Gooseberry Jam

New technology sometimes sucks -  just saying that if you get a new coil top stove, the safety burners don't allow you to keep something boiling easily.  It's a pretty stove,  but inefficient and causes emergency burner changes when trying to heat a canning kettle for heat processing yummy jam.

I have to make room in the freezer so I can shift the freezer contents of the fridge into said freezer next week, and then empty it enough to eventually defrost it.   I have gooseberries from last year and the year before that I've been wanting to use for jam.  I didn't really have enough  any one year because they are so tiny.    It turned out there was also an old packet, which was freezer burnt, so it went to the compost bin.

the few red gooseberries turned the jam red!

But I had over 1500 g of berries, maybe 1700g.   I sorted out the best 1000g and put them in a pot.  The best producing bush is very old.  It has hard green berries which never ripen because the birds get them first, or they get some sort of bug or blistering as they get softer.   So I harvest the tiny green berries unripe, top and tail them and if I'm not using them immediately, toss them in the freezer.   I have a newer bush, but it has just started bearing fruit.  It gave me about 15 lovely deep red berries last year, which I'd tossed in with last year's harvest.

I was using an 1832 recipe from Cooks Own Book, which is a delightful encyclopedia style cookery book.  It's easy to read and find recipes.   It calls for only half the weight of berries in sugar or a ratio of 1 part sugar to 2 parts gooseberries.   Other period recipes call for 3/4 lb of sugar to each 1lb of berries to as much as a 1:1 ratio of sugar to berries.  I opted for  using 750g of sugar to my 1kg of berries, because they were still pretty tart.

The because the berries were frozen, there were enough ice crystals to keep them from burning as they thawed and started to cook.   I turned the burner off after they started to thicken up.  Gooseberries have a lot of pectin in them, and I still hadn't added the sugar.   After the boiling stopped, I added the sugar in small amounts, stirring it in to dissolve between additions.  This helps keep the sugar from sticking and burning.   Then after we finally got the hot water bath to boil - we had to change a burner out on the new stove -   I brought the jam back up to a boil and boiled it until it started to thicken once again and a dollop on a cold plate showed it was done.   

I put the jam into hot jars, added lids and tossed them in the canner.  Once the water came back to a boil, I let it boil for  10 minutes.  Out came these beautiful little jars of jam.   Gooseberries are indeed an old fashioned flavour, and it does take a lot of extra work to process the berries at first, but oh, it's lovely, lovely jam.   What is also nice is that those few red berries dissolved giving the jam a lovely red colour.

Recipe -  Gooseberry Jam

1 kg gooseberries

750 g sugar

1 1/2 tbsn lemon juice

1/4 c water if berries are fresh or dry frozen.

Top and tail the gooseberries, removing the stem and flower ends from each berry.

Put in a large heavy bottomed pot with water if necessary and the lemon juice.    The lemon juice is a modern precaution to make sure the jam is acidic enough to prevent bacteria from growing or so I've been told.

Cook the berries up on medium heat, stirring periodically until the berries start to get soft.  Take the pot off the heat and when it is slightly cooled, add the sugar in several additions, stirring in between until the sugar is completely dissolved.

Put the jam back on the heat and bring to a boil.  Boil about 5-10 minutes, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom of the pot, so that the jam doesn't scorch.    Test the jam on a cold plate to see if it is of a jam-like consistency, holds it's shape when you run your finger through the dollop etc.   With a funnel, pour the jam (I use a stainless ladle) into prepared (clean and hot) jars.   Wipe the rims of the jars to remove any spills and traces of jam.  Put new lids and clean rings on the jars.    Put into a hot water bath canner which has reached boiling.   Bring the water back to a boil and then start timing.  10 minutes for 250 ml jars 15 minutes for 500 ml jars.   Remove jars and let them sit over night without moving them.  Any jars which don't seal properly, with an indent or the lid concave and secure, should be stored in the fridge and used within a few weeks.

One of those weeks...

 Gooseberries and a few black currants are topped and tailed.  I've popped them in the freezer for now.   I didn't weigh them yet.   However, I'm fairly certain that with what I have from last year, combined with this haul, there will be enough for a batch of gooseberry jam.  

