Jam and Chutney – FOR SALE! November 6, 2009

Although we are hoping to sell all our produce at the Craft Fair on Saturday 7th November if we do have spare and you are interested in buying some please let me know on here. We are selling the Chutney for £3 (325g jars) and the Jam for £2 (250g jars) They are labelled and if I say so myself they look really good! I will take some pictures tomorrow at the Fair and post them on here so you can see what you are getting.

At present we have the following:

Pear and lemon marmalade
Damson jam
Damson and plum jam
Blackberry jam
Blackberry and apple jam
Plum sauce (great as a marinade as well as on the side with steak)
Plum chutney
WEN chilli chutney (my favourite – knocks your socks off!)
Apple, date and walnut chutney
Apricot and ginger chutney

Gearing up for St James craft fair – 7th November 2009 10am – 4pm October 29, 2009

Only just over a week to go before the craft fair at St James Church (back of Sainsbury’s West Ealing) All jams and chutneys are made and we counted up how many we had in total – 137 jars! This year we have alot more varieties of both jams and chutneys due to generous donations and Elizabeth and David’s allotment fruiting abundantly. We will also be selling 2 different varieties of chillis grown in a tub in my garden – scoth bonnets and chilli apache – HOT, HOT, HOT. The plan is to sell 2-3 in a bag if people like spicing up their chutney purchase.

Please do come along and sample our wares – but more importantly please buy them too!

apricot and ginger chutney recipe October 28, 2009

Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 60 minutes
Makes: 1.2 litres

500g cooking apples, peeled, cored and chopped into small chunks
500g apricots, pitted and chopped [see below if using dried apricots]
240g or 2 medium onions, chopped
400ml white wine vinegar
300g soft brown or Demerara [raw] sugar
2 large cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon dry mustard
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon ground cardamom

1. Grease the base of the pan lightly with oil or butter. Combine the vinegar, sugar, garlic, mustard, ginger, cumin, coriander and cardamom in the pan. Stir over a low heat without boiling, until the sugar has dissolved.

2. Stir in the apples, apricots and onions.

3. Bring to the boil, then very gently simmer the mixture, uncovered, for about 60 minutes, or until thick and pulpy, and no excess liquid remains [see below]. Stir occasionally early in the cooking to check the mixture is not sticking or burning but stir more frequently towards the end of the cooking time.

4.When ready spoon the chutney into warmed sterilized jars. Use a skewer or the long handle of a spoon to remove any air bubbles. Cover with a lid and seal immediately.

5. Leave to cool. Label and store in a cool dark place and leave to mature for at least 2 months before eating. Use within 12months of making. Once open, store in the refrigerator and use within 6 weeks.

Tips:

• Chutneys, which are made from vegetables, fruit, sugar, spices and vinegar, are cooked until very thick and
the cooking is long and slow. They need to be left for 2 months before eating to allow the flavours to develop.
• Make sure your pan is large enough and preferably, is heavy-based. Do not leave vegetables or vinegar standing in
aluminium pans for more than an hour.
• Vinegar- use a good quality vinegar with at least 4% acetic acid [can be malt, white or red wine vinegar]. Cheap
vinegars do not contain enough acetic acid to act as a preservative.
• Sugar is not simply a sweetener but is also a preservative when used in high concentration as it acts to stop the
development and growth of micro-organisms. Brown or white sugar is used in chutneys- brown sugar simply gives a
richer flavour and colour.
• Bottle [jars]- check there are no chips or cracks. Wash bottles and lids in a dishwasher or hot soapy water and
rinse well. Dry and sterilise the bottles in the oven. Place on a baking tray and leave in an oven [preheated to 120
degrees Centigrade/Gas Mark ½ ] for 20 minutes or until ready to use.
• Cooking times can vary depending on the size of pan used, fruit and vegetables used, whether they are in season,
their water content, how gentle the simmering etc.
• Stirring- chutneys must be stirred often to prevent sticking and burning on the bottom of the pan. Stir across the
base of the pan not just around the edge.
• Test for when ready to bottle – place a spoonful of mixture on a plate. Draw the spoon though and the trail left
should be clean without any runny liquid. Keep cooking till you achieve this. Alternatively just draw the spoon
across the base of the pan.
• Alternative version: You can use dried apricots or a mix of fresh and dried. Before cooking, soak the apricots in
water over night. Drain and use as per the recipe.

WEN Recipe: October 2009

Damson and plum Jam October 9, 2009

I made some damson and plum jam today, using some of the plums from Elizabeth that had failed to set in her plum jam. I was a bit hesitant about it setting so added the juice of 2 lemons to be on the safe side. I followed the recipe for the damson jam and again used around half the water in the recipe as I boiled the damsons/plums from frozen. The biggest amount of time spent is de-stoning the fruit! It is such a pain.

I am happy to report that the jam has successfully set although on tasting the sample it seems alot sweeter then the first batch of damson jam. Maybe it is the addition of the plums, or maybe my taste buds have changed!

