Making the Ingredients Work Harder.

[SarzWix]

Today I have been highly impressed with my own frugality I had various bags of soft fruit in the freezer, but not enough of each one to make anything worthwhile, so I put them all together and got a big panful. It included blackcurrants, redcurrants, raspberries, blackberries and gooseberries. I heated them til they started simmering, then strained them through a jelly bag (without squeezing it ).
The juice, I measured and added a lb of sugar per pint (2½), heated it gently until the sugar dissolved and added a squeeze of lemon & a campden tablet, then bottled it in sterilised bottles - 6 half bottles of Summer Fruit Cordial!
The pulp from the jelly bag, I pushed through a sieve to remove the pips & skins, weighed it, and added a lb of sugar to a lb of pulp. This will be simmered down in the morning, then spread on greasproof paper in swiss roll tins to make Fruit Leather (think Kellogs Winder)
The skins, pips and remaing pulp in the sieve were then added to a handful of rasps & blackberries from the garden, put into a tupperware container with some sugar & a bottle of vodka poured over them. After a few weeks (I hope) it'll be Summer Fruit Vodka!

[Flummery]

Well done that MOM! I often combine fruits for jam, chutney etc. I can always manage to cobble together a chutney - a favourite ingredient is wild crab apples. They are SO pippy but you can chop and stew them and strain (without squeezing for mixed fruit jellies, with squeezing for jams and chutneys.) Add your other fruits and ingredients - a bit of all round the counter works fine as long as you keep the weight of total fruit the same as your original recipe. Just put 2 x 3lb bags of crab apples in the freezer for when I've got a day unspoken for!

[SarzWix]

I still haven't found a wild source of crab apples, although I know where there's one in a front garden... Perhaps I should knock on their door and offer to swap them for jars of jelly?!

[Flummery]

You might be surprised how fast they snap your hand off!

[Hilary B]

I have made some great crab-apple jelly from 'ornamental' crab apples. The red ones make a lovely deep red jelly, and the green or yellow ones make a delicately pink jelly. Some people like to leave the apples on the tree to look pretty through the winter, or to feed the birds, but from a biggish tree there will always be windfalls and these work just as well (as long as they haven't been on the ground too long). I just wish we had some around here......
The best place for crab apples around here is a path that used to be a railway until Dr Beeching closed so many of them. They aren't 'pure' crab aples,having sprung from apple cores thrown out of train windows when the track was in use, but they do make pretty good jelly.....
I have 'planted' a fair few similar trees beside roads....

[Sue]

My fruit frugality is adding windfall apples to soft fruits, I had five plums yesterday and with the aid of the windfalls made 9 portions of plum and apple fruit compote.
You just need to get the apples really soft add the soft fruit to the apples and cook till right for you. Slow cooker is very good for this. I add a knob of butter, some spice and sugar and use either the juice of an orange - or when I didn't have an orange, a slug of my homemade damson gin. This is absolutely wonderful with hedge blackberry and windfall compote.

And if you wash apples first you can freeze the apple cores and peel to use later to cook, put through a sieve and you get a lot of puree, that's the sort of frugality I like!
Sue

[Flummery]

The 'peelings and cores' puree is a good addition to mixed fruit jams as it contains a lot of pecten.

I made a windfalls crumble yesterday - a pear, some bramleys and a slack handful of plums. Blimmin gorgeous!

[di]

Sarah how do you dry your fruit leather?The recipe I have states to leave the oven door open to ensure it dries & not steams~not an option I have with my oven!!I did read that you can leave it on the back shelf of the car & let the sun dry it out but sadly not too much sun!BTW I have a recipe for pumpkin leather which I'll hopefully be trying out once they're all harvested!

[Flummery]

Quince leather is fabbie - just air dried it.

[finefencer]

How about this one!
Sloe, danson, Gin or Vodka.....or any other fruit you care to use....then after the fruit has been steaped for the required time.....dont through the fruit away....stone the fruit...melt some choc put fruit into a non stick tray...pour over the melted choc...WAITE untill cool...mark into squares, and when cold brake up....home made choc truffels.....mmm

[SarzWix]

Mine's in the oven with the door open, but I don't put the oven on specifically for it, just put it in after something else has been cooking and use the residual heat. It's almost ready now, it's taken a lot longer than I thought! An airing cupboard might work, if you have one, with the heat rising from the hot water tank?
Or, in the Preserved book (Green Metropolis - Book details) it shows you how to make a drying box, using a lightbulb for the heat. I'd do it if I had room for it!!