No sugar oven-baked plum jam recipe

I know there are number of jam recipes on the net, but sawing so much sugar added in the most of them, I decided to share this very simple jam recipe with NO sugar at all.

Recipe: 

- 3 kg of plums
- rum or vanilla sugar to add - optional
- small portion of salt

Steps:

1. Wash plums and remove stalks and stones.  All fruit need to be healthy, discard any that have rotten parts.

2. Preheat your oven to 200 C (400 F). Place the plums into a deep roasting pan. Add pinch of salt. Bake it until the juice evaporates (not all of it) - cc 2 hours,  stirring occasionally. Optional: when you notice jam is thickening, add rum or vanilla flavour. 

3. Remove from the oven. If you prefer, chop up with the stick blender. Pour gently into clean, sterilised, hot  jars.  I usually leave jars with jam  in the oven  on 100⁰ C for 15 minutes and then close them. Enjoy, it is really delicious!

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Homemade Sage Syrup

Sage (or Salvia Officinnalis)  is one of the most healing plants, well known and used since the ancient times.
This recipe is so simple and the result is amazing - tasteful, refreshing and healing   sage syrup.


Ingredients:

30 dag of sage leaves ( I have huge sage in my garden and used it for the recipe)
2 kg sugar
7 - 10 dag citric acid
2 l water

Take pot (pressure cooker is good choice as it has lid that could be firmly closed), cover the bottom with leaves and sprinkle them with citric acid. Continue with layers of leaves, each one sprinkle with the citric acid. 

In another pot put 30 dag of sugar and heat it until crystals dissolve, then put 2 l of water, add the rest of sugar and cook about 20 minutes. Stir the sage leaves with this mixture, close the lid and leave 24 hours. 
Filtrate the liquid and pour in bottles.

Use undiluted for sore throats or thickly coughs, even asthma or diluted as a refreshing drink.

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Apricot jam with lavender

Apricot jam is my favourite and every year I make some for my family and friends, love to give them as a gift for Christmas, birthday or just for love. This year I decided to try something different. I still have some jars left from last year ( my son spent one semester on KTH Uni in Sweden and he is the biggest consumer of the jam), so I decided to add lavender flavour to jam. It turned out delicious, apricot and lavender go really well with each other. And next year I'll try to add rosemary, not to the whole quantity. Original taste is still something I love.

Recipe: Apricot jam with lavender

Ingredients:

- apricots (I bought organic from a local farmer) - 4  kg (cca 2,8 kg after seeds are removed)
- 3 lemons
- 800g of sugar
- lavender flowers - about 8 flowers (be careful with lavender, the taste is strong)


Recipe:

Remove seeds, dice apricots (and put them in pot), add sugar and leave over night.

Decant juice in a separate pot and boil it for about 20 minutes.

In the meantime, peel the lemon (rub it if it is organic and save the peel), squeeze juice but save the rest and the seeds. Put this white part of lemon together with seeds in the gauze and add lavender flowers. Make a bundle (small bag) using cotton (kitchen) thread. 

Add apricots, bundle and lemon juice to pot with juice. Boil together for another about 15 minutes, then take the bag out. Chop up apricots with hand blender (mixing stick) and boil another 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

In the meantime, clean jars put in oven on 110° C to sterilize them. Remove jam from heat and fill jars, put them back in oven. At this point I turn off the oven and leave jars until the oven is cold. After that, cut  cellophane pieces, 'wash' them using vinegar, put on jars and put the lids.

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How to easy make fritters

Sometimes very simple recepies make a difference. These fritters are one of them. The taste is rather neutral, so they can  be combined well  with cream, aivar, chutney  or marmelade and chocolate. I love them most with plum jam. And even the beginners can make them easily.

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Pumpkin, squash, pumpkin

Fall has arrived and  surprised us again with all these beautiful colors. Every Saturday I visit local market and enjoy the variety of vegetables and fruits, and this month, the color, shapes, sizes of pumpkins and squashes. In my country (Croatia, Europe)  Halloween is not part of the tradition, but we love squashes and make meals, soup, cakes and  keep them as decoration as well.

Delicious pumpkin soup

This delicious cream soup is very easy to make, but one of the best you'll ever taste. Read the recipe and enjoy!

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