Make hay whilst the sun shines.
I love this monday motivation quote! It is so apt for the change in seasons and for our recipe post later this week when I cover making passata. With the farewelling of summer there are lots of things you can do in your kitchen to extend the bounty of delicious produce that is available. That is what natural preserving is all about, you take the abundant ripe produce and either dry or pickle or ferment or heat or freeze or salt or sugar it to retain the flavour and goodness for when it is no longer in season or what is available is too expensive or not worth eating.
3 fabulous fruits to preserve at the height of their season
1. Tomatoes
They taste best at the end of summer. Plump, deep red fruits. Bottling fresh skinned and pureed tomatoes is an Italian traditional. Families still gather together to make a festival of it and here in Australia many of us are adopting it for fun more than anything and to show our kids how to make real food! And making roasted tomatoes jam or chutney spices up your dinner or lunches for months.
2. Mangoes
We are a little past it now but peeling and slicing off cheeks of mangoes and freezing them IQF (individually quick frozen) before bundling them means tropical smoothies can still be had with mid winter blues! Or just puree them and freeze.
3. Stone Fruit
Apricots, peaches, plums - how delicious are they? My grandparents had an orchard and I can still clearly remember bottling season and the labour of love producing large bottles of 'boiled' peaches. As a kid it was always peaches and icecream for dessert when you visited nan. Not to mention apricot or plum jam. Even to make just a few jars is worth your while, they look so pretty on the shelves as gorgeous Weck jars and seals readily available in Australia now.
Weck bottling jars are ideal for preserving summer's abundance.
Why not take a little time to look around and see what's in season now and then research what you can do with it? Martha Stewart's online site is a great place to start.
And did I mention if you DIY preserve it means you control what produce is used (eg organic) and you can don't add anything you don't want. #eatclean
Hope you make hay whilst the sun shines this week.
Cindy x
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Weck bottling jars are ideal for preserving summer's abundance.
