Hello

We’ve just had a bank holiday weekend here in the UK, and one whole day of this long weekend was sunny. We spent that day gardening, building steps for the garden path and cleaning windows. Oh, yes, all very interesting. Actually, everything is starting to look quite summer like now and the next time the sun pops out I shall attempt to get a bit of a tan going so that the sunlight doesn’t reflect of my skin when sleeveless tops and skirts come out to play.

The other two days were ours to do with as we pleased and as my hubby decided, as per usual, to play in the garage (cold, wet and boring), I decided to try my hand at Rosemary jelly. I’d never even heard of it before we had Hello Fresh and one of the meals included a rosemary jelly glaze and it was gooood. Hello Fresh is not what it used to be but sometimes they include a gem, and rosemary jelly glaze is one of those gems. So much so that I went to several supermarkets to try and buy some of this yummy jelly but could not find it anywhere. You can buy it online but I wanted it there and then and therefore decided to make it myself. I should point out that I plan to live on a hilltop in France or Spain or somewhere else in Europe when I retire and therefore I do try to make a lot of stuff myself as I foresee problems with next day Amazon deliveries to said hilltop 🙂

Before I continue I have to mention that I’ve never made jelly, or indeed jam in my life and I did no research on the matter before I started. This was very foolish as it’s not as easy as it sounds, but there you go, at least now I know what not to do in future.

I found a recipe that seemed both ideal and easy at http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/rosemary-jelly.  Google very kindly told me I could make my own liquid pectin substitute by boiling orange peel and lemon juice with water and that was quite an interesting thing to do. Once the pectin was underway I felt very jolly and confident as I raided cupboards for old marmalade jars and trotted out into the garden with a pair of scissors and cut a large stem of our rather majestic rosemary bush. Whilst the rosemary was infusing in some water I thought I’d have a quick look online for jelly making advice and this is where everything started going wrong. Jars have to be steralised!!! Who would have thought? Yes, feel free to laugh or tut at my ignorance. Google once again decided to help by telling me that this could easily be done in the oven. Yey, easy peasy and into the oven the jars went, including my two new kilner jars, however, on the Kilner website they say not to steralise jars in the oven as bakteria from cooked food circulates. So, out they came and after leaving them for a little while on the side to cool down, I lowered them onto  a grill at the bottom of a large saucepan and started pouring hot tapwater on them. Big mistake! The jars were still too hot and the sound of cracking glass was almost immediate. That was the end of my jelly making for that day. I’ve now ordered a few brand new jars from ebay and I will take greater care with them.

This did put a little dampner on my day and I needed a positive so I decided to make an apple cake and will post further details, and the recipe, next time. I can confirm that it was indeed a positive end to the day.

I will make this jelly and when I do it will be glorious and I will tell you all about it as soon as those there jars arrive.

Marie

xx