Jam time again

I've been busy making jam again.  So far I've made:

cherry
damson
blackcurrant
blackberry and apple
blackberry and plum
blackberry medley
raspberry
four fruit marmalade
apple and sloe jelly
autumn jelly
piccalilli


No pickles yet.  Our little tree has excelled itself and I have processed about 50lbs of damson plums.  I have 16 bags of stewed fruit in the freezer and many lbs of jam.  We have a bramble in te garden that I would not let my husband get rid of until I had picked the fruit.  So far I've had about 4lbs of fruit from it as well as picking blackberries from any other place that I find them.  I've managed to scrounge apples from a couple of people to add to the jams and have four (so far!) bags of stewed apple with sultanas in the freezer for winter puddings.  I love stewed fruit with yoghurt for pudding. Yum! I've also bottled 12 small jars of apple sauce.

We lost our big freezer and also our little one in the last year. We've replaced the big one but not bought a little one.  I was trying to do without it but I answered a Freecycle ad last week and have now got a new (to me) small freezer again. Yay!  The theory goes that the small one gets used to house the harvest and gets turned off when empty.  My last little one never got to be empty because I would fill it with yellow stickered bargains.  I was so upset when that one died because we didn't notice until there was a funny smell and so we couldn't rescue anything.  Right now, having extra freezer space, I feel like a squirrel putting away a good food store for the wintertime : )

Talking of jam - has anybody else spotted that Lidl have their sugar on sale at 39p?  It is only just a year ago that sugar was nearly £1 a bag!  I shall have a few packs in store for Christmas baking and further marmalade making. I suspect Aldi will have their sugar at a similar price too.

This post has been edited to keep my list of preserves up-to-date so that I know what I have made.

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