Love cheese?

I'm beginning to get worried. We're three weeks away from Christmas and not once have I had my ' it's Christmas Day, where is the tree & why haven't I bought any presents?' dream. In fact I'm dangerously calm. I suspect the It's Christmas Day, Where Is The Tree & Why Haven't I Bought Presents? Dream may about I come true.

Ah we'll...we've plenty of jam!

Anyway, in the spirit of Christmas generosity I thought I'd share a quick & easy recipe for a preserve that can double as a sweet  and savoury treat. I made some today for a customer and I'd forgotten how delicious it is. I love it on cheese on toast.

Spiced Carrot Marmalade

500g grated carrot

3 lemons ( you will need the zest of 2 and the juice of all 3)

1 large orange (juice & zest)

1tsp either cumin OR coriander seed OR cardamom seed

1kg jam sugar (with added pectin...essential for a quick set with this marmalade)

Put all the ingredients (including the spice of your choice) in a large pan and bring to the boil slowly allowing the sugar to dissolve. Check for set immediately the boil is reached; you should find its ready to set almost before it boils.

Pour into sterilised jars and pop the lids on as quickly as possible.

If the carrot floats to the surface leave for 10 minutes, invert the jars quickly to distribute the 'peel'.

Makes about 5llb

Try serving with cheese or on toast.

Sharing - Part II

I had a tweet last week from one of my customers @eatupshrewsbury telling me they were making rock cakes with my raspberry jam. Instant transportation back to Domestic Science classes in school and one of the first things we were taught to bake.
I've checked the recipe out again and here we go:

Raspberry Buns or Rock Cakes

Ingredients:

200g self raising flour

75g granulated or caster sugar

50g butter or margarine

1 large egg

Raspberry Jam (or jam of your choice)

It’s the same recipe for Rock Buns, simply substitute the jam for 50g sultanas.

Pre-heat oven to 180°C (360°C), Gas Mark 4

Lightly grease a baking tray

Cream sugar into butter/marg

Add flour and egg,  mix until mixture comes together (you may need to use a little milk)

Divide mixture into 12 and roll into balls

Indent the top of each ball using your thumb and add approx a teaspoon of jam

Transfer to baking tray and cook for 12-15 minutes or until slightly brown

Leave to cool

Life, the universe and everything...

Sleep. *laughs hysterically*

2.30 am…ping…wide awake. Again.

Then it hit me.

I’m so busy during the day that time passes me by; I thought yesterday –Monday- was Tuesday, I’d worked so hard I thought I must be Tuesday, surely?  

I, obviously, need to be grateful to my brain for waking me up; when else would I find time to catch up on my reading, worry about the meaning of life, panic about missing deadlines & re-run all the bad decisions I’ve made in my life?

So, really, my brain is doing me a favour. No, honestly. I’ve much more time than I think. Yeah, that’s it! Maybe I shouldn’t waste it in bed…zzzzz

Wild thing...

I was slightly worried when we went on holiday at the end of August that we would miss the best of the foraging. There was a last minute trek over towards Shrewsbury on the Monday evening, before we were due to leave on the Thursday, to collect as many wild plums as we could before we lost the light. 

MrP's patented foraging method complete with shepherd's crook

And a good job we did too. There were only yellow ones left...the red & black had just either gone over or already been had. Fortunately the yellow ones are the best in my opinion and we should have enough to last well into next year now.

Wild Cherry Plums - ready for washing before going in the freezer

It's been a great year for fruit and I didn't miss it all. We've had damsons, elderberry, rowan, blackberries, and apples. I've been told there's a quince tree somewhere nearby on public land but I haven't found it yet & it breaks my heart to think of that lovely fruit going to waste!

A couple of years ago I made rose-hip syrup which went down well with my older customers who, like me, could remember having it as a child. Back when I was a child it was the answer to my mother's wish to get enough vitamin C into us as possible (a hangover from her war time experiences as a child I suspect). I loved it.

Instead of syrup this year I made a jelly. Not as limiting in its uses.

Wild RoseHip Jelly

1kg rosehips

3kg crab apples or other foraged apples (cooking apples will do if you can't find any or haven't got a fella handy with a shepherd's crook)

About 1.8kg sugar

Makes about 14 200g/8oz jars

Spend some time picking over your rosehips removing any stalks, leaves, smushy hips and foreign bodies of the insect variety (eeeew earwigs)

Blitz the hips in a food processor (or leave whole if you haven't got one, it'll just take a little longer for them to soften). 

Roughly chop the apples. No peeling or coring required. These apples were neither crab apples of bramleys..they tasted slightly like a fresh golden delicious and they were collected from a hedgerow about 5 minutes from our house.

Place the hips and the apples in a very large pan. Mine are 8 litre jam pans & are full!

Add 2.5 litres of water and bring gently to a simmer. Pop a lid on and continue to simmer until all the fruit is soft (about an hour)

Remove from the heat and cool slightly while you get your straining equipment ready.

