Do you do your own preserves?

[L_B]

Here is Canada it is harvest time and everybody is making up their preserves.
Do you make your own jams or pickles? I have never made them but my sisters and
nieces always do up their this time of year and always have give me a few bottles.

If you do make your own preserves, what do you usually make up?

 

[Shadow]

always have give me a few bottles

Lucky you!

We don't bother but we should as they taste so much better than commercial bottlings from the shops.

Last year, a friend in Calgary made the most delicious blackberry and blueberry jam. Berries hand-picked by the family, so smooth and no pips. Best jam I've tasted - and I don't like jam!!

 

[Berties]

Jams/ blackberry,raspberry , strawberry , plumb, damson
Pickles, beetroot, shallots
Chutneys, apple , runner bean,rhubarb, tomato red and green

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I have done in previous years and also turned excess fruit into fruit leathers but this year my bad back and resulting mobility issues have meant that I have not made any at all sadly. I will have to wait until next summer before I'm able to again.

 

[SpongeyB]

I don't make my own but get my supply from the stores. I have just never got down to doing it as there is plenty of fruit here all year round. I could try to make my own jam with some strawberries I have growing in my garden.

 

[L_B]

My niece just recently gave me a few bottles of her pickled beets. Om gosh they were amazing.
They were the best beets I have ever tasted. She also does these carrots up with a tomato based
sauce and bottles them. They are so good.

 

[Rosyrain]

I have done in previous years and also turned excess fruit into fruit leathers but this year my bad back and resulting mobility issues have meant that I have not made any at all sadly. I will have to wait until next summer before I'm able to again.

Sorry to hear that your back is still not doing well SatNav! How do you make your fruit leathers, do you have a dehydrator, or do you use some sort of sun drying method? Fruit leather is one of those things I would love to learn how to make.

We are working on purchasing a home this year and so I hope to be growing some of my own produce and canning it by next fall, if all goes according to plan. I really want to be as self sustaining as I can possibly be,

 

[kgord]

Here is Canada it is harvest time and everybody is making up their preserves.
Do you make your own jams or pickles? I have never made them but my sisters and
nieces always do up their this time of year and always have give me a few bottles.

If you do make your own preserves, what do you usually make up?

No, I have never done that. Making jams and jellies always seemed like so much work when you could get them in the store for little money. I don't really see it as being cost effective as we don't have many berries to pick here, you would have to pay someone to do that too...I picked a lot of wild blackberries as a kid though, and my mother made jellies and pies out of them. They were good.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Sorry to hear that your back is still not doing well SatNav! How do you make your fruit leathers, do you have a dehydrator, or do you use some sort of sun drying method? Fruit leather is one of those things I would love to learn how to make.

yes, we have an Excalibur dehydrator.
Fruit leathers are very simply to make. I don't have any real recipes as such, but if you want something that is slightly leathery and not brittle which is key you tend to need to add an apple or three to the flavouring which is how you stop them being brittle. We also have the proper teflex sheets to make them on and I always add the juice of 1/2 - 1 lemons (size dependent and also how likely the fruit is to decolour dependent - more lemon juice stops the colour from fading in things).

So something like blackberry leathers is actually

1-2 large cooking apples (peeled, cored and cooked to a pulp)
loads and loads of blackberries (and I mean loads)
juice of 1 lemon
a liquid sugar to taste if required.

Puree blackberries & lemon juice well but and this is the important bit not to the point where the seeds are destroyed (bitter taste developes) and then sieve which is essential because otherwise dehydrating concentrates the seeds and its not nice. - this takes a long time - don't put through a nut bag or similar because you want all fibre possible just not the seeds!
combine with cooked apples...
liquid sugar (so agave nectar, honey, molasses, date syrup anything like that) to taste
spread onto teflex sheets reasonably thickly... I have done both the entire sheet and also 'spots' which actually work really well.
dehydrate initially at a slightly higher temp for several hours then drop the temp and leave for 12-18 hrs... or more until dry enough to get off the teflex sheets and onto the normal mesh...

flavours are allsorts and anything that takes your fancy.

• Mango and raspberry works really well (plus juice of lemon)
• strawberry and raspberry (plus lemon - needs apple)
• elderberry and chocolate (you must extract the elderberry seeds with them being poisonous)
• peach (lemon and apple)
• nectarine (lemon and apple)
• melon
• I fancy trying a straight lemon (and apple...

...

 

[Diane Lane]

I haven't made my own to date, but this is something I'd like to do eventually. I'd actually like to both make jams/jellies and put up some other things such as beets and pickles, as well as dehydrate fruit and at some point make fruit leathers. I think there's a way to dehydrate in the oven, if you don't have a dehydrator, but my oven isn't the greatest, so I have to wait on that for now.

 

[L_B]

I was at the Farmer's Market yesterday and I picked up.something called Inferno Jelly. I got to sample it first and it was really good and very hot. It is made with red peppers, chilli peppers, wine, lemon juice and sugar. I am not sure what I am going to eat it with but my first thought was that it would be good with pork chops. I had it on crackers there and I liked it but you would have to find the right crackers.

 

[Morning Glory]

I was at the Farmer's Market yesterday and I picked up.something called Inferno Jelly. I got to sample it first and it was really good and very hot. It is made with red peppers, chilli peppers, wine, lemon juice and sugar. I am not sure what I am going to eat it with but my first thought was that it would be good with pork chops. I had it on crackers there and I liked it but you would have to find the right crackers.

Now this is right up my street! I make my own chilli jelly and pickle, often using Scotch Bonnets which are pretty high on the Scoville scale. But they also have a lovely fruity flavour.

 

[ReadmeByAmy]

I always make strawberry jam when strawberry season comes here in our place. The fruits are so cheap and they are abundant everywhere in the market selling place or even in the strawberry farm where we usually buy and it is more cheaper and fresh there. And also since we had abundant of very big radishes all through the four seasons here in our place I always make pickled radish as one of our side dish for our daily meals. And during the season of peaches where it also available everywhere and cheap I always make peach preserves which is really a sweet thing.

 

[Diane Lane]

I was at the Farmer's Market yesterday and I picked up.something called Inferno Jelly. I got to sample it first and it was really good and very hot. It is made with red peppers, chilli peppers, wine, lemon juice and sugar. I am not sure what I am going to eat it with but my first thought was that it would be good with pork chops. I had it on crackers there and I liked it but you would have to find the right crackers.

I can't even eat hot foods, but that sounds really delicious. I think I'd have to try it on a few different things to see where I liked it best, but that sounds like an enjoyable process.

@ReadmeByAmy Radishes are something I don't hear much about, but I like them. I don't think I've ever heard of or seen pickled radish, but that must be really tasty.

 

[winterybella]

I have not and it's not something that will likely happen anytime soon as it relates to jams and jellies. No one in the house seems to care much for either. I have had too many sit around for what seems like years without being touched. It's another one of those things I'd just like to try at least once to see how it would turn out.