Monday 3 August 2009

a photo a day in august - day 1

last night i was comment clicking around taurus rising and found katy's new blog i see you and noticed that she's doing a the byron life's photo a day in august and following the aformentioned convoluted trail of clicks i thought i might join in too, albeit a bit late.

now it just so happens that i had my camera out on saturday to record my first attempt at quince preserve so here are day one's photo two days late.


over the last three weekends i've been taking boxes and bags of fruit to my parents house and together we've been learning how to preserve. the quince preserve we made this weekend comes from turquoise : a chef's travels in turkey and involved making a quince jelly with the peels, cores and slices of quince, but removing slices before they disintegrate, straining the juices so the jelly is clear and adding all the slices of quince back into pot for the last 20 mins of cooking. so in the end you get a lovely clear rosy jelly AND lots of tasty slices of quince to squash on your toast!
the quinces we used where very ripe so we added a couple of lemons to the pot while it was boiling away to try and increase the pectin. i'm not sure how the lemons halves would have changed the flavour of the preserve, but my dad thought they where delicious and ate all the candied pink lemon flesh as we fished the quaters, piping hot, out of the pot!

6 comments:

  1. Oooo... its a rare and wonderful thing to have a bootilicious supply of quinces. A humble, antiquated and incredibly yummy fruit! I can recommend Maggie Beer's book "Maggies Harvest" if you are looking to expand your bottling/preserving repertoire. Kel's blog is also jam-packed (haha) with ideas!

    Welcome to blogland too.

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  2. that sounds like a delicious preserve...so nice to have treats like that stocked in the pantry!

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  3. oh quince anything gets my vote,but that sounds extra nice. your dad also gets my vote for knowing soething delicious when he sees it!

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  4. I have never tried quince - but your recipe sounds like it would be delicious...

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  5. jen - i told my partner's mother i wanted to make quince jelly and 2 minutes later she magically produced a bag full of quinces! isn't she lovely?! maggie's harvest is wonderful, i made the quince pickle from it the weekend before the preserves. :)

    bird bath - i'm trying to build up a collection of tasty preserved treats in my pantry, rather i'm building it up in my parents much larger pantry and i take a bottle home with me when i need it!

    kel - it was extra nice with the chunks of quince instead of just jelly. and your right, my dad definitley deserves a vote!

    megan.k - i tasted it this morning on my toast and it was delicious. light, floral and delicious! i hadn't cooked with quinces until last year, but once i started they immediately became my favourite fruit!

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