…. I’ve been busy with cooking jobs over the past few days which means I wake up earlier and earlier with my mind racing about how many herbs I need to chop, have I remembered all the key ingredients for the gin & beetroot gravadlax and will there be enough raspberry & rose marshmallows?! Whilst pondering these key questions on Saturday morning, I tuned into the Farming Programme on Radio 4 and heard Charlotte Smith attending the National Cherry & Soft Fruit Show and interviewing some of our leading soft fruit growers in the UK.
We all love strawberries, raspberries, blueberries…… as well as cherries, blackberries and all the wonderful autumn stone fruit. I was amazed to hear that the UK soft fruit market is now worth £1.4billion per year and has doubled in size in the last 5 years. Strawberries top the bill with 132,000 tonnes sold each year, followed by 41,000 tonnes of blueberries, 29,000 tonnes of raspberries and 4,000 tonnes of blackberries. Over 50% of the produce is grown in poly tunnels which obviously vastly extends the season which I imagine accounts for this vast growth.
I love buying fruit from my local market in Devizes and can be seduced by amazing value of the very large boxes – and then am faced with what to do with quite so many berries. There seems to be a limit to how many my family will eat, after the first 3 days of including them in every meal! So I freeze the rest, I clean and prep the berries and freeze flat on large trays; once frozen I scoop them into bags and then keep them ready in the bottom drawer of my kitchen freezer. I can reach for handfuls of frozen berries for smoothies, toppings for ice-cream, as well as cook them down with a bit of extra sugar for fruit coulis and jam.
And I love making jam! Ready for my larder shelves and perfect on crumpets during the winter months. It’s a great gift for friends and a perfect Saturday morning breakfast treat for the children (if I can’t face doing bacon & eggs!)
Life is a bit calmer this week and I’ll be at the market on Thursday morning, ready to stagger back to my car with boxes of soft fruit….. So I’ll need to make some space in my freezer!
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