Every fall when I was growing up my mother would be making jam and juice from berries in the garden. For many weeks she would be cooking and preserving every day. She had a garden full of trees with gooseberries, black currant and red currants. We even had strawberries. We would have jam, marmalade, jelly and juice throughout the whole year for the large household that was at our home. We had so much berries in the garden that we didn´t go picking wild berries. However I have one memory when I did that with my mother.
My mother and a friend of hers and I went picking Rose Hips. I remember how hurtful it was to pick them because of the thorns on the bushes and also how much it itched to clean the berries from all the seeds coming home. And my mom cooked Rose Hip Jam.
I do not have any garden or trees of my own. So nowadays if I want berries I have to pick them wild. One September day I looked out from my balcony and I saw all this red spots on the trees below among the apple trees. I always pick the apples but realized all the red spots I saw was Rose Hips! I was thinking back at that day with my mother and her friend. It was very unusual for my mother to take a day to do something like this. Her friend had cancer and died shortly after. So they spent this day together this way picking and talking and cleaning berries.
I decided to get over my fear of Rose Hip bushes this afternoon and armed with gloves I went down to the yard and picked the berries from the bushes. Than I left them in the refrigerator for long because I was remembering the itching of cleaning them. So yesterday I decided to finally take on the challenge. And I conquered again with plastic gloves. Also I took a shortcut through not cleaning all the berries from seeds but cooking part of them whole and passing them after which worked out great! So I made some Jam and some Marmalade.
Rose Hip Marmalade
About 5 dl rose hip marmalade
Ingredients:
- 500 grams of cleaned fresh Rrose Hips
- 2, 75 dl sugar
- ½ cinnamon stick (optional)
Cooking
Rinse and clean fresh Rose Hips. Remove the flower bracket, divide them and clean off the seeds. I use plastic gloves. Try to avoid itching your face or the like as Rose Hips can make you start to itch a little extra.
Roughly chop the Rose Hip shells.
Put them in a saucepan together with 3 tablespoons water and the cinnamon stick.
Boil under a lid on medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. If necessary, add a little more water if it boils dry.
Add and stir in the sugar and cook for another four minutes.
Pour into a clean glass jar.
Opened jar is stored in the refrigerator. I use to freeze jam as well. That way I can have fresh jam later in the year.
Rose Hip Puree
Ingredients:
- 1 kg Rose Hips
- 1 liter of water
Put Rose Hips in a large saucepan and add the water. Bring to a boil and cook for about 15 minutes, until mushy, under a lid.
Peel the Rose Hip from the flower stalk and rinse them.
Pass the Rose Hips into a puree and make sure that all the seeds are out. At this point you can freeze the puree and use it later. However I made marmalade.
Rose Hip Marmalade about 500 gr
Ingredients:
- 250 gr Rose Hip Puree
- 250 gr water
- 350 gr sugar
- ½ vanilla bean
- 1 squeezed lemon
Instructions:
Split the vanilla bean lengthwise.
Mix all the ingredients in a wide-bottomed saucepan and bring to the boil.
Boil to 105 ° C, stirring occasionally.
Pour all through a Sift to make sure the seeds are all out.
Pour in sterilized jars and cool down as soon as possible.
The jam is very good on a roasted bread and is excellent with cheeses.
The Jam can be frozen.
Bj's Live Kitchen 