There is a full moon (Long Nights) tonight.
There is peach-apricot chutney processing in its hot water bath.
There will, shortly, be balsamic fig compote doing the same.
“Wait a minute,” I hear you say (or imagine that I do, at any rate), “Figs? Apricots? Did you have some sort of Local Produce rule in effect even just last week??”
And, yes, dear reader, I did.
None the less, I’ve got almost double the number of gift-baskets to make that I originally was expecting, which means I need to make a small slew of extra preserves to cover them.
Consequently, I’m making:
1) Peach-apricot chutney using dried apricots, tinned (yes) peaches, and dried currants
2) Balsamic fig compote using dried figs
3) Cranberry curd (because that, at least, is reasonably seasonal)
Between that and the various apple-based bits and bites I made months ago[1], I should be able to manage enough Goodies to keep the various Relatives in condiments for the foreseeable. YAY! 😀
So. Dried fruit. Tinned fruit. Yes. Heck, even the apple-based jellies were done using tinned apple juice.
Sometimes, when I do that (use produce that’s already been processed once), it feels like cheating. Other times – like now, when it’s early December and the fresh stuff is a distant, sun-warmed dream – it feels like good sense and expediency.
Context is important.
Anyway. I don’t want the fruit to boil over, so I’m off.
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.
[1] And which are looking less like Jelly and more like Glaze, I have to admit, but that’s still workable.
Urban Meliad 