All too often our preserves sit at the back of the pantry gathering dust. But using them is just as important as making sure your homegrown goodness doesn’t go to waste in the first place.
You’ve worked hard all season in the vegie garden, watering, weeding, mulching and nurturing your garden. You’ve harvested in fits and starts as your precious food ripens, you’ve shared and swapped your abundance with others but, even the most disciplined succession planter, or the grower who learns to limit certain things to just one or two plants (we’re looking at you, zucchini), is inevitably left with a glut.
Hauling basketfuls of food into your kitchen and working them into the preserve pantry is an enormously rewarding exercise in virtuosity. Because come winter, when the vegie garden is tucked up under its blanket of mulch except for the odd brassica and slowly maturing garlic, you’ll be popping the lid on your preserved harvest and reliving those summer days through your tastebuds.