Christmas spiced apple and cherry jam

This is a jam recipe I concocted myself because I had a tin of black cherries I needed to use up!

Ingredients:

1kg of cooking apples
1 400g tin of black cherries in light syrup or juice
125 ml of water
1kg of golden caster sugar
Juice of half a lemon
2 cinnamon sticks
1tbs mixed spice

Equipment:

Jam pan or an extremely large sauce pan
Muslin
Jam funnel (optional)
Sugar thermometer (optional)
2 saucers or small plates
Jam jars - sterilised (5 or 6 small jam jars - 2 - 3 large ones

Method

1   Place the 2 saucers into the freezer - you'll need them later

2   Peel and roughly chop the apples

3   Add the apples, lemon juice and water into the jam pan and heat gently, stirring occasionally,  so to soften the apples.

4   Wrap the cinnamon sticks and the mixed spice in the muslin to make a muslin bag tied at the top. Then add the bag to the softening apples.

5   Once the apples are soft add the sugar and stir in. Gently heat until the sugar has completely dissolved into the pulpy apple and juice. Then add the cherries and continue to heat gently for another 5 minutes.

6   Remove the muslin bag of spices and turn up the heat. Make sure to stir regularly so that the jam doesn't catch on the bottom of the pan. Simmer vigorously. If scum appears on the top either skim off the surface or add a knob of butter which dissolves the scum.  If you are using a jam thermometer you want to get the temperature of the jam to 104. However, I find that my jam can sometimes set before my thermometer claims it's at temperature. So once your jam has vigorously simmered for 15 minutes or when it is approaching 104 on the thermometer you can test the set.

7   You need those saucers in the freezer for testing the set. Take one of the saucers out of the freezer and spoon a teaspoon amount of jam on to the cold saucer. Wait for a minute and then nudge the jam with your finger. if you can plough your finger through the jam, and your jam wrinkles as you push, it has set. If not keep vigorously simmering the jam for another 5 - 10 minutes and test again.

8   You need some sterilised jars - please see the mincemeat recipe for how to sterilise jars - about 5 or 6 small jars or 2 larger kilner jars. Using a jam funnel spoon the jam into the jars and allow to cool. The jam will keep well but once opened keep in the fridge. It's a beautiful rich purple jam thanks to the black cherries.

Christmas Mincemeat Recipe

Due to popular demand I am posting two of my Christmas recipes on my blog tonight. The first is my Christmas mincemeat recipe which always goes down well I've experimented with different alcohol bases (though ti works as non alcoholic too) and I've added pear in the past. But this recipe which I made this year is the best I think. 

Vegetarian (suet free) Christmas Mincemeat

Although this was originally a Nigella Lawson recipe, known as Hettie Potter’s mincemeat (I believe Hettie was Nigella’s assistant) I’ve tweaked it enough to make it my own I think.

(Makes about 4lb/2kg which I think is about 6 small jam jars or 3 of the larger kilner jars)

250g soft dark brown sugar

250ml fruit cider - especially berry ciders - this time I used Aspalls Isabel Berry 

1kg cooking apples, peeled, and cut into chunks

1 tsp mixed spice

1 tsp ground cinnamon

500g dried mixed fruit - this time I used Waitrose luxury mixed dried fruit with cranberries, apricot and pineapple  

75g glace cherries roughly chopped, (I use the nice dark purple ones you can get now) roughly chopped

75g mixed peel ( If you  don’t like mixed peel just add more glace cherries!)

zest & juice of ½ lemon and 1/2 a tangerine or satsuma 

6 tablespoons brandy (alternatively rum)

Non alcoholic version - skip the brandy and substitute the cider for apple and blackcurrant or apple and raspberry juice.

1. Place the cider and the sugar in a large saucepan and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved into the cider, unlike when making jam it doesn’t matter if every last grain hasn’t dissolved.

2.  Add the roughly chopped apples to the saucepan and stir well.

3.  Add the remaining ingredients, apart from brandy (or rum).  Simmer for around 30 minutes until the mixture is soft and pulpy. This sometimes takes a bit longer than 30 minutes but it’s usually pulpy enough after 45 minutes. Your kitchen will also smell of Christmas!

