I’ve always had a taste for food and drink that tasted like flowers. I was born in England and lived there until I was 9 years old. One of my favourite things from the store was a Turkish Delight; a rose flavoured jelly wrapped in chocolate. Even now, just thinking about it, makes my mouth water. It was also (and continues to be) my dad’s favourite. He has now figured out that he can order them by the case from Amazon, so look out world!
I’ve also mentioned a few times that I am the queen of doing things the difficult way.
Which is why, when I read an article about rosehip jelly I thought it was perfect for me! It’s time consuming, difficult (not really), and not the norm so I was sold!
I started by “harvesting” (see what a fancy term I used for “picking”) the rosehips from my cousin, Allana’s, rose bushes. She had these amazing large, deep purple rosehips I hadn’t seen anywhere before and I thought they would lend a beautiful colour to the jelly. We harvested what we thought was about 2lbs of hips and I took them home and got to work.
I read a few recipes and how-to’s on the line (shout out to my fellow Internship fans!) and decided that this was the one I would attempt.
I gave them a good clean and cut of the straggly bits before measuring out 2 quarts (about 8 cups) into a large stockpot. I added 6 cups of water and set them to boil. After they started to boil I turned the heat down and just let them do their thing while I made dinner.
After about an hour I checked them with a fork and when they were soft enough to mash I smashed them all up with my potato masher.
The I set a colander over a large bowl and lined it with 4 layers of cheesecloth before dumping the pots contents in. Then I just let is drip for about an hour while we ate dinner and chatted with our company (stepdaughter again, damn, I must be a good cook 😉 ).
Now I’m going to confess something…..
Other than helping my mother in law with our wedding jam, this was my first canning experience. And I am seriously super proud of myself and super motivated to can all of the things!!!
At this point in the recipe I followed it to a tee, which is something I don’t often do, but I was terrified I was going to do something wrong! I ended up with 6 full jars and 1 partial jar which I didn’t seal, we will just eat that one first. I had borrowed my mom’s canner but didn’t end up using it. My mother in law has been canning for years and she says she doesn’t use one so I thought I would brave it and just make sure the jars and lids were hot, fill them will the hot liquid and pop those lids on quickly. I am happy to report that those beautiful deep pink jars of jelly all started to pop one right after the other.
I don’t know how many of you can, but I think that a jar popping is probably one of the most satisfying sounds on earth!
The only problem is…..before the night was out, most of these jars were spoken for…..guess I had better get harvesting again! All of the wild roses on the road sides are just loaded with rosehips this year so that should keep me busy for a while!!