There are more berries on the bush and I might get around to getting them.   I pick the berries just before they are ripe.   The first couple of years here I waited until they were ready to pick and they were eaten before I could get to them.  It seemed like there was a full bush one afternoon and by the next morning the bush was fully stripped of berries.    So vexing!

This year I've left the red currants for the birds.  I got the first harvest of the white currants, but today I realized that the birds had eaten the rest of them.  So much for that.  The black currants are just ripening.   There are raspberries beginning to turn red.  The blackberries flowered a bit early and some of them already have fruit, albeit very green fruit yet.  There should be blueberries in a week or two.   If I get around to picking them, the wild black raspberries may give a good harvest too as there are a lot of volunteer brambles this year.

My sweeties truck spent a bit of time in the shop getting fixed.   Then my car needed a routine

servicing.   I didn't want to wait at the dealership while it was getting an oil change.  They do manage to fit simple tasks like an oil change in, but I've waited 2 hours for it to get done and really didn't want to risk that happening.   As well, they are a bit laissez-faire about sanitizing.  The iffy mask wearing and the wiping down of things with a few squirts of cleaner on a dirty rag icked me out. So I had my sweetie pick me up and while I waited, we went for a walk along the river.   It was so nice.  The weather was perfect.  There was enough breeze to keep the mosquitos away too. 

 I'm switching the servicing of my car to my sweeties mechanic, as the rather rude call after I got home, demanding that I fill out a survey and give them the score they wanted, before I knew the questions that would be asked, really turned me off.   

The dishwasher died.   It's been faultless for over 10 years but the electronics have gone screwy.   Sadly, we don't think it's worth fixing.   I've discovered it's a joyless task looking for new appliances.   Half of them have delivery dates for the fall.  A bunch more just aren't in stock, with no timeline as to when they'll be back in stock.     I can't seem to get curbside pick up set up.  Nope, I don't want you to install it for some stupidly outrageous price when I have people who can do that living here.  Argh.   I want to just stash my dishes, press a button and come back later when they're clean.   I don't want to wait until September or October to be able to do this!

The the clothes washer started making weird squealing noises.    It's never ending...

 

 The Tour de Fleece on line spinning challenge is finished.   The natural brown cotton was spun and plied.  I had 63 g of fibre and ended up with 391 yards of 2 ply cotton yarn.   I spun up 50 g of blue Tussah silk into 160 yards of 2 ply yarn.   The last of the brown cotton is still on the bobbin.   I found another bit of brown cotton tucked away, so will use it up at a later date.   Then I started spinning some white Egyptian cotton.   This stuff is processed differently than the brown and is super slick and slippery.   It takes a bit more concentration.  To be honest, if it was going to be a sample for marking, I'd card the sliver into punis as they spin more easily and consistently.  However, this is for woven yardage, so I'm just spinning straight from the sliver.

  I really wasn't going to spin up more cotton right now, but every skein I've spun over the last 4 or 5 years has gone into a container, so that eventually I'd have enough to weave fabric for a shirt.   I checked it, and there is enough, or almost enough cotton yarn for this project.  However, in my mind, there was at least equal parts of white and the naturally coloured brown and green cottons, with an occasional pick of some dyed yarns.   It turns out, I have almost no white cotton yarn spun!  Egads!   Even though the white is less fun to spin, and since it's my demo fibre, I don't tend to spin it at home, I'm spinning up white cotton so that maybe I can get this project to move forward!

 I didn't get enough white currants to do more than say, hey, "white currants".   There isn't enough for jelly, or pie or anything.  I could juice them and add them to another fruit to use as a source of pectin, but I can't think of anything else and it's not like these are something you find at our local farm markets or fruit stands.

After 2 pickings, I ended up with 500g of gooseberries.  That is just over a pound, after topping and tailing them.   They were smaller than normal this year.  I think this is due to several factors.  First, I did a huge pruning in the spring time, but neglected to prune back some of the new growth.  This means the plants energy went into those new shoots, instead of the berries.  Also, we've had near drought conditions.  That lack of water and the extreme heat which we've had, may also have affected the berry size.  Still, there is enough for a very small batch of jam.  This is another fruit which I haven't seen at any local markets or farm stalls.   I still have a modern, large berried gooseberry plant on my garden wish list though.

