Recipe Roundup: Preserving Seasonal Produce

by Meeta Khurana from What’s For Lunch, Honey?

Each season brings along it’s own various varieties of fruit and vegetables. We all have our favorites: be it asparagus or rhubarb in spring or tomatoes and strawberries in the summer or pumpkin, apples and pears in the Fall or a variety of root vegetables in the Winter. There is no better way to enjoy your favorites beyond the seasons than preserving them in jams, jellies, relishes or chutneys.

I will often find myself in the kitchen and different times of the year with the mission to preserve. For me Spring, Summer and Fall are the busiest times of the year when I set out weekends to make chutneys or jams with my favorite fruits and vegetables. So I am already excited in June that I will be enjoying a fresh raspberry jam in November.

I know several fellow food bloggers have lovely huge gardens bursting with fresh vegetables and fruit, I myself have kind neighbors, friends and in-laws who are generous throughout the year and share their bounties with me, Then there are the CSA boxes that come in every week or one picks up produce at their local Farmer’s Markets. Whatever the source is fact is preserving or canning is the unbeatable and inexpensive way to go when you need to use up your surplus produce.

If you are new to preserving, my Preserving 101 is a great place to start. The post includes not only several great recipes for jams, relishes and jellies but also has a few useful tips and tricks to make the beginner feel comfortable.

Otherwise I hope that this roundup with several recipes from across the food blogs will help you find some new flavor twist and give you many more ideas on how you can use your fruit or vegetables to enjoy later on in the year. It’s a good idea to bookmark this roundup as I try to cover fruit and vegetables available throughout the year.

Over at Shiny Cooking you will find a fantastic article about canning peaches. With step by step instructions this is an extremely handy post and one that I myself used this year to can my peaches and apricots. Or maybe you prefer this spicy peach chutney from Anja over at Zwischengang.

Cooking with Michelle takes her ripe tomatoes from her garden and freezes them while I make some gorgeous tomato and apricot chutney. 

Dirty Kitchen Secrets has a brilliant article on pickling and shows you how to pickle cornichos cucumbers and over at The Constables Larder pickled lime is served with a slow baked pork.

Lydia over at The Perfect Pantry uses cider vinegar to make a delectable cranberry and pear chutney, while I spice my cranberry and pear chutney with a hint of star anise. 

As citrus fruit will be coming into season in a few months, I found this perfect kumquat chutney recipe from Citron & Vanille, which can be used with a variety of meats. Lemons make a dreary day turn bright yellow and this lemon curd will brighten your day for sure. You can use it not only for desserts but it’s perfect on a wholewheat roll for breakfast too!

EatMakeRead has a great chutney recipe using figs. Kelly’s raisin, fig and ginger chutney is mouthwatering to say the least. I love figs too and often make this fig and ginger preserve when figs are at their ripest and sweetest.

Savory Sweet Life has an exquisite relish recipe for a red bell pepper relish, which can be enjoyed with a variety of cheese and crackers. Peter from Souvlaki for the Soul makes an extravagant caramelised fennel relish with Ouzo. I can hardly wait to try this myself. Jo shares her grandmother’s recipe for orange pinapple cranberry relish - a recipe which has been passed down from generation to generation. Hot dogs and burgers will enjoy that added zing with this cucumber and zucchini relish. It’s easy to make and big on taste.

Kevin from Closet Cooking is always the one to come up with delicious and unique recipes and I absolutely adore his green tomato and jalapeÒo jam. It’s got the perfect tartness with the right amount of heat to it.

Culinary Travels of a Kitchen Goddess makes a regal damson jam, which she then goes on to use in her Autumn fruit crumble. A hint of cinnamon adds gives this plum cinnamon preserve a delectable highlight.

Always Order Dessert preserves quince with this great vanilla bean and anise poached quince recipe and she share an super tip on peeling quince. Another great way pf preserving fruit is making candy or pate de fruits like Linda from make life sweeter does. She makes a delicious quince candy, which can be enjoyed for weeks. Lynn from Cafe LynnLu also makes sweet treats with her pineapple pate de fruit.

Vanila Basil has a great recipe for pickling beetroot, which is perfect in salads or just on it’s own. Allie makes a lovely pickled vegetable mix using purple cauliflower. Local Lemons shares the secret behind canning heirloom tomatoes with a lovely tomato sauce and I share a my favorite and versatile roasted tomato sauce to be used on pizzas and with pasta.

Finally an extravagant pear and champagne confit from Cake and Commerce rounds up this medley of preserving produce.

Meeta is a passionate food writer, cook and photographer. She experiments in her kitchen and presents her flavor combinations in exciting new dishes. Her blog What’s For Lunch, Honey? was selected as one of the Top 50 Best Food Blogs by Times Online UK and offers over 500 recipes all peppered with a good dose of life.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 2:44 pm and is filed under Recipe Roundup. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.