The last owners of this house surrounded the property with rosebushes, of all stripes and colors. My particular favorite has been an exceptionally sweet-smelling one that is red and white striped (I’ve nicknamed it the “Candy Cane” rosebush in my mind but I don’t know the varietal). It’s already begun its second blooming sequence in the beautiful Rose City, and so inspired, I decided to attempt to preserve the seasonal delight of rose fragrance by making rose petal jam. I took recipe inspiration from several other blogs and posts after a quick Google search and hobbled together my own quadruple-sized recipe with what I had on hand:
- 4 cups rose petals (Notes: I did not bother removing the white part as some recipes recommend and it tastes just fine. The roses are untreated – no chemicals to my knowledge since my tenure in this house of two years. 4 cups of rose petals was just half of a small mixing bowl that I’d picked off our bush, after rinsing, plucking petals, and removing bugs and spiders.)
- 3 cups clean-tasting untreated Portland tap water
- 1/2 cup organic lemon juice
- 4 cups sugar (I had 3 cups organic cane sugar on hand and 1 cup maple sugar)
- 3 more cups Portland tap water
- 1 package Pomona Universal Pectin
After rinsing the petals and rescuing two spiders, I blended the rose petals with a hand stick blender with the lemon juice and water, which made a watery, clumpy concoction. I hand-stirred in the sugars.
About sugar and pectin boxes: I hate teeth-aching, throat-burning, super-sugary jams and jellies. This recipe uses about 1/3 the sugar called for in other recipes – I was only able to do this because I was using Pomona’s Universal Pectin, which doesn’t require the massive amounts of the sugar the typical Sure-Jell type pectin packets require. Pomona’s looks more expensive in the store per box, but each box of Pomona’s actually does about 4 batches of jam, while each batch of Sure-Jell or what-have-you does only one batch, so it actually works out cheaper, too!
In a small saucepan, I heated the additional 3 cups of water with the entire package of pectin (since I am making a quadruple batch here) and the 1/2 cup water + 1/2 tsp calcium mixture as described in the pectin box directions. The box directions didn’t include ratios of pectin and calcium water for rose petal jam, so I erred on the jellier side and calculated the batches based on 4 tsp pectin and 4 tsp calcium water. There was only actually 11 tsp of pectin in the packet and extra calcium water, but I just threw caution to wind and used the whole thing. I haven’t done this before, and although I was whisking constantly, it looked pretty lumpy, but as it reached a boil the lumps began to dissolve more and it turned more glue-y.
Once it had reached a full roiling boil, I added it to the rose petal mixture. The resulting mixture had a great clingy and congealed texture, like a good jam ought. Poured into sterilized ball jars, processed in a hot-water bath for 10 minutes.
It’s the time of year to put things up. I like that saying: “put things up.” I imagine literally putting ball jars up on the top shelf with pride.
Today, I harvested all the tomatoes I could off the tomato plants. The large ones I put in the freezer bags with the others for eventual canning, and the small ones and cherry tomatoes I put in the dehydrater (great idea, Hil!) to be treats in sauces and salads later.
Meanwhile, all the liqueurs we put up in May/June after the wedding with all the leftover cheap wedding vodka were ready for straining. We’d made blackberry and cherry liqueurs. They’re pretty easy to make: dump fruit and a little sugar in vodka, put in dark place, let sit for 3 months, strain through cheesecloth. They turned out pretty good; a good way to preserve the flavor of that early summer fruit that I’m already missing. The liqueurs make good presents, or they taste great over ice or on ice cream. Most liqueur recipes call for more sugar than you need; be judicious.
I planted the first winter garden seeds last week as dusk fell: purple globe turnips, mixed siberian kales, gladiator parsnips, and meridia carrots. The turnips and kales have already sprouted. The parsnips and carrots haven’t, but the seed package did warn of “erratic germination”. Once I can take the tomato plants out, I’ll replace with garlic and fava beans, both of which can be planted in the fall rather than late summer.
For the first time ever, I am also putting seeds up for the winter, also known as seed-saving. So far, I’ve put up komatsuna greens seeds, basil seeds, a few pea seeds, and the sad results of my attempt at growing beans this year. I grew so few beans that they are only good for saving as seeds for next year. The good news is that those few that grew are absolutely beautiful: a lima-bean-sized black and purple speckled bean, a black coco bean, and a small kidney-red bean. Next year, my lovelies. I’m putting you up until then.
