Taste tests of preserved fruit
Last year, we had an
astonishing fruit harvest, and I took advantage of the opportunity to
try out different ways of preserving the bounty. We've enjoyed
large quantities of strawberries for years now, so we know that strawberry freezer jam is astonishingly good when heated enough to pour sparingly over spring salads and that strawberry leather is a delicious dessert. But how about ways of preserving extra peaches, raspberries, and blackberries?
Last summer, I tried a
bunch of different preservation methods, and after a winter of eating
out of the larder, I now know which techniques are worth repeating and
which aren't. White peaches are best fresh, and I was disappointed
by the leather I made out of those that weren't quite ripe (but had to
be cut into before brown rot
overtook the whole fruit). On the other hand, cooking down those
not-quite-ripe peaches until they were quite thick and then freezing the
sauce turned out to be a delicious addition to my morning bowls of kefir.
With the extra berries, I tried out various kinds of jam. I have to admit that even though I had fun experimenting with traditional types of jam-making, the results were too sweet and too cooked for my palate. On the other hand raspberry freezer jam and blackberry freezer 
jam
were quite possibly even better than strawberry freezer jam...although
next year I might strain the seeds out of the bramble fruits since
they're a bit harder between your teeth than strawberry seeds are.
On a mostly unrelated
note, we're also tasting the first asparagus of the year this
week. We haven't had to get creative there because asparagus
roasted with a bit of oil, salt, and pepper is so good, we eat it like
candy. Like strawberries, we feel like there can never be too much
asparagus in our kitchen and on our table.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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