Rosehip Jelly recipe

Wartime recipe for rosehip syrup

Pick 2 lbs rosehips. Wash and put them in a large pan whole. For modern ease, you can whizz them up in a blender. Either way, cover them well with water, cover and bring to the boil. Simmer for about 10 minutes. If whole, crush when soft. Strain and keep liquid. Put rosehips back in the pan, cover with fresh water, bring to boil and simmer for around 10 minutes again. Strain and keep liquid.

 Pour both lots of liquid through a jelly bag (or clean tights!) to remover any of the little irritating hairs. Place strained liquid into a clean pan and simmer until reduced to around 1.5 pints.

 Add 1lb 2oz sugar and slowly dissolve over a low heat. When completely dissolved, bring to the boil and boil for 5 minutes. Pour into clean, hot bottles and seal.

A great source of vitamin C and good for preventing winter colds :~)

September's catchup ...

Toadstools in the woods

 (Belatedly) September saw everyone heading back to school and one to college and us getting used to a different, quieter routine with plenty of work in the day and family time squished into busy evenings.

We scrounged medlars from a friend which are now happily maturing on the driveway ...

Medlar

Canned green beans and a token egg :~)

 I had another go at canning allotment produce, this time it was green french beans. I tried raw packing them and it was so easy! Basically, just heat the clean jars in the oven, wash and chop the beans straight into the hot jars. Fill with boiling water and process in the canner. Simples :~) I haven't tried them yet but they look wonderful ... every time I look at them I think of winter stew and dumplings.

I'm really pleased about the beans after the goldengage (not-quite-a) disaster because this was exactly what I bought the canner for ... to preserve our allotment gluts cheaply, easily and not worry about it taking up precious freezer space. Have you ever frozen homegrown beans? Bleugh ... the canned ones look far better!

Next year, I'll be growing about five times the amount at least!

September seedhead

Blue sky and autumn sun

 We've had plenty of woodland walks and foraged plenty ... one walk saw two buckets filled to the brim with crabapples! If you fancy trying out some crabapple jelly, look here.

So, far there have been about three lots of crabapple foragings and about 11 or 12 jars of jelly. The last lot was combined with rosehips in a beautiful autumnal mixture of goodness :~) The recipe was baed on the usual crabapple one (mentioned above) but just used part rosehips weight for weight.

Rosy crabapple

Crabapple nibbled by a grateful mouse ... so sweet!

Rosehips

Sunset

 We've had some splendid autumn storms with rainbows, the tail end of a hurricane and torrential rain.

Rainbow after the storm

Stormy sky

Stormy sunset

Rain-drenched lane

Watercress soup

 I visited a local farmshop to buy ten bunches of watercress (yes, ten) and found that they sold raw cream ... wonderful, so buttery.

We've also been frantically seed saving ... peas, borlotti beans and wartime heirloom beans. There's something deeply satisfying and soul-pleasing about seed saving and generally squirreling the harvest away :~)

Wartime heirloom beans ... love the colour!

 We also scrounged a fair few damsons off a friend to make damson jam. It took many hours to make but was so worth it! Perfect in rice pudding ...

New young lettuce plants

Harvests of golden and green ...

Beautiful goldengages

 (Belatedly!) July saw wonderful harvests of the goldengages and so, so many broad beans along with the usual seasonal crops.

I tried to can the goldengages by following the instructions for plums but I'm pretty disappointed to be honest. It's the first time I've tried canning any allotment produce so a bit of a learning curve! I chose to hot pack them because I read that the look of the fruit/veg is far less likely to deteriorate but based on this experience I'm inclined to disagree! Basically, the instructions said to par-boil the plums (goldengages) in the prepared syrup, then to put them in the jars, fill with the syrup and pressure can them. By the time I'd got them to the boil they were starting to disintigrate so you can imagine the mush by the time they'd been in the canner :~(

Honestly, they're not even worth a photo (unusually for me, I'm known for photographing everything!) but I've kept them with the plan to use them in crumbles with some chunky apple or something similar ... :~/

Broad bean feast

Foraged woodland jam

Wild redcurrants

 We live near an ancient woodland which has such an abundance of wild food ... every year I'm making a big effort to learn to identify new plants for both medicine and food, new uses for the plants and also making sure I try more and more wild foods.

We stumbled across a patch of wild redcurrants recently. A says there are several known Roman villas around the area so it's completely possible that these are the decendants of a two-thousand year old fruit garden ... who knows? I don't suppose we can ever really be sure.

Wild raspberries

 The woodland lanes are lined with brambles, bursting with flowers and embryo blackberries and also with wild raspberries which are full of fruit. Today, we spent two and a half excellent hours strolling through the lanes gathering all the ripe raspberries we could find. We added a handful of cherries we passed and then headed off to the redcurrant patch.

