Coping with the glut

With the best will in the world, at this time of year it is very tricky to keep up with all the fruit that is ready to be harvested. Finding the time to pick it all is one thing and turning it straight into jam is another.

I met a fellow allotment holder coming out of the gates yesterday, a bag stuffed to overflowing with broad beans. "Lovely broad beans, John," I said, "Are you going to freeze them?"

"Me hunter gather," he replied, "the wife does the freezing bit."

Ah yes, that rings true. Whereas a man can leave the allotment, sweaty and muddy, and head straight for a soak in a warm bath to ease his achy muscles, the woman has to deal with whatever harvest she has just brought home before considering a quick shower.

When fruit is harvested it is important to deal with it quickly to keep it at its best. If you leave it just for a few minutes it will attract fruit flies - not something you really want in your kitchen. And within a few hours it will be oozing and by the next day it may even be furry! So either it needs to be parked in a the fridge for a while or turned straight into some culinary delight or put in the freezer.

Obviously, when you freeze fruit it is never the same again upon thawing. However, it can still be used perfectly well for any cooking purposes so all is not lost. It is certainly absolutely fine for jam making and in fact makes jam making easier as it is already softened by the freezing and needs less cooking time.

Before freezing consider how you wish to use the fruit in the future and prepare the fruit ready for this purpose. For example, for soft fruit, top and tail it first, and for stone fruit, cut it in half, remove the stone and chop it into smaller pieces if necessary. Apples and pears are best peeled, cored, sliced and lightly cooked first. Next, think about the amount you will need. For jam making I freeze everything in bags of 1lb of fruit as that makes it easier. For other uses, such as for cheesecakes or cakes, I freeze in whatever quantity the recipe requires and label the bag appropriately - e.g. 6oz raspberries for cheesecake. Sometimes it is just as easy to go the whole way and make the end product first and then freeze it - such as when I'm making crumbles. A batch of cooked apples and some blackberries, say, will make 4 crumbles which I can freeze for later and cook from frozen in 20 minutes - lovely! If you're not sure how you might use the fruit in the future then place it in a single layer on a tray to freeze and then the next day decant it into bags. The fruit should be individually frozen and not stuck together in some difficult blob. However you freeze it, remember to label it clearly as things can look different once frozen and you could soon end up with a freezer full of UFOs - that's Unidentified Frozen Objects!