Put away your purse & become debt-averse

crazy_cat_lady

Well you could pick and mix 4 small jars for £12.50. The extra hot chilli jam I was looking at for my stepdad was £4.95 a jar.
Maybe I should be brave and just try it. :rotfl:
Enjoy that ironing stack - something else I don't do... I'm starting to wonder what I actually do - hate cooking, gardening, housework and ironing.... hmmm.

Kantankrus_Mare

crazy_cat_lady wrote: »

Well you could pick and mix 4 small jars for £12.50. The extra hot chilli jam I was looking at for my stepdad was £4.95 a jar.
Maybe I should be brave and just try it. :rotfl:
Enjoy that ironing stack - something else I don't do... I'm starting to wonder what I actually do - hate cooking, gardening, housework and ironing.... hmmm.

Go for it...........Ive never made ordinary jam but was looking for a way to use my excess homegrown tomatoes a few weeks ago. Found a recipe for chilli jam........was extremely easy and tasted beautiful!!
I shall be making more. £4.95 a jar?!?! :eek:

joeyjimbles

crazy_cat_lady wrote: »

Well you could pick and mix 4 small jars for £12.50. The extra hot chilli jam I was looking at for my stepdad was £4.95 a jar.
Maybe I should be brave and just try it. :rotfl:
.

I know those jars you are looking at. And they're very good produce, but they're absolutely charging for the pretty label and cute shaped jars. DS1 had a job selling for one of those companies in various food markets in Cumbria last year and we got to try a lot of them and most were very tasty. However, without blowing my own trumpet too much and accepting that I do like to cook like Foxgloves does, there was very little that I couldn't make myself and it would taste as good or better.

For example, chili jam is a doddle - shredded chili peppers, possibly some red peppers and/or tomatoes though I don't use either, sugar, vinegar - Nigella has a great recipe in her Christmas book and Rick Stein has a good version too - the only hassle in making it is the strong smell from cooking the vinegar element. You could make it for Christmas presents and the DC could design the labels.

foxgloves

Agree, Joeyjimbles. This stuff isn't difficult to make & it is lovely to give as gifts. The mark-up on that chilli jam is massive! The ingredients are so cheap, especially if you grow your own chillies. I've harvested a bowlful of nice ripe red chillies this morning. I always freeze some to use for recipes requiring fresh. Then I sat in the sunshine with a needle & thread, stringing the others ready to dry hanging from the greenhouse roof. And that's not all of them. There are plenty on the plants still to ripen. It's true that you are paying for a posh jar/label/upmarket branding. I like to make pink grapefruit marmalade, for example. I can sometimes get 3 pink grapefruits for £1 on our local market. The only other ingredients are 1 lemon, ordinary white sugar (bought from A*di) & water. Oh....& my knowledge & time. That's it. People always comment how lovely that marmalade is. One of my Mum's friends asked me if she could buy 10 jars, but I'd already gifted or sold the whole batch.
I love experimenting with my own recipes for chutneys & sauces too. My most recent one was a hot chilli sauce made from homegrown scotch bonnet chillies, with lime. I should keep that one a secret in case I ever decide to launch a micro-business, lol.
Anyway, must get cracking. Hospital visiting again today, which means a 140 mile round trip.
Cheers all,
F x

crazy_cat_lady

Thanks all for the advice - and sorry to hijack your diary with talk of jam and chutney Foxgloves. I wish I were brave enough to give it a go... I may research more - the one time I did try to make jam I couldn't get it to set so I already feel like a failure :rotfl:
Hope all is well with you and the family, or as well as can be under the current circumstances and that you're not too tired after the trip.

foxgloves

Lol, CCL...what are you like?! Nobody is a failure cos their jam didn't set properly, especially not on their first go! You just didn't boil it for long enough or it was one of the few tricky fruits which really need jam sugar (with pectin in it) to get it to set. I once made black cherry jam with ordinary sugar & it totally refused to set. In the end, i portioned it up & froze it. As jam, it was rubbish, but as a lovely sauce over ice cream or stirred into Greek yoghurt, it was a winner!
Chutney is easier than jam as nothing needs to 'set'. You just cook it all together until it's a thick, rich, stick mixture, then you bottle it. The only beginner's pitfall would be not remembering to stir it now & again, when it can 'catch' on the bottom of the pan & inject black bits & a slightly burned flavour. This is quite rare though. I've only done it once, ages ago, & that wss because I got yakking on the phone when I should have been stirring!
So when you have a free afternoon & feel in the mood, give it a go. You might surprise yourself this time & be able to trim up a couple of jars (crochet lid covers?) for gifts.
I"ve just opened a jar of last year's blackberry & pear jam & it's kept really well. I love having a pantry full of tasty jars x

joedenise

I don't have the space to grow much so don't really bother. However if I can pick up some cheap YS fruit or veg will definitely be having a go at jam and/or chutney.

I already make red onion chutney on a regular basis as both DH & Ilove it with cold meats and salad.

Have only ever made marmalade from tins as it seems a lot of faff preparing citrus fruit for it. Got a load of cheap lemons once but even with my sister helping we only bothered with one lot, and unfortunately ended up binning the rest. I know not MSE but just couldn't face doing any more.

Denise

dustydigger

Foxgloves,just how much freezer space do you have. It sounds a bit like the Tardis to me,you are always adding more and more stuff and never run out of space!:rotfl::rotfl:

foxgloves

Lol, DustyDigger,
You are so right! Our freezer is a decent size, as it's a tall one with lots of drawers, not a fridge-freezer style, but you are right I rarely have any space. It's particularly rammed at this time of year as we grow quite a bit of fruit & veg so I am freezing some of that too. I'm getting as much picked & dealt with as I can at the moment before a little trip in our tent. This morning I managed to find space for an 800g bag of tomatoes as I can use those for soup or sauce later on, & then a pot of grapes - the last few from our vine this year, as I like nibbling frozen grapes while I'm watching TV on an evening instead of crisps & biscuits. The other issue is that I batch cook & bank up meals for later in the month. Luckily my partner is very skilled at Freezer Tetris. I can declare there's no room at all left & he can disappear into the kitchen & free up half a drawer. There are a lot of meals in there at the moment, so they will be prioritised for meal planning during the next couple of months in the usual spirit of 'shopping from home first'.....
but for now, you are so right - it's rammed!
F

foxgloves

Joedenise - yes, marmalade is more time-consuming but I still like to make it each year when the seville oranges start appearing. I make quite a lot, but I sell my surplus, meaning I get my own jars & jars for giving as gifts for free, plus a bit of profit. I've tried various different methods. I thought boiling the whole fruit first before cutting it up might be quicker, but there wasn't much difference so I do it the old-fashioned way. I line up a couple of good audiobooks & tackle it as a seasonal project. Love the finished result, plus the gorgeous orangey fragrance. I make pink grapefruit marmalade too & am planning to do a couple of others next time too. It does make nice gifts & I like tarting up the jars.
Slicing the peel is defo the longest job in all the different preserving I do.....even longer than stripping elderberries off their stalks!
F