6.1.12

eat of the week

jam session 1.



Well, despite the fact that we lost half the tree this year and as a result didnt quite get the "bumper crop" we were hoping for, I still managed to make more jam than both past seasons combined. The trick? Picking early and often - and BEFORE the flying pests and weird summer hailstorms got to the fruit. Lucky really, because every year the list of "please can I have a jar" requests grows longer and longer. Ramona has already snaffled two jars, one for scones and one to whip together in her new fangled ice-cream machine to make apricot vanilla swirl which looked delicious NOT THAT I GOT ANY TO TASTE mind you!



I love making jam, its so easy one kg of fruit, one kg of sugar and the juice of two lemons... and it's especially delicious when you use locally grown in season fruit. So of course we've decided on yet another HML project for 2012, one we're calling The Jam Sessions.


Each month we're going to whip up some kind of jam, marmalade, compot or sticky preserve with whatever we can scrounge, barter or grow and let you lucky readers and listeners compete to win a 12 jar basket of the fruits of our labour...including a choice selection from January's Jam Session (as shown above). Over the holidays I've spied a number of excellent fig trees around the hood, as well as putting in dibs on my italian mother in law's trees... it appears that Feburary will be Fig month.

Oh and if anyone has an idea about what to do with a bucket of apricot kernals please let me know! BECK

5 comments:

librarygirl said...

oooh count me in - I love homemade jam and sauce etc. Hoping for a bumper tomato crop this year for passata.

roseanne bartley said...

next time you make apricot jam crack open the kernels, chop them up and add them to the jam. According to my Edmonds Sure to Rise Cookbook (foundation of NZ cooking) they add to the flavour, soft texture slightly nutty flavour. They may even add pectin cause i don't add lemon juice, from a fellow friend of jam making. roseannexx

Georgie Love said...

You HML ladies are and have always been hugely inspirational to me. I have the most INSANELY fruitful trees on the farm we have moved to - HUNDREDS of apricots, plums (I THINK) and apples (I also think, the rosellas are not leaving much left) and one or two other mystery trees. Jam you think, yes? I would send you crates if I could get them passed Aus Post.

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