Beetroot Jam

Much to my children's dismay, when I have a glut of fruit and vegetables I quite often try to work out what else beside "normal" eating can I do with these items. Just recently it was beetroot. I had bought some beets from the markets thinking I would make a roasted beetroot salad. Alas, time got away from me (as it nearly always does) and I was caught with these beets looking a bit soft and crying out to me to do something with them. This is when I decided to have a go at beetroot jam.

Now I rarely use a recipe as I can't seem to follow them very well. Don't get me wrong, I have heaps of cook books, and I love reading them, but I find some ingredients just wont pass muster in this house so over the years I have had to adapt and change the ingredients to suit the fussy males I live with. This also means I have to change quantities as well, so I try to visualize the process and possible taste in my head. 99% of the time this works. When we have a fail, commonly called a flop in this house....all come running and attack the remains and start giving "advice".

In my fridge this particular clean-out day were some apples that had been forgotten and passed over for grapes and stone fruit, so they too needed to be cooked up.This was just what I needed as the beets don't really contain much pectin at all. I cored the apples as well as peeled them,and placed cores,skin and all seeds  in a material bag that could be pulled out at a later date.This was then put in a pot that also held the chopped  up beets (next time I will grate them), my chopped and sliced apples as well as the juice of a couple of lemons I squeezed.A small amount of water so the fruit does not catch (burn) on the bottom...that's it. See , no recipes.....just guide lines to recipes.

removing pectin from cores

I then just kept this all on low heat  bubbling away until all the beets are soft (ish). I then pulled out the bag of cores/skins and squeezed out the pectin.  This is the gel like substance that oozes out of the bag. I put the containing mixture from the bag into a sieve and pushed through all the gel that I could. This then gets put back into the beet/apple mix.The fruit mix should now be soft enough to have sugar added to it. If not...grab a stick blender and give the fruit mix a hard time. This will make spreading of the fruit jam so much easier when all is done. I then add sugar to the fruit mix cup(of fruit) for cup(of sugar). If however I don't want it so sweet, I cut back a bit on the sugar....or add some extra lemon juice. You have to be aware that if you don't get enough pectin from your apple cores, and don't put in enough sugar...your jam wont set or keep for long outside a fridge.

This mixture now bubbles away till it says "jam set" on your thermometer, or till the jam gels on a chilled saucer.In the meantime while this mix has been turning itself from veggies to jam, I have washed some jars, boiled them in hot water to kill all bacteria (germs) as well as the lids...and are now ready to fill as soon as the mixture is ready. When all is cooked I remove any "scum" looking substance from the fruit mix. There is nothing wrong with this, except that is looks yukky when cooled down if you have put it into your jars. I now ladle the mix into my still warm to hot jars (if cold they will crack) and flip them over when done.

After about10 to 20 mins the seals on the lids would have sucked in and these will be good to keep on the shelf for quite a few months. If you want to take it one step further you can put them into a water bath to ensure the vacuum seal. If you do this you will need to add just a little extra lemon juice to the mix to ensure you have the correct acid level.Follow the instructions of your water bath booklet so you know how long to boil them for.

This mix was actually not to sweet at all, and put on some freshly made bread and butter, it tasted just great.
PS... One son only knows this as purple jam. What he doesn't know wont hurt him. Give it a go...it's quite nice.
PPS If you don't have any apples to create pure pectin, you can buy sachets of "jam setta". This is a Fowlers Vaccola product that contains pectin and sugar as a carrier. Just follow the instructions on the packet.