Sugar-free Jam - my first attempt!

A lot of the recipes call for use of sugar-free jam. I've been buying this but really I'd like to make my own. So after searching on the internet I found a few recipes and tried this one out. I have to say it was much quicker and easier than making 'normal' jam. The resulting jam wasn't as sweet as the shop brought sugar-free jams so I think next time I'd add more juice concentrate. I was lucky enough to find a lot of mirabelles (small, sweet, yellow plums) growing for free in the hedgerow so made the jam from these. However, I'm sure you could use any variety of sweet plums if you don't have mirabelles!

Sugar-Free Mirabelle Jam
Ingredients
900 g mirabelles (or other plums)
90 ml apple juice concentrate
120 ml liquid pectin (I used Certo)
Recipe
1.  Stone and chop fruit. Place in pan with apple juice concentrate.
2. Simmer for ten minutes.
3. Boil hard for ten minutes.
4. Add the liquid pectin and pot in sterilised jam jars.

More pickle!

Ok, some more pickle! Both me and my other half love bread and butter pickle. For those of you who haven't heard of it it's a pickle made from cucumbers and is for eating with bread and butter (not made from it!). It tastes especially good with some strong cheddar too. It normally contains sugar but having looked up a few recipes for pickling cucumbers I know that you can still preserve them without the sugar due to the vinegar and salt content. So I thought I'd use the normal recipe for it but omit the sugar. The recipe is courtesy of my mum this time!


Bread and Butter Pickle
Ingredients
1 large cucumber
1 red onion, sliced very thinly
1 green pepper, deseeded and cut into strips
1 1/2 tbsp coarse sea salt
300 ml white wine vinegar
50 ml apple juice concentrate (original recipe contains 275g caster sugar)
1 tbsp mustard seed
1 tsp celery seed or dill seed (I didn't have any so skipped this!)
5 cm stick of cinnamon
6 allspice berries
Pinch of cayenne pepper

Recipe
1. Peel cucumbers (if you wish) and slice thinly. Mix with onion, pepper and salt in a bowl.
2. Sit a plate on top of the bowl, weigh it down and leave in the fridge overnight.
3. Drain the vegetables and rinse under running water until they don't taste too salty.
4. Heat the vinegar, juice concentrate and spices and simmer for a few minutes.
5. Add the vegetables, stir once and bring to a bare simmer.
6. Put into hot, sterilised jars and put lids on.

Tastes better after maturing a while so leave it for a few weeks if you can! I haven't tried it yet but will soon as we have some nice cheddar in the fridge that would go perfectly....

Pickle

Well yesterday the neighbour came over and asked if I wanted a rather large bag of runner beans as they were rather overwhelmed by the production of their plants! How could I refuse? And I had wanted to try out this recipe for a pickle after I saw it on TV. Pickles and chutneys often use sugar in so have been off the list for us. However, I quite like having some with some bread and cheese so I'm looking forward to trying this one. It's maturing for a bit now (although I don't think it needs to according to the recipe) and I shall report back soon....

Mixed Vegetable Pickle (from "The Edible Garden" series on BBC with Alys Fowler)

Ingredients
450 ml cider vinegar
50 ml apple juice concentrate
2 tsp salt
450 g green beans, strung and sliced (I used a mix of runner beans, yellow courgette and red pepper)
2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
1 habenero chilli, deseeded and sliced (I skipped this as didn't have any!)
5 cm piece cinnamon bark
2 bay leaves
Small sprig of winter savory
Pinch of black peppercorns

Recipe
1. Mix the vinegar and fruit juice concentrate in a bowl. Add more juice or vinegar to taste.
2. Add herbs/spices to vinegar mix and let everything marinate.
3. Chop the vegetables and add to the vinegar mix.
4. Put in a clean jar, squashing the vegetables in and ensuring they are covered with the vinegar mix. If not then add more vinegar/juice concentrate.

They can be eaten straight away but do improve with age. I couldn't fit mine in one jar so had to use two. I tried to share the spices/herbs between them so hopefully it's worked! Here's a picture of the finished product.