August 5th
2006
Here in the Northern Hemisphere, August is the month of preparing jams and preserves. So could there have been a more appropriate topic than sweet preserves or jams when I signed up to host this month's edition of Sugar High Friday? Not ever.
IMBB may be the father of all food blog events, but SHF, in analogy, would be the mother of all - obviously equipped with a sweet tooth! Originally brought to life by Jennifer, the Domestic Goddess herself, back in October 2004 with the topic white chocolate. Meanwhile the whole food blogging community has indulged in 21 different sweet events, featuring basic ingredients like honey and puff pastry or themes like spices, custard and aphrodisiacal desserts. No matter which, they all were a huge success!
This month's edition is taking place on Friday August 25th and is a good opportunity to preserve the taste of summer: It's totally up to you, take your favorite fruits, preserve them, refine them, work with them, your creativity is the limit. Stick with your grandma's proven strawberry jam recipe or experiment with an exotic fruit and spice mix, add liqueur, nuts or herbs. You live on the southern half of this planet? You've got no excuse, there are plenty of seasonal fruits available for marmalade and similar! You have never preserved anything sweet in your whole life? Well, this is the right time! Of course you can always venture out and buy your favorite June Taylor or Christine Ferber jam - given you live in the right places. But once you've enjoyed and fallen in love with your very own product, there is no way back. You are commander in chief concerning the amount of sugar, the quality of fruits and the size of the fruit pieces (which is key to picky people like me...). JUST GIVE IT A TRY!
That's it? No, not quite. There are two more things I ask of you, both are absolutely voluntary! Firstly, in case you're cookbook aficionado like myself, I'd be keen to hear about your preferred Canning And Preserving Cookbook. Secondly, if you're up for more creative fun, design your own packaging to go with your preserves. This includes handwritten or computer-designed labels, bright colored ribbons, anything that would make a nice homemade food gift an even nicer one.
Here's the roadmap:
Can. Bottle. Preserve. Go overboard with everything sweet!
Write about it, share your recipe and take pictures (if possible). If your schedule permits, you may (optionally) recommend your favorite Canning And Preserving Cookbook to your readers and design a nice custom packaging (labels etc.) for your jars.
Tell us about your entry! There will be a very simple and convenient entry form (requiring your name, location, URL of your SHF post, title of your creation) available via the Sugar-High-Friday-Button in our sidebar to accept your submissions as of August 24th CET (one day before SHF). Submission deadline is August 27th CET (two days after SHF). All participating blogs and entries can be found at round-up on Monday 28th...
Oooo! A great theme Nicky! I might just have to come out of SHF-hiatus on this one - and a brunch I'm doing in a couple of weeks gives me a great excuse to break out the pots and pans . I'm sure they won't mind some homemade goodies:-)
I'm just about to start my own blog, so hopefully I can join in. The theme is perfect for me, I've been preserving different jams over the last weekend like crazy!
Magnificent idea! I'm about to be off to calabria, well intentionned to make some great fig preserves, so I think you'll get to hear about it :-))
So perfectly seasonal! This is going to be a great round!
I'm from the old school -- my mother never made jellies, only jams. So that's what I make too, & my favorite is figs, from my own tree. Recipe: cut stems off figs & partially peel (it's not necessary to peel the whole fig) & cut into thirds, halves, & quarters. Mash a little bit, then add a cup less sugar than figs. Add about an inch of water to the pot.Cut a whole lemon into very thin slices & boil, then simmer, very low, stirring occasionally until the desired thickness. This will probably take at least 2, maybe 3 hrs. Let sit overnite, (it will thicken more) then reheat & fill sterilized jars. Either top immediately with Ball lids & rings, or let cool & top with a thin layer of parrafin, being careful to cover the fruit completely, & that the sides of the jar are clean.
I have just learned that you can reuse commercial jars that have a ring of plastic/rubber? in the lids : Heat the lids in boiling water, then screw into place while the jam & the lids are quite hot. They will seal!
I'm in!