Inside and Outside

 I made sourdough bread.  It turned out perfectly.   It had a crunchy crust and a soft, open crumb.   I had tried a new to me formula for making bread.  I passed the info on to my daughter who makes bread too and she sent me a photo of another perfect loaf of bread.  It's good to know that the recipe will work for more than just me.

 This is the brown cotton ready to process.   I found a green cotton skein that I hadn't finished up, so I popped it into the pot at the same time.    When I did my Master Spinner, we had to wind the skein onto a specially prepared PVC pipe that had holes drilled in it.   I did this for all my class samples, but it was a pain.   Now I just toss the skein in a pot.  I've not noticed a ton of difference.   You are also supposed to add a bit of baking soda or something to make the water a bit alkaline.  Although it is supposed to help the processed colour last, I've not noticed a lot of difference, so I don't always use it.   After photo coming as soon as the skeins are dry.

 The chooks have been locked up since early last fall when we had the raccoon issues. They've been itching to go outside as the light has increased, with much noise, clucking and admonishment every time I go into the barn.   Since I'm pretty certain Mr. Raccoon has moved on, and since the hubby is out boiling sap again this weekend, I let the girls out.  Oh, they were happy and content chooks.

I pruned the gooseberry bush.  I started a bit last year but wasn't certain what I was doing.  It was so overgrown that I was a bit worried.  I am not sure it had ever been pruned and it's probably 30 or 40 years old.  There are a lot of videos out there.  Most I saw were from the UK and many had plants which seemed to grow from a central stalk, which didn't apply to my shrub. I couldn't fathom trying to work that out with this overgrown gooseberry.

  Finally I found some instructions on how to prune my type of gooseberry.   I did worry a bit about taking off too much of the old growth, but the more I cut, the more young growth I found.   This is after 2, yes 2 wheelbarrow loads of clippings.    I could take a bit more, but I think I will leave it like this for this year and see what happens.   I've been suggesting that we need to dig it up and replace it for a few years now, but we've never gotten around to it.  This is my maybe we can salvage it attempt.   The fruit is small and a lot of work to clean, but I like gooseberry jam.  Gooseberry jam isn't something you can just buy in a shop around here. But if pruning will help increase the size of the berries, then Yay!

Red Currants and Green Gooseberries.

The currants are ripening daily.   In just a few days I've got 800 g in the freezer.   It's been too hot to use the currants to make jam or bake anything with them for that matter.    This way, I just clean them up, pop them in the freezer and use them when the weather cools.    These are from a very old currant bush.  It's probably some common old fashioned variety, with smaller, tart berries.  I keep thinking I should dig it up and plant a modern cultivar but I never to, and it keeps on giving, with little pruning or care for that matter.

As well, the gooseberries are ripening.  It's hard to tell because these are one of the old hard green common gooseberry bushes.  I bet the bush is 30 years old.  The berries are small and really tart.  They only seem to turn red or ripen when they get eaten by the gooseberry fruit worms.  They take forever to be topped and tailed - you have to snip the blossom and stem ends off before you use them.  Despite this, they make the absolute best jam.   It is soooo good.  

I 've been thinking though that I'd like to take a cutting and plant it elsewhere, then replace this bush with a newer cultivar that has larger, sweeter fruit.     But then I wonder if I just pick half the berries off when it first starts fruiting, if I'd get larger fruit with less effort.    Still, it would be nice to have sweeter berries and maybe more edible with less sugar.  Does anyone know of good, reliable, hardy gooseberry cultivars?

We're still eating salads from the garden, although the spinach has gone to seed with the stinking hot weather we've had recently.    The pumpkins and cucumbers are doing well.  The powdery mildew seems to be held at bay with several sprinklings of sulfur and a change in weather.    I've been spot watering them directly at the roots every day.  They're growing and there are some tiny fruit on one of the pumpkin plants.   The cucumber plants are flowering, the zucchini plants are about to flower and the beans plants are huge and this morning, the little buds finally opened.    That means beans soon too.   If we get some rain here soon, the potatoes will be happy.  It rained on Friday, everywhere but here it seems.