I've made gooseberry jam off and on for years...it's GREAT in a stir fry or stuffed into chicken or with lamb. But now I have a lad (and a hubby) who aren't keen on seeds (ergo their dislike of raspberries).
The boys LOVE it, so I thought I'd share it with you. Rather easy to make overall.
First off gather up a whack of gooseberries. Rinse them off and plop them in a pot with 1/4 cup water for each cup of berries. Don't worry on it if you are over a bit in the water department.
Take your potato masher and mash them up a fair bit. If you don't crush all of them it's okay, seriously. You'll pop that juice out of them them later on.
Let it boil well for about 10 minutes. Then strain it off.
IF you are like me and haven't been able to find jelly or cheese cloth you'll need to improvise. I use our strainer (normally used for pasta, tip it on an angle over a deep bowl and then let the juice drain. Then I take a clean nylon stocking and put the pulp from the gooseberries into it and then have the fun of squeezing more juice out of it.
In the end, starting with about 13 cups of berries I ended up with 6 cups of juice. To that you add 6 cups of sugar slowly heating it will the sugar melts into the juice. Once it is all melted, bring it to a full rolling boil for 10 minutes. Stir all the time, skim off the icky bits (like stems that made their way into the liquid, excess seeds and stuff).
NOW.. HERE is where you have to make a choice...trust they have enough pectin in it to solidify OR add a package of pectin. Recipes for making gooseberry jelly go both ways. Since pectin doesn't keep beyond a year and I have two packages left (and planning to use one in September to make crabapple jelly) I chose to use a packet of liquid pectin as waste not want not.
Add the pectin and 1 tsp of lemon juice, boil another couple minutes. Then take it off the heat, pour into clean washed jars. Put the lids/rings on them and put in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. Doing the hot water bath gives you a shelf stable jelly.
You could also turn it into freezer jelly by putting it into freezer jars, or fridge jelly meaning you need to use it up within six months.
Got a recipe? Share it here eh?
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This sounds yummy and something I would like to try one day. Thank you for the linkup and have a nice morning.
ReplyDeleteThanks! Your snacks look good.
DeleteThat looks so easy! I keep thinking I need to learn to can. Sad, since I grew up with growing a huge garden and helping my mom can everything under the sun.
ReplyDeleteCanning really isn't all that hard to do. I can teach you if you'd like. :)
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