Winter doldrums...Jelly and Jam making time at my house

[aftermidnight]

Now is the time of year, I make my jams and jellies, today it's Paradise Jelly, a mix of quince, apples and cranberries. I juice the fruit in season and then stick in the freezer until this time of year, this way I miss that sweating over the stove in the summer and early fall when I'm busy in the garden. The years have taken their toll and I can no longer do... or maybe it's just I don't want to bust my rear anymore LOL. When I took the juice out of the freezer the quince juice had a bit of a fermented smell to it, I hope it's O.K. as one lot of jelly is already made, and another is ready to go, maybe it will taste a little zippy .

The reason for the mad frenzy is the little freezer I bought to store my bean seed in is full of berries and juice and I need to free up space for all the bean seed now thoroughly dried and is perched on every ledge and vacant spot I could find, that with a kitty who likes to bat everything she can get her paw on onto the floor it's been fun, precious little thing that she is, sometimes....

Next will be the freezer raspberry jam, much preferred to the cooked version, some raspberry juice thickened up with sugar for sundae toppings, this also frozen. The blackberries still have to be juiced and made into jelly, I'll also make some sauce for whatever and freeze that too. The only jam I make in season is strawberry, the cooked version but then I freeze it, it all comes down to taste, which way we prefer it. I used to make raspberry vinegar but I have found a place to buy the most amazing raspberry balsamic vinegar I don't think I'll ever make it again.

Do any of you hold off until the winter months to do this sort of thing, I find it passes the time when stuck in the house when the garden is either soggy wet, frozen or under a foot or so of snow. We actually have snow this year, last year not so much as a flake and very mild other then a bit of a freeze the first two weeks in November. This year we're having a winter, freezing temps, snow, yep, a real winter, no running around in shirtsleeves this time round.

What all do you do all you gardeners do to get through the winter, that is if you live in a place that actually gets one.
Annette

 

[Nyboy]

Read !!!!

 

[majorcatfish]

here at the house from spring till fall we do all the canning, winter time well for me plan the nexts years garden.
chit chat with family and friends and read up....

 

[so lucky]

Read, plan next year's garden, sew, exercise, do jig saw puzzles and Sudoku. I am finally getting up enough steam to start clearing out kitchen drawers and other long overdue areas.
I have a jar of frozen grape juice from last year's grapes. I could make jelly out of that, I suppose. Mmmmm, grape jelly on home made biscuits with butter. Now I'm hungry.

 

[journey11]

I agree with you, Annette, it's so much easier to make jam in the winter. I just recently found that out. Having gotten backlogged on canning, I stuck many things in the freezer and came back to them later. I had been canning jam, tomato sauce, chicken stock and deer meat from the freezer in November and still have a few more tomatoes to do up. When my second freezer got accidentally defrosted by my 8-year-old leaving the door ajar, my seeds gave up their space too. The unheated sun-room is cooler than the rest of the house, but not consistent in temp, so I need to hurry and get them back in the freezer.

For the most part, I use my winter time indoors to catch up on deep cleaning and sorting. Things that I refuse to do on a sunny summer day!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I make some jellies and jams in season but also freeze some fruit or juice and make them in the fall after the garden is done. I've canned blackberry juice to use for jelly later. Most of mine go as Christmas presents so I have to be done before Thanksgiving. I start distributing my Christmas gifts at Thanksgiving for a couple of relatives.

I freeze chicken carcasses for broth.. I freeze tomatoes and make sauce. And I keep some veggies in the freezer just to make soup. A lot of this I make in season because freezer space gets precious and I have to make room. But a lot of this gets made in the fall/winter months

Since some people like photos this is what I gave this year.

From bottom right, going left

Peach Jam, Grape Jelly, Mint Jelly, Mimosa Jelly, Blueberry Jam, Pear Jam


Second row, from the right

Sweet Pepper Jam, Apple Jelly, Mixed Fruit Jelly, Strawberry Jam, Margarita Jelly, Mulberry Jelly


On top

Peach Chutney

 

[journey11]

@Ridgerunner , what is mimosa jelly made of?

 

[aftermidnight]

Oh lord, kitchen drawers, I didn't even think about that . Then there's the kitchen cupboards they also need a good dung out, double . It would be home made biscuits and strawberry jam here, maybe tomorrow when I get all this clutter out of the kitchen. Second batch of jelly sitting on the counter, first wax poured, string embedded, when that sets another spoonful of wax and then the lids.
We had roast chicken on Sunday so there's a big pot of chicken soup cooling to go in the freezer. Tonight no fancy cooking just good old tacos with some of the awesome salsa my #1 son makes each year, mom must have sucked up sufficiently he gave me 6 bottles for Christmas, rather gloating about that, nobody else got any .
Annette

 

[Ridgerunner]

Journey I can tell you've never been a bartender. Champagne and orange juice.

 

[digitS']

Annette, I peek under the low tunnel in the greenhouse every week or so, as per my winter greens thread ...

Jams and jellies from Summer frozen juices make sense. I had a Northern Spy apple tree in Dad's backyard for several decades. It ripened fruit so late that those apples were a good choice for me to make apple butter in the not-so-busy Autumn.

At one time, pear butter was important to me but Bartlett pears, the only one I'm familiar with using, aren't easily found in late fall. Both pear and apple butters were just fine, frozen. Apricot jam was a pain to can but I felt obligated.

That jam was my only canning experience. I used it in a gift pack for the owner of the tree and lot were I had a garden, 25 years ago. Pretty low rent for a nice garden space, across the alley from my home.

Steve