Anyway the most important part is it’s 9 jars towards the stock we already have for the craft fair at St James, West Ealing on the 7th November. I have 6kg more of damsons to use so I reckon at this rate I will get around 27 more jars – that’s alot of damson jam!

Plum Jam – Failed to set! October 6, 2009

Our fellow jam and chutney maker, Elizabeth made a small batch of plum jam as a trial and despite all her efforts the jam has failed to set. She used preserving sugar, lemon juice and has re-boiled it – all to no avail!

We had 10kg of plums given to us this year so it looks like we will be saving these to make chutney for next year as we have enough chutney to sell at the craft fair and Elizabeth has made some rather delicious plum sauce too.

So if anyone has any bright ideas on setting then let me know!

BBC News Magazine – ripe for the picking – click on below for full article September 29, 2009

Walk down many a suburban street at this time of year and you will see trees stuffed with ripe fruit – much of which will simply rot and go to waste. But would you let a stranger into your garden to do the picking?

Blackberry Jam Recipe September 28, 2009

2kg of frozen blackberries [no need to defrost]
6 tablespoons of lemon juice
300ml of water [can add a little more, for example, 100ml if the mixture is looking too thick]
Could use up to 1.2 kgs sugar [depends on volume of mixture- use 200gms sugar to 250ml of mixture]

•    Put two small places or saucers in the freezer.  Put the frozen berries in a large pan with the water  and lemon juice
•    Bring to the boil and gently simmer for about 15-30 minutes or until the fruit has softened.
•    Measure the fruit mixture and add 200gms sugar for every 250ml of mixture.
•    Add the sugar and stir over a low heat for 5 minutes till all dissolved.  Return to the boil and boil vigorously, stirring to ensure it is not sticking on the base of the pan.
•    Remove any scum that has formed after the first 5 minutes with a large spoon.
•    When the jam falls from the tilted wooden/melamine spoon [metal spoons retain heat] in a sheet/ large mass, without dripping, start testing for setting point.
•    If set, turn off heat, remove any remaining scum from the surface.
•    Spoon immediately into clean warm jars and seal with lid if a pulpy jam.  Otherwise let the mixture stand for a couple of minutes to allow the fruit to settle evenly [See separate Jam notes].
•    Leave jars to stand, cool and set without moving.

Makes between 2-3 litres

Blackberry Jam – Another Success! September 22, 2009

Two Abundance volunteers – Sarah and Elizabeth had a very successful session on Saturday 9th September – 16 jars of blackberry jam plus a taster jar from just over 2kg of blackberries. We were worried we wouldn’t have enough blackberries this year to make any real quantity of blackberry jam but we still have around 2kg left over and another volunteer, Gill is going to try blackberry and lime jam – sounds delicious and I assume the lime will offset the sweetness, ideal if you find jam a bit sweet and cloying. 

Sarah and Elizabeth used 6 tblsp of lemon juice to ensure a set.  They also found the jam set in about 5 minutes.  Admittedly they used very little water to stop them burning when breaking down but it gave a good consistency of fruit to liquid.  They also used jam sugar [ie sugar + pectin] covering all bases to ensure a set!  Less water was used (300ml) because they cooked the blackberries from frozen which added some water.

Sugar quantities were 200grms sugar to 250ml of blackberry mixture.

damson Jam recipe September 7, 2009

4lbs (1.8kg) damsons

Quarter pint (145ml) of water

4lbs (1.8kg) sugar

Juice of one lemon (not in this recipe, I added this in myself)

1. Wash and wipe the damsons.  Pick over to remove stalks
2. Put into a pan with the water (I actually didn’t put the water in at this stage as I wanted to see how much juice the damsons generated first) and simmer gently until the fruit is soft, occasionally pressing the damsons against the sides of the pan to break open and release the stones
3. Remove the stones (I would suggest you let the damsons cool down first)
4. It now says on the recipe to test for pectin.  I admit missing this stage out and added the juice of one lemon when I added the sugar
5. Add the sugar, stirring until dissolved
6. Bring to the boil and boil rapidly for about 10 minutes (I timed it and it was 10 minutes) until the jam sets when tested
7. Remove the remainder of the stones as they rise to the surface (this was easy as I only had a few)
8. Remove the scum
9. Pot and seal while still hot

Makes around 6lbs (2.7kg) of jam

first jam of the season! September 7, 2009

Yay just made the first batch of damson jam this morning for my own consumption – testing the recipe for WEN’s jam making for the craft fair at St James Church on November 7th. The damson stones were actually OK to remove as the recipe suggested cooking the fruit first. I then strained into a large bowl when cool and removed the stones with rubber gloves on!  Any remaining stones I removed when the jam was boiling.  Anyway picture below of one of the jars, hopefully it will taste good too!  I also attach the recipe in the recipes section courtsey of http://www.allotment.org.uk/recipe/143/damson-jam-recipe/