Berry good year for jam, jellies

I must confess that, despite any gardening credentials to which I may lay claim, my efforts this summer in the vegetable arena were disastrous. My family has enjoyed eating fresh produce for a few meals and will manage a few more, but I have had to resort to buying peas for the freezer and beets for pickling, and must rely on the supermarket shelves for everything else.

No blue ribbons for me, so why am I still smiling?

As ever, along with garden disasters, there have been successes. My apples, berries and the local indigenous berries are all glorying in a bumper crop. Rather than scrimping together a few precious jars of jam to serve to special company, or perhaps to horde for private usage, here is an opportunity to produce quantities of one’s favorite fruit products — enough even to give away as gifts or to try something new while still retaining a good supply of the favorites.

Apples, for instance, do not need to be confined to jelly. As a matter of fact, I rarely make jelly of any kind, preferring instead to use the entire fruit rather than the juice alone.

Applesauce is simple to make. Cook the apples whole and put them through a sieve, or core them first and do not sieve for a chunky sauce. Either way, they are better cooked slowly, relying on stirring, not on the addition of water, to prevent sticking. Add sugar to taste and try flavoring some of the sauce with rosemary, mint, cloves or horseradish. Plain applesauce, as well as the less savory flavors, go well with crepes or pancakes and moisten a cake nicely. Eat the rosemary -flavored sauce with poultry, mint flavor with lamb, clove with pork and horseradish with beef. Or be adventurous and try garlic, dill, fennel or lavender flavorings.

To make apple butter, cook apples as for sauce, but add vinegar while cooking, and then sugar and spices of your choice, which might include cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, mace, cardamom or ginger in any combination that suits your fancy. Small apples are wonderful pickled whole in a brine of half vinegar and half water with sugar and spices to taste, and cider can be extracted from any apples with a press. What could be better than mulled cider on a winter day? Process all of the aforementioned in a hot water bath for 20 minutes to seal jars for storage.

Berries, of course, are traditionally made into jellies, jams or preserves. Jellies, as I have indicated, are made using only the liquid strained from cooked or heated fruit, as distinguished from jams and preserves, which use whole or pitted fruit; the distinction between these latter two being less precise, in that jams are usually well stirred while preserves should be stirred as little as possible so as to leave the fruit intact.

With such an abundant crop available this year, try experimenting with fruits in unusual combinations such as rhubarb-apple, blueberry-raspberry, strawberry-black currant or gooseberry-rosehip — or, for those who actually produced vegetables in their vegetable gardens, be imaginative with golden raspberry-carrot or cranberry-beet. Bulk up smaller quantities of fruit with mild-flavored berries — native watermelon berries, dwarf dogwood berries or crowberries for instance — that combine well with stronger flavored fruit, taking on its flavor. And do not be afraid to eat preserved fruits with something other than toast. Use them as fillings in layer cakes, over pancakes or with meat dishes, to sweeten smoothies, to enliven pates or as pie fillings, mixed half and half with whipping cream or layered with pudding.

In addition to these uses, berries freeze well for later consumption in muffins, pancakes, breads, pies, sauces, vinaigrettes and homemade ice creams. Also, fruit leather can be made from berry or apple puree spread thinly onto a nonstick baking sheet and dried to a rubbery consistency. This can then be frozen, or it will keep for weeks just as it is, and makes a great lunchbox treat.

Home-grown fruit, in many ways, is a more versatile crop than vegetables. Fruit trees and berry bushes rarely need weeding and do not require yearly replanting. Fruit is infinitely superior preserved in jarred products than are vegetables. And the gastronomic possibilities of fruit, in my own opinion, far surpass that of any vegetables in my garden, even in more productive years. So why should I not be smiling?

Hally Truelove is a Master Gardener and plants woman who lives and gardens in Wasilla with her two daughters, a handful of cats, a bunch of bunnies, some guinea pigs, a dog and a frog. Contact her at 376-0909.