Though I haven’t really blogged about it yet I do tend to make alot of preserve, jams and chutneys mainly. This stems from my Dad making red current jelly and the like when I was a child – we also always went blackberring and stuff.
When I first moved to the country I was on crutches and unable to work – not to mention had a new baby so I set my self up with a lovely preserving pan from a Kitchen Shop in stroud I think its called Mills and I ordered some books.
One of them was part of the Best-Kept Secrets of the Women’s Institute called Jams, Pickles and Chutneys by Midge Thomas.
This has proved to be the best companion to my Food For Free book whihc I mentioned a few weeks ago.
I read the whole book from cover to cover and absorbed the information on what makes a good jam, the different methods for assessing weather the jams are ready and the like. This information has set me up well to experiment and alter recipes depending on what fruit appears in our garden (or on the doorstep from various people in the village) and what I can scavange from local hedge rows.
It even has a hedgerow jam which was the first thing I made in my preserving pan. The preserving pan and all the other things I have bought more than paid for themselves within two years of having them 🙂 And this is also the reason why everyone who knows me tends to get some home made preserve for Christmas!
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