Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Eating and Drinking => Cooking, Storing and Preserving => Topic started by: kevinp on August 14, 2010, 08:53
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Feeling very pleased as I have just made my first jams, last night I made Blackberry and Apple, and this morning I have made the Plum Jam from the recipe pages. They were very easy to make, I just need to find some proper jars for next time mine were a little too big for Jams.
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Well done you :D
I save, and get the family to save all their jam, marmelade and mayo jars, and anything they buy that comes with those pop up lids......
I use the pop ups for chutney if I can't get rid of the smell from previous contents ;)
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I suppose I will have to go around the glass recycle boxes every fortnight :)
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89p gets you the smallest size of kilner type jar from IK*A and makes jarfulls given as presents really impressive.
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That rather squashes the idea that to make your own is cheaper than buying. I just ask around and have been inundated with empty jars. Bung 'em in the dishwasher and keep until needed then sterilize.
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Oh, could not agree more - 'free' adds an extra 10% (at least) to the pleasure.
However, 89p does get you a jar that presents stuff well for pressies etc. so can tart up me gunges to within an inch of their lives. Obviously unnecessary for the jars that go in the cupboard or rustled by family or friends in the normal way of things!
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Hi guys, I am new to this as well but I have been using smart price red cabbage jars for about 20 pence and storing the cabbage in plastic pots in the fridge or giving it away. Will make sure I save old jars for next year though. :)
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I don't know whether anyone else does this but......if you have a dishwasher with a thing like a chopped off funnel for filling the salt dispenser, this is what I use for filling the jars with jams and chutneys. I know you can buy special funnels for this but I use an old one from an old dishwasher. I suppose you could do the same with a funnel and cut the end off.
£6.50 for the stainless steel ones.
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I scald out a pyrex jug and ladle, use ladle to load the jug and then pour into the jars nice and easy from the jug.
Due to the proper winter, my flowering little plum tree (plums little, not the tree) which over recent years has flowered in February didn't flower this spring until almost April with the result that there were enough insects around to do the pollinating. Outcome is tree laden with these mini plums, first time I recall (in thirty years living here) of having enough fruit to make it worth while! Two minutes to fill a jampan with what I could reach standing under the tree, couple of sticks of far too late rhubarb and a grated lump of root ginger - a real sharp 'grownups' jelly-ish gunge (er, after a reboil up with extra pectin after it refused to set!)
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Now that Jam sounds very nice :) I have no rhubarb but still have loads of plums so what do you think of a plum and ginger jam ? how much ginger to plums should I add as I have not really used ginger before.
Everything is becoming ripe at around the same time here there are crabs and some mini apples about the size of a golf ball but they are eaters, sloes and damsons and lots of blackberrys
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I love plum jam, in my opinion one of the best. Those little plum-ets ??? look tasty.
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Now that Jam sounds very nice :) I have no rhubarb but still have loads of plums so what do you think of a plum and ginger jam ? how much ginger to plums should I add as I have not really used ginger before.
ginger was sort of small-medium egg sized lump of root after easing the outer layer off, grated up into my boiling plums and rhubarb stuff. That amount seems to have worked out beautifully into my seven and a half pints of juice after the overnight straining. Probably could get away with a tablespoonful or two of the 'lazy' ginger in a jar (Epicure, I think) instead if you don't fancy all the messiness!
The little plums are quite tart anyway but if If I hadn't got the sour rhubarb to hand I would probably have chucked in a few lemons worth (or a wineglass or so of PLJ). All I can say about this jam is that it is certainly not a kiddies jam, definitely for the more discerning adult taste!
Couldn't resist grabbing the beano character pictures of little Plum (um redskin chum) and Ginger and printing off a few sticky labels for this 'soor plum jilly'instead of the usual handwritten ones.
If Mrs HGB would wear it I'd make another batch, or two, but she is getting a bit exasperated already with all the jars of early summer jams of one sort and another plus pickled courgettes under olive oil (thanks whoever it was on the site gave us that one - delish) witht he main jam season still to come in a month or so! I need a tardis cupboard.