Great theme! Can't wait to see, what you will come up with. Maybe somebody has a good recipe for quince jelly, which I'm dying to try ;)
I just blogged about my first experience with jam-making and canning. We successfully sealed the jars, but the jam was runny, foamy, and not sweet enough.
I won't be participating in SHF (what, with that whole terrible-recipe thing going on), but here's the link in case anyone is interested!
http://feverishundulation.blogspot.com/2006/08/jam.html
hello ! I'm in too ! I want to participate even if I'm based in a french speaking country !!!
I love doing jamsssss, I just did some today : abricots with rosmarin. No Bad. Yesterday I prepared 1/2 abricots and 1/2 nectarine, intersting too
Cassandre : i have done quince jelly with Xmas spices, it is delicious. if you can send me a message, I can send you the detailed "recette".
Corinne
[...] The blueberry port chutney really is a treat, and so I am also considering this my entry for Sugar High Friday #22: Can You Can?. [...]
Sweets?
I have been going crazy making bread and butter pickles which I can't get in Florence.
But will follow David's lead and make the watermelon chili jelly that I love!
Diva, Watermellon chili jelly sounds delicious and extraordinary, looking forward to your entry!
SHF #22: Can you can? - Peach-Cava-Jam...
Nicky and Oliver of delicious days are hosting SHF #22. They have choosen canning and preserving as theme.
I like to experiment but at the end I prefer to spread classic jam on my erverday-morning toast. So I'm a little bit in trouble, who will eat a...
SHF #22: Can you can? Yes, I canned Plum and Red Currants...
The Sugar High Friday traces back to Jennifer, the Domestic Goddess, who created this event about two years ago. This month Nicky from Delicious Days asked, if we can can for the SHF 22 to preserve the summer.
...
[...] Now that I know that I am well capable of making jams, you will not be surprised if I tell you how delighted I was excited when I heard about this month’s Sugar High Friday theme hosted by Nicky from the beautiful blog Delicious Days. This month’s theme is all about canning and preserving fruit! I finally have an opportunity to test my jam-making skills! Alone this time! [...]
Summer berry and lemon verbena jelly...
Summer berry jelly perfumed with lemon verbena....
[...] But, thanks to a little inspiration from Sugar High Friday, I’ll have some tucked away for later. I was so excited when I saw that Nicky of the most beautiful Delicious Days blog had chosen canning for the theme this month. Up until a few weeks ago, I had never canned anything. I just hadn’t gotten up the gumption to get over my fear of poisoning everyone if I got the whole canning process wrong. It just seemed more exacting and complex than my haphazard cooking skills could allow. [...]
[...] Zoeball has been going on and on and on about the amazing flavour of her sweet onion jam. I’m yet to taste her version (hmph), and yet to receive the recipe which she promised me for Blogathon a month ago… (double hmph)… so I decided to make up my own recipe in time for Sugar High Friday. [...]
[...] Can I can? Well I was about to find out with this Sugar high Friday hosted by Delicious Days. I’ve honestly never made any jam or marmalade ever before. My closest thing to anything canned was the chutney I made just a couple of days ago. But I still couldn’t resist to participate in my first ever SHF because on monay it’s my mothers birthday, and I just have this weird feeling she’d love love LOVE a homemade jam or marmalade. I did my best to find a recipe of any jam or marmalade that had as little sugar in it as possible, without using any sweetners, because a) my mum thinks artificial sweetners are evil b) my mum is on a low carb diet and any fruit cooked is perfect because my mum is allergic to 90% of all raw fruits and vegetables, to different extents. She can for instance not eat raw apples, pears or carrots. But what I chose was Plum. Why? I know she likes plums, I’d also seen some beautiful plums in my shop, so I just decided on plum. Next step was to find a recipe. None of my cookbooks had anything at all appealing, which just shows that I need new cookbooks! So I surfed and found a swedish recipe of plummarmalade. [...]
Yay! I just made my first batch of jams yesterday, and I can't wait to try more! What a great idea!