Fruit butters, jams mmmmm

[ottawagardener]

Recently I have made:

1. Plum jam - both italian prune type and wild that set without pectin. No special trick - I am not so tricky. Very tasty.
2. Rosy apple sauce made with skins on to give the colour then sieved. Delicious.
3. Spicey grape butter: SO GOOD!! This is the bits that are left over when making grape jelly/juice, sieving out the seeds and skins then spicing with cinammon and sugar (or your choice of sweetner)

I have plans on making a sunberry, ground cherry, and tomato chutney too.

Anyone else canning?

[mnjrutherford]

Pear jam! I had never even heard of such a thing! Now, it's my absolute fav!

[ottawagardener]

Pear jam? Interesting!

I like fresh fruit a lot but preserved fruit is yummy too (and a great way to use insect plagued fruit).

There are so many recipes out there with complex and subtle flavours beyond the sickly sweet confections that you would get at the store. It helps that the fruit is fresh and flavorable too.

[mnjrutherford]

I'm with you! I have to get the second bag of pears "dealt" with and I want to dehydrate them. Getting ready for Earl's visit as well.... ::sigh:: life is never dull! ;o)

[bunkie]

canned 23 jars of Blackberry Jam yesterday and 4 jars of Crabapple...first time our tree produced crabapples and i think maybe i should've added a little more honey...tart! ;D

the pears and apples will be ready after the weather cools...

now onto the toms... ;D

forgot to mention that we made pear butter last year. delish!

[heidihi]

I had a green tomato glut due to the weather

so this week I have just made tons of various chutney's out of them ....I made combo chutneys along with just plain green tomato chutney...integrating green tomatoes with raisins, fresh figs (the fresh fig is my favorite so far) , pineapple, guava and mango ..all are just wonderful with the sweet.. hot vinegary good combo that hits every single taste bud in your mouth

we are chutney lovers and it took years to find the perfect combo for us ..now I am going to stick with the recipe ..because this year I hit my chutney nirvana...in fact I am going to have some with cream cheese on a matzo for breakfast!

then thought "why not jam"

so I made one with coriander seed, lime and ginger (white sugar)
the second was star anise, lemon, vanilla and raisins (used brown sugar for this one)

I was stunned at how pretty this was! the tomatoes were a beautiful green ...the tomato bits are almost glazed and sparkle ... the taste and texture of both of these jams are absolutely wonderful!

great way to use up all those green tomatoes!

I have also made fig jam ..fig preserves in heavy lemon verbena syrup.....strawberry preserves ..current jam

[ottawagardener]

Those sound fabulous. My husband is always telling me how there ought to be tomato jam. Recently, he even saw some in Spain. I'll have to try these recipes.

[heidihi]

there are tons online I just picked and choose what I liked and it came out just beatifully..I am going to do a jalepeno pepper lime tomato jam next

then I am completely burned out and do not want to see another green tomato for a long long time!

[canadamike]

Telsing, you've got to try melon jam too, soo delicious and simple, 5 minutes and it is done! Add a litttle orange zest, thejuice of the zested orange, maybe a little fresh ginger if there is some around, some no sugar pectin and voila!!

[bluelacedredhead]

Pear Ginger Jam is the absolute best! I made 6 jars last week and I've already consumed 1-1/2....

Michel, you might be interested in this. It's another family heirloom...

Peach Conserve

3 diced peaches
2 cups diced cantaloupe
3 cups sugar
2 oranges chopped with rind
1/2 cup blanched shredded almonds
1/2 bottle of red maraschino cherries
Mix together, cook until thick (about 45 minutes) bottle.

[ozarklady]

I recently made:
Pawpaw/banana jam or is it butter? ha ha


Aww well, it is tasty. Kind of tastes alot like peach preserves, not sure how that happened, nothing peachy in it!

[ottawagardener]

I would try melon jam but I have no melons... hint, hint...

Blue: Sounds tasty - I have a soft spot for marashino cherries.

Ozark: I love those little jars. From my angle, it looks like yummy stuff. I would love to grow pawpaws partlly because of all the flavours attributed to it.

[bluelacedredhead]

Sept 20, 2010 16:01:27 GMT -5 ottawagardener said:

I would try melon jam but I have no melons... hint, hint...

Blue: Sounds tasty - I have a soft spot for marashino cherries.

YEs Mikey...You did say that you were all meloned out for this year, so share the wealth . I'm sure that Telsing would trade you a jar of the finished product for the main ingredient.

And they are adorable little jars Ozarklady.

[ozarklady]

I thought those jars were cute. I only found a few of them at the box store. I don't know about everywhere, but around here, the wide mouth lids are alot more expensive than the regular ones, so I try to use mostly regular. I was saving these little fat jars for something special. I thought Pawpaw butter would be unusual enough to warrant using them.

My husband finally tried the tomato marmalade, he really liked it. So the jellies are a hit this year!

[JanetM]

I am so jealous here! To have access to such wonderfull fruits. I have done my best but rading the neighbors orchard but all his has are apples. I guess I am lucky he offers me that! Really, his apples always go to waste and I hate to waste anything. I get this from having to be frugal for too many years. Still, I have managed to make 3 quart jars of apple butter and 3 of a blend of apple and aprocots I got from my dad's freezer. Turned out really good and even my little grand daughter liked it and she 'don't like anything'. .I found the recipes online and it uses the crock pot. I love this idea alot better than using the stove as I have too many burns on my hand/arms from the 'popping' of the butters when stirring. that is not fun!