Strawberry Jam Recipe – finding abundance in supermarket waste & Fairshare

This week I had an unexpected windfall. I got a text after work from Imogen (assistant editor at Permaculture) saying that her local Co-op were about to throw out loads of cartons of strawberries – too many for her jam making activities – and she couldn't bear it. Would I like some? She could just about manage 7.5kg on the bus the next day. 7.5kg of English strawberries for £5.40. Riches!

At this time of year, there are so many seasonal gluts. It is the time of abundance – opportunities to preserve the summer glut for later in the winter when there is no fruit on the trees. It's a great way of gathering Christmas presents too. Keep an eye out on your travels for wild plum trees, fruit near its sell by date in the supermarket and bargains on the market stall. (Freegans also check the supermarket waste bins as well and liberate some of the millions of tonnes of perfectly good thrown-away food.)

One project I really like is FareShare, a charity dedicated to reducing food poverty in the UK (with one of the three great permaculture ethics as its name!) It is offering supermarkets, manufacturers and sandwich chains an alternative to using landfill. FareShare currently takes unsold food to provide meals for about 12,000 homeless and low-income people every day. And now it wants to provide a much wider service, charging a fee to get rid of much larger quantities. My daughter, Gail, observed that the scheme could be extended to the many students who are increasingly in debt and can't afford to eat vegetables and other healthy foods.

Anyway, back to my supermarket glut.

When the starwberries arrived I divided them into lots. 4kg for jam, 2 kg to freeze for strawberry wine that I will make later on (recipe to follow on a later blog), 400g for Granny and 400g to eat and the remaining to replace any over-ripe fruit in the jam allocation.

I made 4kg in one batch but here is the recipe halved in case you have less fruit:

2kg of whole strawberries

the juice of 3 lemons

2kg of jam sugar (or normal sugar plus added pectin)

knob of butter

Method

1. Wash, drain, de-stalk the fruit and cut in half. Put in a large non-metallic bowl or bowls (plastic or glass is fine). Add sugar as you go along and the lemon juice, gently mix. Cover with a upturned bowl and leave overnight. (This helps keep the strawberries whole.

2. Put the fruit and juice into a preserving pan or a 4.5 litre/8 pint saucepan. Heat gently, stirring, to dissolve the sugar.

3. Bring to the boil for 4 minutes. Add a knob of butter to prevent scum forming. Take off the heat to test for setting point. Spoon a little jam onto the cold saucer (you can put it in the freezer). After a couple of minutes gently pull your finger through the jam and if the surface wrinkles it's ready. If not, return to the boil for 2 minutes, then re-test. Or use a food thermometer (useful for yogurt and wine making),

4. Take off the heat and cool for 10-15 minutes to stop fruit rising to surface when you pot.

5. Stir gently to distribute the fruit, then pour into warm sterilised jars. Put in a cool, dark store or cupboard.

2kg makes about 9lbs (454g) pots of jam. Heavenly!

Coming soon: recipes for strawberry wine and golden gage (plum) wine plus a guest blog from the Moneyless Man.

Maddy Harland is the editor of Permaculture Magazine – inspiration for sustainable living. Issue 65 is just out and features lots of articles including Ben Law on Transition Trees, Perennial Vegetables, Small Scale Farming & Permaculture, profile of an ethical business, news, reviews, & solutions plus how to make a terracotta fridge and 10 money offer readers' offer. To support this independent publications please subscribe digitally for just £10 (approx $13.40) or subscribe to the printed edition (which will save you at least 20% of the cover price and allow you to enjoy it in the wilds!). To read a sample copy click here.

Making Plum & Golden Gage Jam & how to avoid wasp stings

At this time of year the forest garden is beginning to burgeon with top fruit. 

Asian pear, apple with perennial kale and comfrey as undercover

We like making jams and chutneys to give as presents and for our larder. The first fruits to come are plums, closely followed by Oulin's Golden gage, an exquisitely juicy fruit. I usually pick early in the morning when the fruit is soft and before the wasps are too active*. Making plum or gage jam couldn't be easier.

