Jamtastic

After a weekend of beautiful sunshine, I am ever hopeful that my squashes will ripen before the first frost.

I am still pulling carrots for yummy home made coleslaw but apart from that, my veg plot is starting to look bare. Gardeners' World on Friday, showed Joe planting up onions, so I need to look at what I can plant up now, which will over winter successfully.



As there is not much to do in the garden at the moment, I turned my attention to all the raspberries I have picked over the last couple of weeks, which have been sitting in my freezer.

I consulted my Preserves book by Pam Corbin to find an easy recipe for making raspberry jam, as I had never made jam before. I came across a recipe for raspberry fridge jam by Hugh FW. It's called fridge jam because it has a lower amount of sugar than regular jam, so once opened it needs to be kept in the fridge. (The sugar acts as a preservative, so therefore the shelf life is shorter but if kept in the fridge, it lasts 2 to 3 weeks)

It's really easy to make and tastes amazing. As the amount of sugar is reduced, you can really taste the raspberries rather than just sugar. The consistency is more like a conserve being quite soft and absolutely delicious on home made bread.


Although I haven't got a glut of produce to turn into preserves, (this year anyhow) I like the idea of making chutneys and sauces. It has a homely comforting feeling about it, plus you know exactly what goes into your preserves, which has got to be a good thing!

Watch out for Hugh's new series River Cottage Autumn this week.