Glass Swing Top Bottles - ready for Summer!

It has been a busy holiday weekend in UK but it's back to work now. I went to our local market yesterday and the summer fruits are starting to appear - English raspberries and strawberries, but I started as I always do with some lovely fresh apricots. Not from UK I know but definitely in season now. I try to buy local whenever possible but it can't always happen. Seasonality is the thing we should all be embracing. We shall be making lots of lovely apricot jam and I am going to try my hand at some fruit coulis this year. Apricot or raspberry coulis in our lovely new bottles just in at Jam Jar Shop. They will look great and taste even better.

We have some beautiful new glass swing top flasks which we shall use for flavoured oils I expect but you can use them for anything that isn't fizzy - cordials would be good. The elderflowers will be blossoming soon so why not make up a batch of this aromatic cordial all ready to add to iced sparkling water for that long hot summer we are going to have! Makes a great gift too. I'll see if I can put a recipe up on the website.

My friend May will be arriving for work shortly and we shall get on with the apricots plus finish the batch of beetroot chutney - May made loads yesterday and turned herself quite purple in the process! ( She won't wear the gloves . . .)

Jam Funnels travel to Australia

Jam Jar Shop travels the world - photo from Lisa in Lucindale, Australia with one of our jam funnels on the town emblem. Go funnels!

Jam Making Classes

We're busy, busy, busy, devising jam making classes for later in the year, working out what the format should be, so many ideas its difficult to incorporate them all.

We have a new jam making kit on offer - a perfect wedding present or gift for someone who is interested in taking up this absorbing hobby. With more and more people signing up for allotments and growing their own again there will be a need for the old preserving skills to be taken out and dusted off. Waste not, want not! as my old Granny used to say. I don't know about gardening tho' - it has been more like the start of Winter here in the Midlands today, cold and overcast with a bitter wind, no chance of hardening off the runner beans.

I am putting the finishing touches to my new Jam Makers Journal which will be on the website soon - very exciting! And we are researching more new recipes, trying out new things, I must get Trev to put up a recipe space so that we can share them with you. Send me your favourites via this blog and we can publish those as well - or any questions you might have, I'll do my best to answer.

Biding My Time

I am finding this time of year quite frustrating - I am repeatedly asked if I have any jam - we sold out of jam around about Christmas time - and I am impatiently waiting for the new season's fruit to arrive. It's a way off yet but May, who helps me cook, and I got out the recipe books today and started to plan for this year's production. At least I know I have enough jars and lids!

Jam Jar Shop is very busy every day of the week and I have to try to balance work and play to make sure we have some time off - it's very easy to keep on going but we all need a bit of time off. We are doing a lot of commissioned label designs for wedding favours at the moment - I suppose it is a popular time of year for weddings - we supply the small jars and make labels to co-ordinate with the wedding colour sheme, sometimes we are asked for the fabric covers as well. They look very pretty - some people actually make jam to go in the jars but there are all sorts of other ideas as well. I am thinking of starting a feature on the website 'What do you put in yours?'

We also supply some laboratories with jars and even an oil rig in the North Sea - I wonder if those burly boys are making some marmalade?

I'm off to my local Country Market early in the morning to peddle my wares and so another Friday comes around, faster and faster it seems these days. Let me know what you are planning on making - we could have a recipe share.

Holiday Weekend

It's been a busy holiday weekend here - still trying to get sorted out from the recent office move. We even found three large boxes of oil bottles that had escaped the stock take so I think we'll put those on Jam Jar Shop as a special offer bargain - as we didn't know we had them!

I am trying to sort my 'making list' for preserves as we have a new deli opening in our town soon who are going to stock my products so I had better be ready! We have had lots of orders in over the weekend for jars so it seems a lot of you are getting ready too. The new fruit season will be upon us sooner than we think and we will be battling to keep up with the produce.

We had our lovely new grandson Oscar to stay over the weekend who is very special and makes us focus on the important things in life - family and friends.