Ingredients:

4.6 lbs (2 kg) plums
1 pint (570 ml) water
4.6 lbs (2 kg) sugar

juice of half a lemon

knob of butter

Method:
Wash and wipe the plums. Make sure they are not too ripe and are dry and cut out any wasp damage. Over ripe fruit lacks pectin and acid, wet fruit can make the final jam go mouldy in the jar. Cut in halves (or thirds if you don't like too many lumps).
Put into a pan with the water and simmer gently until the fruit is soft. This extracts the pectin and acid from the fruit.
Add the sugar, stirring until the sugar has dissolved.
Bring to the boil and boil rapidly until the jam sets when tested, removing the stones as they rise to the top.
Add the butter to prevent scum.

You'll know if the jam is set either by testing with a jam thermometer or by taking a teaspoonful and allowing to cool. If when cool a skin forms on the surface when you draw your finger across it, the jam is set.
Pot and seal while still hot.

Makes around 6.6 lbs (3 kg) of jam.

Yum!

Nothing compares to the taste and colour of home made jam!

I use the same recipe for golden gage jam but because the gages were mostly very ripe, I added the juice of one lemon to help it set.

* If we have left it too late to pick and wasps are abundant or I am picking for a tall tree, I use a Burgeon and Ball apple picker. This is a really useful tool, especially if you have taller root stocks. It saves clambering around with a step ladder, speeds up picking and prevents wasp stings as well. They cost £19.95 inc p&p. For me, this tool will quickly pay for itself but if you are handy you could easily make a DIY version from a broom handle, by weaving heavy duty wire (coat hangers?) into a basket form, putting a bit of foam in the bottom to cushion the fruit and attaching to the handle with a jubilee clip. If you make one please tell me what you used and send a picture of it. I'd like to post your design here to encourage others who want to make their own.

Maddy Harland is the editor of Permaculture Magazine – inspiration for sustainable living. Issue 65 is just out and features lots of articles including Ben Law on Transition Trees, Perennial Vegetables, Small Scale Farming & Permaculture, profile of an ethical business, news, reviews, & solutions plus how to make a terracotta fridge and 10 money offer readers' offer. To support this independent publications please subscribe digitally for just £10 (approx $13.40) or subscribe to the printed edition (which will save you at least 20% of the cover price and allow you to enjoy it in the wilds!). To read a sample copy click here.

Outdoor Cooking & Coping with the Seasonal Glut

This week my guest blogger is Trish MacCurrach, an experienced year round outdoor cook. At this time of year, Trish spends much of her time thinking up new vegetable recipes for the Kotlich (a wood-fired Eastern European hanging cooking pan) and new places to take it to cook.

The greenery in my vegetable patch is positively jungle-like.  Despite the lack of rain, ‘mange tout’ and broad beans are cropping well and the leafy vegetables are positively abundant.  Pumpkins, gourds and courgettes are very slow, but we have had some tasty root veg this week. So if, like me, you have a very small deep freeze, what will you do? No doubt you will give some things away or swap them for something you want (and it is worth contemplating a time when we don't have deep freezes because they are too expensive on energy to run).  Think creatively: bottle, preserve, pickle, dry and think up some new recipes.

I have a passion for making things out of a hotchpotch of leftovers and for doing this out of doors, over a fire, in my Kotlich. I became an avid outdoor cook while working in Serbia for several years, where, in the villages, most of the summer months are spent preparing for winter. The Kotlich is a common sight and the most usual dish to be found cooking in it is Riblja Chorba (fish soup).

One trick is to use your abundant harvest as it appears and not to save it all until everything is ripe at the same time.  I throw a handful of mange tout into many different dishes at the last minute. If cooked briefly they retain their lovely florescent green colour and add crunch and sweetness to any soup, stew or stir-fry. Spinach or sea kale, baby carrots and mini broad beans can be added to any dish as it finishes cooking.

This time of year presents the perfect opportunity for making Beetroot Leaf Soup. Don't throw the leaves on the compost heap when you pull your beetroot, instead cut them off about 2cm from the root and cook briefly, with a couple of cloves of garlic (if you like), a small chopped onion, liquid (water or stock) and then whiz it up. It is smooth and creamy and quite lovely.

I have just had a brilliant outdoor cooking session using a variety of vegetables.  It turned out to be Creamy Summer Soup. First, gather wood. We regularly carry wood back with us when we go for walks so we have quite a good pile of small pieces. Second, light your fire. Thirdly hang the Kotlich over the fire with the first ingredients in it. Fourthly stir regularly, and don't let the ingredients become dry.

