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Saturday, 30 August 2014

Wisdom for Home Preservers and Spiced Blackberry Jam


When autumn (fall) starts to creep in, it's definitely time to start preserving the harvest from your garden or the hedgerows.  People have been preserving food since ancient times—evidence shows that Middle Eastern cultures were using the heat of the sun to dry their foods as early as 12,000 BC—for reasons of survival or culture or both. Fast forward to the present day, and preserving our food—perhaps home-grown, seasonal, local, organic, or free-range—is an essential and enjoyable part of a healthy, sustainable lifestyle.

Wisdom for Home Preservers by Robin Ripley is a comprehensive guide to preserving in all sorts of different ways including bottling, freezing, drying, fermenting, salt curing and smoking and cold storage/root cellaring. This isn't a cook book, there are no recipes, but it is full of really helpful tips which will help you get the most from your produce and answer any questions you might have.  Here are a few of the useful tips:

Tip 158: Pick the right bowls and pots for pickling
Avoid containers and utensils made of unlined copper, iron, zinc or brass when pickling.  These materials may react with acid and salt and can cloud or discolour your pickles.  For pots, pick such materials as stainless steel, heatproof glass or hard-anodised aluminium.

Tip 254: Set your freezer temperature to -18
Freezer temperatures settings should be set to -18 C (0 F) or lower.  Not all freezer settings are accurate, though, so get a freezer thermometer, available at supermarkets and kitchenware retailers, and regularly monitor the temperate and adjust the setting if needed.

Tip 279: Create your own herb meat rubs
With herbs rolling in from the garden by the basketful, don't forget you can mix the match them to make unique and delicious rubs for meat and poultry.  For poultry, try combining dried lemon thyme, sage, rosemary, salt and pepper. For beef, try a combination of dried thyme, sage, marjoram, garlic and onion powders, pepper and salt. 

Garden and food writer ROBIN RIPLEY has been growing, cooking and preserving fresh food from her garden since moving to a small farm in rural Maryland 15 years ago. She is an enthusiastic experimenter of all things related to food, including bread and pastry baking, wine and cheese making, canning and preserving. She is co-author of Grocery Gardening and blogs about her gardening, preserving and made-from-scratch cooking projects at http://bumblebeeblog.com. She also raises pet chickens, which she blogs about at http://eggsandchickens.com. Robin writes and talks regularly with groups about gardening, potager design and the importance and joy of supporting locally-grown and fresh foods. 

 Wisdom for Home Preservers
Author: Robin Ripley
Publisher: Apple Press
Published: 4th September
RRP: £12.99

I have one copy of Wisdom for Home Preservers to give away (scroll down to the Rafflecopter widget to enter)

As a bonus I thought I'd share this recipe for Spiced Blackberry Jam with you.  The blackberries in our lane have been particularly good this year and it's been so easy to collect  enough to make a few pots of jam. If you would like to make this jam, I found the recipe at 'Putting up with the Turnbulls' you can find it here: Spiced Blackberry Jam  it's absolutely delicious, the spices are very subtle but enhance the flavour of the fruit.




I'm adding this recipe to the The Great British Blackberry Recipe Round Up, a Linky party which Karen at Lavender and Lovage and I are running throughout Blackberry season 2015.  Click through to the GBBR post for full details.  You will see that I used the photo from this post for the Linky badge!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Labels: , , , , , , ,

posted by Janice @ 23:55

60 Comments:

At 31 August 2014 at 05:46 , Blogger Jane Willis said...

I love making - and eating - pickles

 
At 31 August 2014 at 05:52 , Blogger emma walters said...

i have just started growing lots of food & now have an allotment - yay! would love to start some pickling next year & going to grow lots of shallots & beetroot to try, just need the perfect book to help me now ;)
@emmav6

 
At 31 August 2014 at 11:49 , Blogger mellysocks said...

Pickling.

 
At 31 August 2014 at 16:28 , Blogger Anne said...

Making chutney of some sort

 
At 31 August 2014 at 17:02 , Blogger Wise Ways said...

I love preserving fruit

 
At 31 August 2014 at 17:33 , Blogger Tracy Nixon said...

I make jam and I pickle too!

 
At 31 August 2014 at 20:27 , Blogger Emma said...

I love preserving fruit, good hobby!

 
At 31 August 2014 at 20:48 , Blogger Unknown said...

i love to make a plum jam/chutney my grandfather has a plum tree in his garden so always has so many left over so i snap them up ;)

 
At 31 August 2014 at 21:41 , Blogger Unknown said...

Jam. Or pickle. Or jam - LOL - I can't choose! Jam I think!

 
At 31 August 2014 at 22:22 , Blogger jillwebb said...

Love making Jam

 
At 31 August 2014 at 22:58 , Blogger Lola888 said...

Jam, I haven't attempted anything else, but I love eating almost everything :)

 
At 31 August 2014 at 23:24 , Blogger Unknown said...

I am very new to preserves so this would be ideal to get me going :-)

 
At 31 August 2014 at 23:30 , Blogger Leanne Lunn said...

Jams, pickling

 
At 1 September 2014 at 01:27 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love making jam.



Debharris723@comcast.net

 
At 1 September 2014 at 08:57 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jam making. The book looks great. @millizilli

 
At 1 September 2014 at 08:59 , Blogger Karen S Booth said...

I WOULD love to win this book and I love to jam, jelly, chutney and bottle!

 
At 1 September 2014 at 14:24 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love jam making. It's so nice to make jam and give to friends.
I really want to make the spiced blackberry jam x

 
At 1 September 2014 at 18:41 , Blogger Nadia said...

