Rosehips

[Sue]

Well
I've got 1 1/2lb of rosehips, now what do I do with them? I don't even know what they taste like...
I can't do wine in my tiny flat but if you have any other tried and tested recipes I'd be pleased to hear from you
best wishes
Sue

[cottage garden]

Rosehip and apple jelly is supposed to be lovely. I am very envious, I can't seem to find any round here.

Rosehip and apple jelly

1 1/2lb rosehips
3 lbs apples
granulated sugar

Chop apples roughly and place in pan with rosehips. Fill with just enough water to cover them and gently cook till the apple is soft.
Strain through jelly bag overnight.
Add 1lb of sugar for every pint of juice.
Heat juice and sugar till the sugar has dissolved and then boil until setting point is reached.
Pour into warm jars and seal

[shirlthegirl43]

Rosehip syrup:

"This is a rich source of Vitamin C, is much cheaper to make than to buy. Use as for the bought product i.e. a teaspoonful of syrup daily. It is best stored in small bottles.

2.5lb ripe red rose hips, wash and remove the calyces. Put through a mincer and pour on 3 pints boiling water. Turn into a pan and bring up to the boil. Draw aside and stand for 15 minutes. Strain through a jelly bag or muslin. Measure juice and, if more than 1.5 pints, boil down in a clean pan until the juice measures that amount. Add 1.25lb sugar, allow to dissolve, then boil hard for 5 minutes. Bottle when cold and sterilise as for other syrups"

Recipe from the Cordon Bleu book of Jams, Preserves and Pickles.

[rustylady]

Doesn't matter how small your flat is, you always have room to make wine or preserves. For wine, all you need initially is a large bucket to start the brew. Then one or two glass demijohns (can sit quite happily on a worktop). Go for it and have fun.

[Sue]

Rustylady
I'd love to make wine, but worktops - what worktops, I've got so much in my kitchen I've hardly space to roll out pastry! And now the dehydrator is in constant use, it's having to sit on the living room floor.
I suppose, thinking about it, there is a tiny bit of space in the bathroom...

But I've never made wine before and like pressure cookers am always nervous it's all going to explode.
Sue

[Sue]

Cottage Garden
Mine come from an old rose tree that is growing on my allotment which I inherited. It was enormous, growing up to 8ft, we pruned it right back to stumps in 2005,and didn't see any flowers at all last year but this year it's been beautiful, pink, slightly fragrant single pinky white flowers, goodness knows what variety it is. It's covered in rose hips now, I've left lots for the birds, could have had at least another 1lb.
It's in a bit of a wasted space, about 25ft x 12ft, besides the rose tree there is a rowan and two sumach, so I've made a flower border out of it all there's no way I could get the trees out and the shade is so welcome in the height of summer, still it's a good place to have herbs and I grow alpine strawberries there for the hens and I can indulge my passion for lilac and bluebells too.
Perhaps you need to find a big rose bush, prune it within an inch of its life and stand back!
And thanks for the recipe, think I'll give that a go, would imagine it would end up a beautiful colour.
best wishes
Sue

[Hazel at the Hill]

......like pressure cookers am always nervous it's all going to explode.

Hmmm - you've had the same psychologically-scarred-for-life childhood experiences that I've had, Sue!

Actually - I'd give the rosehip wine a go - you'll never know if you are on to a winner or not otherwise....and if stepping over 'paraphenalia' gets on your nerves more than the taste of the end product, then fair enough - but try anything once??

[Snadger]

I once made rosehip wine but although it was quite tasty, I had to chuck it out as it was giving me a bad throat!
Do you remember when you were kids taking out the seeds and dropping them down your mates shirt collar as itching powder?.............well those same fir covered seeds allow that same itching powder to get into the wine. Even though it was well 'racked', microscopic quantities in wine affected my throat and gave me a hiccy cough!
I suppose it would have been ok if I had de-seeded the hips!

[redadmiral]

i made apple and rosehip jelly this year (pretty much exactly the same recipe as described above) and it's lovely. the rosehips give an interesting taste, completely different from any jams or jellies you would buy in the shops.
rosehip syrup is lovely over pancakes.

oh and also, in sweden they make a sort of rosehip "soup" which can either be eaten on it's own, diluted to a drink, or poured over icecream. i'm not sure how you'd go about making it, but it was good with icecream - surprisingly!

[Sue]

Thanks everyone, looks like it will be rosehip jelly then, as I don't have enough this year for the syrup.
And will start reading up on winemaking which has been on my list of things to consider along with bee keeping and cheese making.
Sue

[swampie sue]

Hi,

I would like to make rose hip jelly but am not sure if you have to use a special kind of rose hip.... There are lots of wild ones growing around here along with the masses of hawthorne berries that I would also like to make into jelly.

[Flummery]

Any rose hip will do Swampie sue. The wild ones are great - better after a frost.

[dianajellymaker]

I've made a lot of jelly, but today I made my first batch of rosehip jelly. It's not bad in flavour but not as special as I had hoped. I used a variety of rosehip growing in the hedgerows which is quite orange when ripe. I neglected to photograph the hips but here is a photo of what the extract looked like when boiling in "phase 2" of making the jelly: . As you can see, the jelly has a soft honey-like colour. Here is a photo of the finished jelly: .

I've picked a second lot of rosehips which are smaller and of a cranberry red colour when ripe. I will try making these and comparing the taste of the two. These I did photograph: . Hopefully the colour and taste of the finished jelly will be pleasing.

[vegnut]

Superb looking jelly dianajellymaker. It will be interesting to find out if they vary in taste, using different varieties.

[dianajellymaker]

Thank you vegnut! The second batch (with the smaller, red hips) has just been put in the jelly bag now. The extract is much slower to flow - only 200ml so far - so it will be a small yield. I am happy to say it has a pinky colour rather than a yellow one this time.

It will indeed be interesting to compare the flavours of the two varieties.