Wild strawberries the size of redcurrants 

 A usually has an excellent sense of direction (unlike me, I just follow him!) but today he had real trouble finding the redcurrants whereas yesterday we walked straight there! After two attempts to find them I wondered if something was telling us not to pick them after all. We decided to give it one more try and then, if we still didn't stumble across them, we'd give up. We walked up a path we wouldn't usually and found a wild strawberry plant ... the redness of these tiny little berries can't be exaggerated and the taste explosion they give is amazing! This find was followed by another and another and soon the path was lined on both sides with the plants ... We realised we'd been spun about and Faery-led to the strawberries :~)

Handful of wild strawberries

 After gathering handfuls of the strawberries, we discovered the redcurrants easily and added those to the pot aswell. When we arrived home, I washed and weighed the berries ... 1 1/2 lbs! Definitely enough for a woodland jam.

Woodland berries in the weighing pan

 Foraged woodland jam recipe

1 1/2lb mixed wild berries (though you could of course use bought or grown ones) such as raspberries, redcurrants, strawberries and cherries with the stones removed
1 lb 14 oz jam sugar (with the added pectin)
Knob of butter

Wash plenty of jars and place on a tray in the oven at gas mark 1/2 - 1 to heat through. Place the washed and drained berries in a large pan and crush with a potato masher. Add the sugar and heat gently until completely dissolved. Add a knob of butter. Increase heat and slowly bring to a rolling boil (it will continue boiling even when stirred) and boil for 4 minutes. Pour into hot jars and seal immediately. Leave to cool.

Finished woodland jam

Redcurrants and raspberries

Allotment blackcurrants

We have been swamped with the most delicious berries from the allotment this week .. blackcurrants, raspberries and redcurrants. The blackcurrants are now in the freezer waiting patiently to be make into crumbles and goodness knows what and I'll tell you about the redcurrants and raspberries below :~)

Redcurrants in the pan ready for jelly-making

Redcurrant jelly recipe

3lb redcurrants
1 pint water
Sugar

Strip the redcurrants from their stems. Put the fruit and water into a large pan and simmer gently until the berries are very soft. Strain through a jelly bag and measure the juice. Allow 1lb of sugar to each pint of juice. Stir the juice and sugar together over a low heat until completely dissolved. Increase the heat and boil hard to setting point. Pour inti small hot jars and seal. Great with meats.

Garnet-coloured jelly

Finished redcurrant jelly

Raspberry jam made this week and going down rapidly!

Raspberry jam recipe

1 3/4 lb raspberries
1kg jam sugar (with the added pectin)
Knob of butter

Wash plenty of jars and place on a tray in the oven at gas mark 1/2 - 1 to heat through. Place the washed and drained raspberries in a large pan and crush with a potato masher. Add the sugar and heat gently until completely dissolved. Add a knob of butter. Increase heat and slowly bring to a rolling boil (it will continue boiling even when stirred) and boil for 4 minutes. Pour into hot jars and seal immediately. Leave to cool.

Sunday morning cake baking

This week's cake baking session led to a big batch of fairy cakes ... I used the recipe kindly posted by Ren at the Fairysteps blog and it's the easiest method ever. Completely foolproof too. Thanks Ren :~)

Fairy cakes before ...

... and after

Foraging crabapples

Man o'the woods foraging fallen crabapples in January :~)

I thought I'd add a post about last month's crabapple find while I'm on a bit of a roll ... in this house you have to make the most of opportunities when they arise as they evaporate pretty fast and the chaos takes over again!

On a walk through the woods last month (January), we stumbled across alot of fallen crabapples nestling in the leaves. We only had one jar of crabapple jelly left from the previous batch in 2009 so more needed making pretty quickly!

Crabapple hiding in the leaves

Crabapple jelly recipe
4lb crabapples
2 pints water
6 cloves
Sugar

It's such an easy recipe so don't be put off thinking it's tricky! Wash and quarter the crabapples, cutting out any bruised or damaged parts. Don't bother to peel or core the fruit. Put the fruit in the pan with the water and cloves. Bring to the boil and simmer until soft. Mashing with a regular potato masher helps to break them down too.

When the crabapples are completely mushed, strain them through a jelly bag (or tea towel/muslin tie between the legs of an upturned chair). Don't squeeze of hurry the juice or you'll push some of the solids into the jelly which will make it cloudy.

Measure the juice. For each pint of juice add 1lb of ordinary sugar. Place in a pan and heat gently until the  sugar is completely dissolved. Boil it hard to setting point then pour into small hot jars and cover. 

The finished jelly

Tomato ketchup

Ingredients: 
10lb ripe tomatoes sliced, 12 medium onions sliced, 2 1/2lb demerara or white sugar, 2 1/2 pints vinegar, 4oz whole peppercorns, 2 oz salt, 1 1/2 oz cloves and 5 tsp cayenne pepper

You can also add crushed or chopped fresh garlic or dried garlic granules or flakes, fresh or dried chillis and paprika if you  wish.

Method:
Bung it all in a pan, stir and simmer for two hours until thick and soft, stirring occasionally. Seive and return puree to the pan.

Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Pour into hot bottles and seal. Sterilize for 30 minutes in a water bath.

ETA: August 2015 - We've just finished off the very last bit of ketchup from the very last jar and it was still fine 4 and a half years later! It would have been finished off much sooner but one jar got forgotten about at the back of the shelf :-) It had matured from the rich red in the pan pic above, into a really deep dark brown rather like HP sauce.