Now that Christmas has come and gone, I can finally tell you what we did with all those berries. We picked gooseberries, redcurrants, and raspberries from the garden, over 25 pounds of strawberries from a local farm, and buckets of bilberries from the surrounding forest. After my first canning adventure with bilberries, and quickly realized that 1. I'd caught the canning bug and much of our summer bounty was destined for jam jars and 2. We should give the jam away as xmas presents and not spoil the surprise on the internet.
Presto chango. Berries into jam. (Special thanks to my friend Helen for jam art!)
Other plans are in place for the raspberries and redcurrants, so all that added up to: bilberries preserved in lemon syrup, gooseberry jam, gooseberry-elderflower jam, and, my favorite, strawberry jam. This was my first taste of homemade strawberry jam, and ohh it is so good. Heaven in a jar.
All recipes are from The River Cottage Preserves Handbook, which proved a very good introduction to canning. Also from the book was strawberry vinegar, which I've greedily saved for myself. It's wonderful in salads and can also be added to fizzy drinks for an extra kick. I dread the day I use my last drop, but hopefully that won't happen before strawberry season rolls around next year. It's pretty too:
Janne and I have become partial to food gifts in recent years and I hope to keep up the tradition in the future. In addition to this year's preserves, we've given Christmas presents such as flavored olive oil, bottled balsamic reduction, and dried wild mushrooms. It's really fun to make these things together, and we don't get stressed out with all the spending and materialism. Since they're edible, we know everyone can actually use them. It's disturbing to think of all the pretty things wrapped in pretty paper and condemned to a dusty shelf.
I think we've saved just enough berry loot to keep us going for the year, and in the meantime treats like this have been appearing on the dining room table:
A little reminder of summer in the cold, cold winter.