I love chutney and it would be great to.make some of my own!

 
At 1 September 2014 at 18:45 , Blogger Nadia said...

PS My other half makes jams and he would love the new suggestions in this book.

 
At 1 September 2014 at 19:22 , Blogger geezerbird44 said...

I love making jams and soups

 
At 2 September 2014 at 14:01 , Blogger Tina Lawton said...

I love making jam to have on my scones :)

 
At 2 September 2014 at 20:20 , Anonymous Stacey Melia said...

I make wine from our fruit...does that count?!?!

 
At 2 September 2014 at 22:35 , Blogger Unknown said...

I love jams

 
At 3 September 2014 at 14:47 , Blogger Unknown said...

I prefer making jam as I never have any luck with making pickles :-)

 
At 3 September 2014 at 14:48 , Blogger Unknown said...

Jam!

 
At 4 September 2014 at 18:26 , Blogger Unknown said...

Pickling :) but would love to learn more about preserving - thank you x

 
At 6 September 2014 at 00:41 , Blogger Unknown said...

tupperware

 
At 6 September 2014 at 09:42 , Blogger Unknown said...

I'm into bottling at the moment. I like seeing the jars of food in my pantry

 
At 6 September 2014 at 12:49 , Blogger kj19 said...

I make jams, chutneys, cordials .. I love seeing my produce in jars in my cupboards

 
At 6 September 2014 at 21:35 , Blogger frances hopkins said...

Pickling x

 
At 7 September 2014 at 21:29 , Blogger fern said...

i so want to get into i all, never tried before. we have a raised veggy plot in our garden which has spent this year establishing, hopefully we will get some decent crops next year, we also have a cherry tree and apple tree so hoping to have good hauls from them next year too. mine & OH's first place and with our young fa,ily were looking at doing as much our selves as possible. i need a bit of a hand though!

leefern2012@live.com

 
At 8 September 2014 at 07:13 , Blogger Unknown said...

I like to dry food. My next step is to get a dehydrator so I can do more

 
At 9 September 2014 at 15:48 , Anonymous rebecca woodroof said...

making jam

 
At 10 September 2014 at 01:10 , Anonymous Solange said...

Making jam

 
At 10 September 2014 at 03:40 , Blogger Heather Haigh said...

I've never tried preserving, apart from bunging it in the freezer, but I would like to.

 
At 10 September 2014 at 07:33 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have to agree with the majority here - jams and jellies :-)

 
At 10 September 2014 at 14:02 , Anonymous Liz Marriott said...

I bottle a lot but would love to learn about salting for veg...

 
At 11 September 2014 at 10:34 , Blogger Unknown said...

pickling

 
At 11 September 2014 at 15:26 , Blogger kasza said...

Jam making

 
At 11 September 2014 at 17:08 , Anonymous jcst104 said...

I really want to try and make a meat rub

 
At 11 September 2014 at 20:56 , Blogger krnries said...

I do like making jam :)

 
At 12 September 2014 at 15:15 , Blogger WeeWillieWilkie said...

I like to make my own piccalilli :)

 
At 12 September 2014 at 15:27 , Blogger Unknown said...

Make jam and pickles but would love to have a go at making chutneys.Looks like a great book

 
At 12 September 2014 at 17:43 , Blogger Rachel Smith said...

I like freezing

 
At 12 September 2014 at 18:37 , Blogger Ser said...

chutney, jam or pickle it.

 
At 12 September 2014 at 19:23 , Anonymous Alison said...

I love making chutney. I would love to try jam but have been scared to so far

 
At 12 September 2014 at 21:46 , Blogger rugmaker said...

Jam

 
At 12 September 2014 at 22:17 , Blogger westendlad said...

Pickling

 
At 12 September 2014 at 22:34 , Blogger lisapop said...

I enjoy making jams although I sometimes find jellies a bit tedious. I recently tried making damson ketchup & it turned out surprisingly well.

 
At 12 September 2014 at 23:02 , Blogger Kristy Brown said...

This is my first harvest this year so am looking at chutneys and jams which I have never done before - before I started growing food the only way to preserve it was to hide it from the tribe!

 
At 13 September 2014 at 08:21 , Blogger denise s said...

this year i have been bottling fruit , it looks so pretty! seeing the fruit in syrup

 
At 13 September 2014 at 09:04 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Got to be making jams and jellies. Tastes soooooo amazing and lasts you all the year round :) @LyndaBrown5

 
At 13 September 2014 at 09:56 , Blogger snarepuss said...

chutney :)

 
At 13 September 2014 at 10:54 , Anonymous Richard Randall said...

I love pickles.

 
At 13 September 2014 at 17:01 , Blogger becky004 said...

Pickling and chutneys

 
At 13 September 2014 at 18:44 , Anonymous Amy Beckett said...

Love pickling

 
At 13 September 2014 at 18:56 , Blogger joanna_kow said...

Pickling

 
At 13 September 2014 at 19:33 , Blogger Lesley Bradley said...

We pickle onions and add a few slicesof home grown fiery chillies

 
At 13 September 2014 at 19:43 , Blogger Foodie Quine said...

Jams & Jellies

 
At 13 September 2014 at 23:12 , Blogger Kiran Parry said...

Pickling

 

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I love to read your comments and try to reply when I can. I have had to enable comment moderation due to high levels of spam, so it may take a little time before your comment is visible. Please let me know if you make one of my recipes or if you have any questions I will try to answer them. Janice

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