My wife and kids are leaving for three weeks in Europe tomorrow evening just as the berries, tomatoes, and peppers begin to ripen. I don’t know anything about sauce or jam making.
I guess I’m going to learn.
TIL there’s such a thing as black raspberries, I was convinced that you just had a extremely early blackberry. Seems like they’re mostly grown on the north American west coast.
What are they like? My local plant pusher actually has them in stock so I might get a few.
They’re very similar in flavour to a regular red raspberry. My wife says they are seedy but I think she’s just used to seedless raspberries. I like them. I’m going to make jam if I can gather enough of them.
Forgot to mention: the biggest issue with jams IMHO is getting the jars and cleaning them.
Vis-a-vis sauces I haven’t tried storing them without a freezer, but I suspect that it’s similar to jams. Wash the jars in a fungicide, then put them on a baking tray and pour in the sauce and place in an oven without lids. Once jar and sauce is real hot you put on a lid.
Again an opinion, but I generally don’t want to dehydrate vegetables for storage, takes too long.
You can also just ziplock and freeze them. They’ll be good enough for sauces or smoothies months from now
I forgot to mention that there is no freezer space so even if I do make sauce and/or jam I have to figure out how to can them, too. AAAIGH!
I don’t know much either, but for the berries, worst case just freeze them individually on a baking sheet as they ripen, then transfer frozen berries to a ziploc bag or other airtight container. You can make jam later or throw them in smoothies or just enjoy them as a summer snack.
I forgot to mention that there is no freezer space so even if I do make sauce and/or jam I have to figure out how to can them, too. AAAIGH!
Dehydrator? You can preserve tomatoes by cutting them in half, laying on baking trays and throwing some thyme sprigs, olive oil, salt and smashed garlic cloves over them. Bake at like 200F for as long as it takes to dry them out.
Mmmm…what will I put on my chicken parm then?!?
The rest of the tomatoes! There will be MANY!
You have all the answers!
Ohh I’ve been stumbling across these on my walks lately. Always a nice treat, 99% of what I see is thimble berries and blackberries. Love the black raspberries. I harvested some seeds to try to cultivate for next year, though I suppose trying to bring home cuttings might be easier.
Have you ever made blackberry jam. I love the stuff. What about blackberry ice cream? It’s dark purple and, in my humble opinion, the king of ice creams. Just add the berries at the end or your ice cream will turn to foam.
Funny you should say, I recently began making my own ice cream. And it’s also full-on blackberry season. It’s all coming together…
Let me know if you need a recipe.
I mascerate the blackberries with a tablespoon of sugar. I add the sugar and mash them up roughly with fork then let them soak in the sugar and their own juice for about 30 minutes. Add them right at the end because raspberries and blackberries will ruin the texture of your ice cream if you put them in at the beginning.