4.  Meanwhile wash the jars well and sterilise. I put the jars in an oven set to 110^oC/ 250^oF/Gas 1/2 for 10 minutes. Lids can be placed in a small pan of boiling water.  Shake as much water from the lids as possible before filling.

5.  Remove the mincemeat from the heat and set aside to cool for 5-10minutes.  Stir in the brandy (or rum) and transfer to sterilised jars. I find using a wide jam funnel helps here as I’m very messy! But this is much chunkier than jam so it’s not too hard to transfer.  Once the jars are filled and the lids well screwed on, invert them to improve the heat seal. Turn the jars the right way up once they are cool.

6.  This mincemeat can be used immediately after cooking if you wish, but improves with age and keeps well.

Loneliness

I read this article earlier today about men losing touch with their friends during their 30s and more broadly loneliness. I'm always interested about loneliness for lots of reasons. We moved house a lot when I was growing up becausse my Dad was in the Air Force and that meant starting new schools at age 7, 11 and 14. It wasn't easy. I'd always feel very lonely for quite a while when we moved. But looking back it never took long for me to make friends. The worst time was moving age 14. I'd had a rough time arriving in Cornwall age 11 but by the time we were due to leave for Yorkshire age 14 I had a small band of very close friends I was desperate not to leave behind. I was heartbroken to leave Newquay. I still have a reoccurring dream that I have returned to Newquay and I am so happy in this dream that it is painful when I wake up and realise it's not true.

As an adult I've moved a fair bit and my friends from School in Yorksire and university are pretty scattered around the country (even the world.) My best friend Lorraine lives in Inverness. Luckily my oldest friend Ruth lives closer in Kent. At each place I've worked I've made friends who I have kept in touch with to some degree. There have been good friends who have drifted away as well. 

But when we moved from London to Biggleswade it felt a little like moving house as a child. Especially as I was no longer working in an office but working from home. I felt really, really lonely. I was better off than so many people, I have Jason and family less than 2 hours away. But I had no one close by to talk to or share time with. I met a couple of local people on Twitter, one of whom Pete, I met up with for coffee not long after having eye surgery that went a bit wrong, so I could hardly see a thing when we met! That was in the July 2011 but after Jase and I got married and Christmss was approaching that year I had to admit to myself I felt really lonely. It was making me feel depressed. So for the first time in my life I admitted that I felt lonely and I told Pete I was lonely and asked him if he knew anyone I might get on with. He suggested a meet up with his friend Alice. 

Since then we haven't looked back. Alice and I meet up for a natter and a coffee regularly. Luckily both our husbands get on which is great. We have gaming evenings, BBQs, walks in the summer and I haven't felt lonely since. We're all very excited now that Alice and Jon are about to have their second child. 

It turns out that my friend Pete also read the article in the Guardian today and we had a chat on Twitter about loneliness. We both felt that it can be particularly hard to make friends if you don't conform to a particular "type" - say for example in your 30s or 40s but have no kids. So if you're a parent, particularly a Mum, you get to meet other parents at the school gate or through your children's friends. Though a number of my friends with Children have pointed out that you're lucky if just one of these friends you meet through your kids, genuinely has the same interests as you. Also if you're shy and the thought of a mother and toddler group terrifies you, you're not likely to go a long. If you aren't one for small talk, or if you're a man and you don't talk "football" I've been told, this can be difficult. 

I think loneliness is a real issue for so many people yet we don't talk about it. Admitting you're lonely is like admitting you're a failure or that there's something wrong with you. Yet I've not met a person yet who hasn't admitted to being lonely at some point of their lives. 

I think that the Internet can help - I've met some lovely friends through Twitter who have become offline friends as well as online ones. I have even managed to connect with those friends I left behind in Newquay 27 years ago, through Facebook, this year which has been so lovely. 

So I wanted to blog today to say if you're lonely, don't be hard on yourself and think you've done something wrong. The important thing is to reach out. Find likeminded people either locally or on the Internet. It does work.