Adventures in Preserving 4 and 5: Plum Jam and Gingered Courgette/Zucchini Jam

The next two jams I tried (a couple of weeks ago) I had full recipes for - from the preserving course.

The first is a plum jam recipe. I used three types of plums:


And then did the usual boiling and sugaring and boiling:



And it ended up as jam!



The other recipe I wanted to try was demonstrated at the preserving workshop day. It's called "Gingered Courgette Jam" which for some reason does sound better than "Gingered Zucchini Jam." For some reason, it feels like it would be normal to make a jam out of courgettes, but not out of zucchinis, even though they're exactly the same vegetable.

Anyway, we got to taste some on the workshop day, and it was pretty good - almost like candy, actually, because of the ginger. And I had a couple of courgettes that I had grown (yay!) that were getting a bit too big to eat normally, so I thought it was worth a try, especially since it was enough to make half a recipe - not a whole one, which I thought might be too much.

So you start out by peeling and grating the zucchini/courgettes and ginger - which is what turned out to be the most time-consuming part, since I don't have a food processor (poor me):



And then you do the normal boiling and sugaring and boiling:



And it also ends up as jam.

We haven't tried the courgette one yet, but I have been eating the plum jam, and it's pretty good. I tried the variation that uses orange juice and some nutmeg, which gives it a nice flavor.

Here they all are, plus two bottles of the previously mentioned shrub. I'm now up to four bottles total of shrub, having finished off my second batch this last weekend.


So not a bad output, considering I'm brand new to it, and not taking it too seriously. And it's not just about jam, as you'll soon see...