Preserving summer

I've had an extremely busy fortnight making jams and chutneys to make the most of a sudden glut of fruit and veg. We came back from holiday to realise that we'd not told the garden-minding neighbour to keep an eye on the courgette plants - so there were several marrows waiting for us.

The first of them was turned into chutney - a recipe cut from a magazine at some point in time but with a difference - I had a couple of pints of maroon coloured vinegar left after eating pickled cabbage. Having already been used for pickling I don't think it works a second time but I used it for the initial boiling down of the marrow and ended up with a lovely plum coloured chutney.

marrow and tomatoes boiling in the red cabbage vinegar

Then a friend offered us some - as many as we could carry - of his plums
- so I made jam

my parents offered blackberries

and someone local offered pick your own apples on Freecycle and we couldn't say 'No', so I made an autumn mixed fruit jam with apples, blackberries and a few plums

autumn mixed fruit jam

Meanwhile there were still some marrows left and some rhubarb in the garden needing to be picked

soaking marrow and rhubarb in sugar overnight turns the sugar to liquid!

So with some strips of orange peel and a chunk of ginger, they were turned into marmalade, basically the same flavour as rhubarb, ginger and orange preserve I'd made earlier in summer. I'm hoping not all of this ends up on toast as it goes very well with yogurt as a desert.

marrow and rhubarb marmalade