Extreme jam making - well it is for me!

This last week has been about work and jam making. I'm not going to talk about work but I'll share my pictures and recipes for jam making. It all started when we were in Richmond , North Yorkshire over the bank holiday weekend and went to the market on the Saturday. I was delighted to see they were selling damsons, so bought 1kg to make some jam. It's years since I made damson jam so had to search for a recipe but found one in 'The complete book of home preserving' by Mary Norwak ( a book I had brought back from Ireland last summer)

 Here it is:-

1.5kg damsons
375ml water
1.50kg jam sugar

Wash the damsons, simmer in water till soft, removing the stones when they rise ( the worst part!)

stir in sugar over low heat until dissolved then boil till it reaches setting point.

Pour into sterilised jars and seal. All very straight forward

The second lot of jam came about because we were looking after some friend's dog, so plenty of walks in the woods were taking place. Each time David took Polly he returned with blackberries - loads of them! I returned to Mary Norwak again for a recipe and again it was very straight forward.

3kg blackberries

125ml water

4 tsp lemon juice

3kg jam sugar

The method is exactly the same as for the damson jam

The third jam is one of my favourites - courgette and ginger. I have grown courgettes again this year with the main purpose of using them for jam. Here I turn to Hugh Fearnley- Whittingstall for my recipe, you can find it here

Again it's straight forward but does take time to prepare the courgettes

Something that I did discover whilst shopping for jam sugar is that Morrisons were doing sachets of pectin (£1-45 for 3 sachets) which you just added to granulated sugar. This works out at least 50p less that buying jam sugar which is usually £1-99 kg. It worked really well and I had no trouble with the set. Well that was to be the end of the jam making until David came back with another kg of blackberries yesterday, so I made another batch before breakfast and that REALLY is the end as I need to pack the caravan ready for our trip down south. I am really looking forward to it as we were given a tour round Highgrove House gardens as a joint 60th birthday present which we are doing on Friday. After the Cotswolds we're going to Wales, first to the Gower, then back to Cardiff and finally back to England to Bradford on Avon. I know I'll have lots to tell you about when we get back so till then Bye ......