Monday

What a busy day it has been for me in the kitchen today.

As I was late to bed last night and had to stop because of my back, I had a bit of a lay in this morning.  Did not start the preserving therefore until gone 2:00pm.

The Plum jelly is now dripping through the jelly bag.  There should be enough for some Plumbrillo as well so that will be dealt with first thing on Tuesday morning.

The Plum Chutney has at long last been concluded. I used a heat diffuser on the hob to stop the chutney burning/sticking to the bottom of the pan.  I have found that really helpful when it comes to preserves. The chutney does not taste too bad either.  Really looking forward to this.  It will now be "cured" for about six to eight weeks before tasting.  I managed two large jars, two medium jars and two small jars.  So very pleased with that.  

The recipe I used is from the Love Jars recipe site owned by Rosie Jamieson.  The link to the recipe site is here:

Love Jars Recipe site

The actual recipe link is here:

Plum Chutney Recipe

There are also lots of tutorials and lovely recipes on this site.  Plus Rosie regularly runs training workshops.

Just for the Recipe index alone the link is here:

Recipe Index

Just after the brown sugar has been mixed in.

The contents of the pan have been cooking for a good couple of hours.  There is still too much puddling of the vinegar on the top.  It needs to be cooked down to a thicker consistency with no pooling.  Interestingly if you give the pan a good stir and mix the vinegar in the chutney will present as being done.  It is not.  The chutney needs to be a lot thicker and no pooling.  This was therefore left for another hour to thicken it up a lot more.

I am happy with the consistency and it is ready for bottling.

I ended up with six jars; two small ones, two medium ones and two large ones.  That should keep us going.

The Lemon Chutney is brining.  That will be finished off tomorrow as I have to do something with Dates with it.

This is a new recipe for me so will see how it goes.

Plans for further days:

Finish off the Victoria Plum jelly

Finish off the Piccalilli

Bottle Plums in syrup

Make some Plumbrillo

Bottle Apples

Make Lemon Cordial

Although it is hard work, these preserving days are the days I live for.  Preserving is one of my passions and being able to put good food on the table even when times are tight.  Sometimes a little is better than nothing, and on dark dreary days opening up a pot of beautiful Plum jam or jelly is going to bring the warmer days of summer back into the long cold days of Winter.  That is magic.

Hope everyone has had a lovely day.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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