You will need a scalded jelly bag or a clean piece of muslin. I have a jelly bag but frankly it scares the poop out of me to use it as there have been many an over balancing disaster so I prefer muslin and a colander. Either way, make sure you have a large enough bowl (or another jam pan) ready to catch your juice.

Now, word of warning. Rosehips contain tiny hairs that can irritate so do not be tempted to just sieve the mixture. It needs to be filtered through the cloth slowly, over night preferably and try not to squeeze the juice out as your finished product may be cloudy.

Once you are happy with the amount of liquid you have I recommend a second filter just to make sure you've got all those hairs out. Just repeat by running the liquid through a clean jelly bag or piece of muslin...it won't take long this time.

And don't forget to compost the pulp from the bags!

Now measure your liquid and allow 450g of sugar for every 600ml of juice.

Boil until setting point has been reached, pour into sterilised jars & pop a lid on.

At this point I'd show you a picture of the finished product only I forgot to take one!

Try it on toast, warmed up & runny in ice cream or with lamb, pork, duck, turkey....be brave & adventurous.

Neighbours, Everybody needs good neighbours...sing along now...

Last week MrP was threatened at knife point, on our own doorstep, by a neighbour. 

Surreal or what? 

He was calm, his tone of voice almost annoyed as he shut the door on her. She then proceeded to stab our front door & lop off the heads my pot of welcoming margaritas with her cheese knife.

How terribly British we were, MrP was undamaged, we needed a new front door anyway, the margaritas would bounce back and the nice policeman didn't want a cuppa...

We don't have much to do with our immediate neighbours. There's was an 'incident' a few years ago involving their boy, a sharp implement & MrP's car's paintwork that was never resolved...and I don't foresee a time when that will get better now.

I don't feel I can pop over for fear they'll think I'm after an apology & I suspect they're too mortified to come over and offer one anyway.

Lets pretend it didn't happen eh?

It's jam, not rocket science.

I've been cleaning the cooker after another day of messy creative preserving thinking about a blog post from Rosie Makes Jam. The more I thought about it the more frustrated & annoyed I became. Not about Rosie, but about the whole nonsense of this Nanny State we appear to be living in.

New DEFRA regulations appear to be poised, set at reducing the overall sugar content of jam and similar products and have, seemingly, totally missed the point.
We have to have a certain amount of sugar in the jam to PRESERVE the fruit. We've been doing it for hundreds of years.

Part of the trouble is, I feel, that the articles written on the subject are, hopefully unintentionally, misleading and try to appeal your conscience fooling you into thinking that DEFRA are doing right by you.

In order for jam to last it needs to have a sugar content of 60%. That's science. Proven science.
But, before you panic, that's the TOTAL sugar content including the naturals sugars from the fruit.
Let me give you an example. Jam typically its made with 50% fruit and 50% added sugar but will have an overall sugar content of between 60-69% on average, depending on the fruit & the time of year.
Half the content of that jam is fruit.
Doesn't that make you feel better?
It should. It's true, traditional jam. Preserved fruit.

So, if these regulations go through it seems I will have two options:

•  reduce the amount of added sugar (which will give a sloppy product with reduced shelf life & less value for money)
• call my 'jam' something else

Quite frankly I think DEFRA are going about this the wrong way. 

The regulations should follow, surely, that those companies who want to make reduced sugar products, those with the technology for mechanical filling and sealing that allow for long life, those that add artificial preserving agents & chemicals, should not be allowed to call their product 'JAM'.*

Yes, there IS a market out there for reduced sugar jam but keep it separate. 

Stop making choices for us.

This is bureaucracy at it's most idiotic and, while seemingly not terribly important to the majority of people, it seems to me that once again the 'little people' are losing out in the name of commercialism.

Wake up & smell the jam people!

Suggested reading:

The Daily Mail have a good article about the new regulations, featuring Vivien LLoyd and you can sign Vivien's petition for real jam here

Please read Rosie's blog and have a look at the links she provides

*(Having reached this conclusion, I've just read an open letter by Rosie to DEFRA here and she says the same thing at the bottom of her letter.)

From the ashes of disaster...

Thought for the day here in the Jammy Cow kitchen, super tune from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and pretty much how are things with me.
Anyhoo, before I go off on one again, let me explain.

A while ago I made some Spiced Rhubarb & Orange Chutney. It was lovely & sold really well. I came across the recipe again to day and, having some rhubarb left over from making Rhubarb & Ginger Jam, thought it would be a great choice for the Food Festivals & Fairs in June.

After standing over it AND still having it catch on the bottom of the pan (changed pans 3 times) for 4 hours and it still not being ready I was all for throwing it in the bin.

I hate waste but I didn't have the time or the energy for another 4 hours. It would've been a shame. It really tasted nice but it wasn't reducing.

Then, ta dah! 

I blended it & bottled it and invented my own 'Rhubarb Ketchup'!
I'd like to say it was on purpose. I'd like to say I'm a creative genius. But frankly...
I just wing it!