Day 4 – My zero waste week challenge

On day 1 of my zero waste week challenge, I told you that I was keen to try my hand at preserve making.  Day 4 was jam and jelly day.  I decided to try using the breadmaker to make my first batch of jam.  I didn’t want to buy any more fruit so I decided to make recipes using my garden apples and the fruits of hedgerow foraging, so blackberries, elderflower berries and apple was the order of the day.

My son and I had a lovely morning foraging in local hedgerows and we harvested quite a lot of berries – some went into the freezer for future use and the remainder we turned into either jams or jelly.

A great, and delicious, way of using apples and blackberries is to make this lovely jam.  I made it in on the jam program of the breadmaker.  The recipe is as follows: 2 cups of blackberries, 1 cup of peeled, cored and chopped baking apple, 1 cup preserving sugar and 3 tablespoons of lemon juice.

Once the jam cycle on the breadmaker was finished, I transferred the jam to warmed jam jars (I’ve been collecting these all year and it’s great to finally put them to good use).  Once the jam has cooled you can label and put away.  This should work first time, but if it doesn’t set sufficiently, pour the jam into a thick bottomed saucepan and boil gently for a few minutes and try again.

I’m very pleased with my first try at preserving and I’m keen to try some chutneys or pickles next to help deal with vegetable gluts from our allotment.

Related posts:

1. Day 3 – My zero waste week challenge
2. Day 1 – My zero waste week challenge
3. Day 5 – My zero waste week challenge
4. Day 2 – My zero waste week challenge
5. Zero Waste Week

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