This soup/vegetable stew consists of just about anything you have in the garden – except dark green leaves. Finely cube four new potatoes, cover with water and a good slurp of olive oil. When they are cooked add baby carrots, topping up a little with water again to keep them covered. After a few minutes add broad beans, peas, and courgettes if you have them, and cover again with a little more water. Add salt and pepper and half a teaspoon full of dried crushed (not powdered) paprika. Chop fresh herbs for the garnish. At the end add the mange tout, and half a cup of cream. Sprinkle with fresh chopped herbs, croutons if you have some and maybe crispy fried bacon – or serve with hunks of fresh bread. This is really quick and easy and each mouthful is like an explosion of tastes. Adding chunks of cooked smoked fish or cooked gammon in the last stages easily bulks this recipe up.

We should all be saving at least one day a month, if not two, for preserving. Jam making is a favourite, half the fun is adding impromptu ingredients – things you have too much of. We have made Rhubarb and Ginger, Gooseberry, Strawberry and Raspberry jam all sourced from a pick-your-own just down the road.  It is important to get the proportions right, as I have often discovered to my cost...

For jams:
•    1lb fruit
•    1lb sugar

For jellies:
•    1lb juice
•    1pt sugar

Very soon the hedgerows will be heavy with blackberries, followed by Rowanberries and hopefully lots of windfalls.

In our neglected orchard in Serbia there were three cherry trees, apples, plums, an apricot and four walnuts. I learnt during my time there how to bottle fruit – and it seems extraordinarily simple.

These are the instructions I followed successfully – but I am still a little afraid of explosions! A wooden slatted tray in the bottom of the saucepan gives me more confidence.
•    Prepare the fruit, peel, and chop if necessary into small pieces.
•    Wash and dry jars with fitting lids.
•    Gather together a bag of sugar, a spoon, slices of lemon or ginger and a jug of water.
•    Pack the prepared fruit into jars to the neck, adding either a little of the ginger or sliced lemon in layers, cover with water to the top (does not have to be boiling), add 2-3 spoonfuls of sugar, depending on the sweetness of the fruit.
•    Close the lid tightly and stand in a saucepan with 2-3 other prepared jars.
•    Bring to a steady boil, place the saucepan lid on, and when fruit floats to the top of each jar it is done.
•    Cherries are very quick (6-8 minutes), but larger pieces of apple, pear or quince may take up to 15 minutes or more.
•    Using oven gloves, remove saucepan off the heat.  Lift jars out of hot water.  Place the jars on a wooden board and wrap in a thick towel so they can cool down slowly.

I have seen people doing this with all types of fruit, including apricots and peaches. They often added home brewed brandy to these more precious and less abundant fruits.

We should already have gathered elder and lime flowers to dry for tea. We still have time to dry lemon balm, mint and achillea. (The last is drunk with blobs of honey and great enthusiasm to cure flu like symptoms.) Pick with long stalks if possible and hang in bundles out of the sun and in the wind. When they are dry and crinkly pack into jam jars. They make very warming teas for the winter with honey and a pinch of cinnamon.

For me Kotlich cooking combines several key elements: being outside, growing and preparing really fresh food and using less energy.  I am literally ‘cooking off grid’.  I love the excuse to get into the woods to search for fuel.  I love food for free and I will preserve anything I can.

The 8lt Kotlich with a 120cm tripod is available from The Green Shopping Catalogue. The Kotlich is double dipped enamel, with a black outside which never needs washing. The inside is an attractive, easy to clean mottled grey. It is light enough to carry on an escapade but not so light that everything burns easily. The tripod is black painted twisted wrought iron with a hook and chain for attaching to the Kotlich.  The handle stays cool throughout the cooking process so you can grasp it and adjust the height of the Kotlich at any time. Trish happily demonstrates  ‘Kotlich Cooking’ at fairs and has even been a ‘café’ at a small green festival.

Maddy Harland is the editor of Permaculture Magazine – inspiration for sustainable living. Issue 65 is just out and features lots of articles including Ben Law on Transition Trees, Perennial Vegetables, Small Scale Farming & Permaculture, profile of an ethical business, news, reviews, & solutions plus how to make a terracotta fridge and 10 money offer readers' offer. To support this independent publications please subscribe digitally for just £10 (approx $13.40) or subscribe to the printed edition (which will save you at least 20% of the cover price and allow you to enjoy it in the wilds!). To read a sample copy click here.