Saturday, 17 September 2011

So, back to the carrots.

Once again it's been a little while since my last post. And again, sorry about that. It's been a summer of full weekends and rather tired, easy, cheap, not particularly bloggable weekday suppers. We've eaten a lot of chickpeas. A lot of pasta. And a lot of Quorn. *yawn*

But with Autumn pretty much upon us and Winter ominously looming I promise, PROMISE, pies, stews, soups and baked goods various.

Anyway, spurred on by my jam making success earlier in the year I thought I'd give it another go. And in the spirit of the blog I chose carrot jam. Yes. Carrot jam. Why? Well, post jam making I'm not sure it was my best choice but it's not unpleasant. Just, um, unusual. See Hugh for the recipe.

Now for the justification. Try and get through this bit. Carrot jam may sound unusual but the carrot was massively important during the rationing of WW2. Really, it's a jam of necessity but as vintage is very popular these days I figure that carrot jam is cool. Yes.

A few words of warning. Only make this jam if you have a food processor. Or over-developed arm muscles for grating. Do not just use granulated sugar. Use jam sugar with added pectin to help it set. I trusted Hugh and used granulated and I was there for a loooooong time. I only got it to set (ish) by adding more sugar when I had finally got bored of waiting.

So the final product, with it's cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg, is like the jam equivalent of carrot cake. Miss Hurley Burley at work suggested a good piece of tangy, crumbly wensleydale cheese to accompany it. I think she's right. Think chilli jam not strawberry and it's not so weird. Well...

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