Weekend + food

I kicked off the weekend with some apple pie baking. I'd had some wild apples sitting around for weeks that I couldn't bear to waste. So I made up a sweet shortcrust pastry and cooked up the apples with sugar, cinnamon quills and vanilla extract. To the last pie I added some leftover frozen berries from the freezer.

 On Sunday we headed out for a dirt road drive and ended up at the local monthly market. I bought some lemons and plums. Home grown lemons are a rarity in our area. The plums I thought I would turn into some jam. My previous experience with jam was a batch of cherry jam at christmas 2008. It was really so easy though and actually a little fun... don't you love that type of cooking? If you haven't tried jam I urge you to give it a go. From 1kg of fruit I made six jars of jam. Fun and frugal.

Do you remember those quinces? Well, here are a few of them cooked into Quince Jelly. Which, by the way, takes a lot of fruit and makes a small amount of jelly. Now I know why the CWA charges so much for these jellies. Here they are in all their red glory.

Quince Jelly

1.5kg quinces

1kg sugar

juice 1 lemon

strip of lemon rind

7 cups water

Place washed quinces whole in large saucepan with sugar, lemon juice, rind and water. Bring to the boil, stirring often. Boil gently for two hours, remove lemon rind and quinces. 

Pour into sterilized jars and seal. 

I used a water bath method afterwards. Rhonda from Down to Earth has written a good post here about this method.

Adapted from A Year in a Bottle by Sally Wise.

Labels were from here. Other cute one's available here.

Hope yours was a good weekend.