, jams, chutneys, etc. with sucralose, so I gave it a go.
Marmalade and jam - a total disaster, because its the volume of the sugar which makes the marmalade/jam - sucralose is 600 times sweeter. A typical jam might use 1 kg sugar to 1 kg fruit, roughly speaking. That would mean 1.7 gms sucralose; no texture, just a pile of stewed fruit. The chutney was ok, but it didn´t convince me.
Erithyrol is about 30% LESS sweet than sugar, so you´d have to use about 1.3 kgs for the same effect. I don´t know how much it costs, but I imagine it´s a whole lot more that sugar. That needs to be taken into account.
 
karadekoolaid said:
Erithrytol - had to look that up because I´d never heard of it!
About 2012 I had a visit from a Tate & Lyle executive - they´re the people who invented sucralose, which you can buy as Splenda.The lady wanted to make marmalades, jams, chutneys, etc. with sucralose, so I gave it a go.
Marmalade and jam - a total disaster, because its the volume of the sugar which makes the marmalade/jam - sucralose is 600 times sweeter. A typical jam might use 1 kg sugar to 1 kg fruit, roughly speaking. That would mean 1.7 gms sucralose; no texture, just a pile of stewed fruit. The chutney was ok, but it didn´t convince me.
Erithyrol is about 30% LESS sweet than sugar, so you´d have to use about 1.3 kgs for the same effect. I don´t know how much it costs, but I imagine it´s a whole lot more that sugar. That needs to be taken into account.
Click to expand...

I make raspberry jam a lot here, my nana taught me, 50/50 sugar to fruit. Never failed me, and kids using daily, I barely keep up with 4 grandkids loving it as well.
Russ
 
karadekoolaid said:
I don´t know how much it costs, but I imagine it´s a whole lot more that sugar. That needs to be taken into account.
Click to expand...
We ran out of time, to go to my kid's volleyball training, so shifted buying my special items today.
Erythritol is very new to me, I do not recall the price exactly, but it is more expensive than regular white sugar. However, not extremely expensive, if it were, I would not buy.
I bought a 500 g package last time, it lasted me over a month. I eat fresh fruit with every meal and between meals,unsugared. The only use so far is cookies/cakes.

I intend to try a small quantity of erythritol jam first, mainly for pancakes and morning bread spread...experiment ...

If I don't like it, will try sugarless or other savoury spreads, will adapt, no problem.
 
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