Making Mulberry Jam

We have had such an exceptionally hot day here in Johannesburg today, 35 deg C, as soon as we walk out the door we can feel the heat bearing down on us, not too pleasant at all. Is anyone in Australia or New Zealand experiencing similar weather? We have had to water our veggies like crazy to save them from being burnt by the sun... Anyway, today I decided I wanted to try and make jam. We have a mulberry tree that grows in a rather shady area of our garden and this tree gives us the most wonderful fruit year after year, really sweet, juicy mulberries, so mulberry picking we went. We have another five mulberry trees in our garden, but this is the one! So after lunch, we all went outside and started to pick as many of the little fruits as we could find. A whole bowl was picked and then the fun started. I have some left over mulberries from today's harvest so I will attempt a different recipe tomorrow.

I found this recipe, I only used berries and sugar and now we have six jars of lovely sweet mulberry jam cooling in the kitchen.

I washed the berries first.

Then I thought I would put them through the juicer and extract the juice. I kept the pulp.

I started boiling the glass jars for the jam and made sure they were ready to use at the same time that the jam was ready to be bottled in the jars.

I added the sugar and I also added some of the pulp that was put through the juicer that I kept aside earlier.

Once the jam had boiled and thickened, I removed it from the heat, spooned it into the boiling hot bottles, left a space at the top of the jam jar and put on the lid.

And there you go, lovely jam, please refer to the original recipe in the link above for exact measurements and method:) I think a few of these bottles will be nice to give away as gifts.

What have you been doing today?

Have a lovely day.
Linda

Jam Update:
We ate some of the jam on toast this morning and I must say, it is just wonderful!! I am so glad I put the mulberries through the juicer, it gave us beautiful smooth pulp to add to the liquid on the stove and the consistency of the jam is divine, no big pieces of fruit, just lovely:)

Canning Tomato Relish

We have had such a wonderful crop of tomatoes this season so far, my kitchen windowsill is packed with ripening tomatoes and there are still plenty growing in the veggie patch. Today we made our first batch of tomato relish that is about to go into the freezer. I feel a tremendous amount of gratitude to be able to walk out into our veggie garden, pick our homegrown produce and prepare it for a meal. I love that we are reaching a new level of self-sufficiency, it makes my heart smile...

The Relish:
1 basket, full of ripe tomatoes.
Soak them in boiling water, let the water cool, remove the skins and gently squeeze your tomatoes so that the seeds fall out. Squeeze them over a sieve so you can save as much juice as possible. Once I left the seeds in, and oh my goodness, they made the sauce so sour! (Live and learn:)
I slowly heated the tomatoes and added a generous amount of crushed garlic, a handfull of chopped basil leaves, salt, black pepper and some Balsamic vinegar.
I let it cook for a while and adjusted my ingredients according to taste.

Sterilised my bottling jars and added my tomato relish and popped them in the freezer.
I feel like such a farmergirl now, I just love it!
This is a great book for preserving, Putting Food By.

(A few readers have asked what camera I use, it is a Cannon Power Shot SX10IS)

Have a wonderful day xo