ISO: ISO: Easy way to preserve apricots. I have a tree brimming with them ,(about half have already

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joe

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fallen on the ground. I've salvaged some of those and they're delicious) and I have NO time this week. I don't know how to can and I don't think I can learn right now. Is there an easy formula for apricot preserves? And if so, can it be frozen instead of canned?

Why did that tree pick this year to be prolific, when I'm working nonstop and having a big party next weedend? It's been such a disappointment in years when I had more time.

 
And speaking of apricots, here are some apricot recipes at mattbites.com that I don't have time for

Traca turned me on to this blog a couple months ago and I've been enjoying it. Great photography, fun reading, and a real joie de vivre.

http://www.mattbites.com/

 
Not this week, I don't have time, LOL! You'll just have to fly out and pick 'em.

 
Lightly sugar them, toss, and pack them into freezer zip-lock bags. . .

In amounts that you can easily use; add a little Fruit Fresh or a very small amount of powdered vitamin C with the sugar, which will keep browning to a minimum.

If you wish jam to make during the winter (when the wonderful smell is good AND you keep your house warm!) freeze in the recommended amounts of your favorite apricot jam, lable as such and you will have summer fruit smell in your house when it is cold--and of course there is the jam.

I believe you can also freeze them separated on cookie sheets like one would do berries and such, pack into bags and then you can pour out what you wish even when they are frozen.

 
Apricots are the one fruit that, I think, was the first to deteriorate as we became less

fussy about quality and more concerned with quantity.

REally, I haven't had a good apricot, like the old days, in at least 50 years.

And now, to get dried ones with sulphur dioxide, just makes my allergies go crazy.

Joe, does your tree happen to be a really old one with fruit that tastes the way it did in the olden days of my youth? (as if you could really know). I've been thinking of planting one.

 
Thanks, Mistral, I can handle that. But do you have a favorite jam recipe? I've never tried.

 
Yes, apricots were sure an early casualty. I've heard they just don't keep or ship well,

so the varieties they grow commercially are breed to extend the shelf life.

My tree is only 15 years old, but it's an old-fashioned variety called "Royal." I can account for its short shelf life, but it's delicious. It's never born so heavily before--perhaps it's because we had a rare frosty winter.

 
I use a packaged, reduced sugar pectin. Sure-Jell. . .

I use Sure-Jell reduced sugar pectin, the dry stuff in the box. Uses 1/3 less sugar and the resulting jam is excellent, very fruit-flavored and not overly sweet, but is plenty sweet enough. Works great with apricots and everything else EXCEPT Santa Rosa Plums--the skins on Santa Rosa are too tart.

You can make freezer jam too, if you don't want to heat up the house with boiling water baths to can jam and such in jars.

Actually one of the fastest ways to can 'cots is to wash them, stone them, lightly cram them into jars up to the shoulders, pour over them a light syrup and then can them according to USDA recommendations. Easy and delicious and you can put up alot of pints/quarts pretty quickly.

If you really get into canning jam or fruit, you might want to consider buying a steam canner. They work great and you only have to heat up a little water compared to using a boiling water bath.

 
You can still plant those good apricots. . .

though you cannot buy them in a store or in a can. Look for Blenheim (sp?), Tilton, Royal. Good stuff. I wish I could find someone around here to get them from.

 
Mistral, are you looking for the trees or the fruit? Here's a source I googled for bare root trees

Thanks for the canning tips. With Bonne Maman close to five bucks a jar, I should look into it.

I found a recipe on Recipe Zaar that calls for only apricots, lemon juice and sugar. I will try that and if it's good, I'll freeze it.

Seriously, I have at least sixty people coming for dinner and dancing at my house next Saturday, (a good friend's 50th) and the apricots won't still be there after the party, so I've alloted an hour or so tommorrow night to do something with them! I also can't have people skidding across the dance floor on fallen fruit.

http://www.willsestatemaintenance.com/Products/Apricots;jsessionid=ac112b1f1f437e62a79ff2b540b2a5a6d73cedc5eb25.e3eTaxiNaN0Te34Pa38Ta38Lch50

 
Even at the farmers' markets the apricots are often mealy... Every year

I buy one or two, hoping, but they seem to be either sourly underripe or mushily overripe. Maybe there's a five-minute window in there when they're ripe. Gourmet had a recent recipe where you roasted canned apricot halves; they said this was as good as a good ripe apricot. I haven't tried it, but will.

 
I did most of them this morning. I got up early and picked everything that was salvagable

off the lawn, and picked every ripe one I could find on the tree. Sadly, it didn't add up to as much as I hoped because so many had rotted on the ground. But I made a pot of jam, my first, with the proportions I found on recipe zaar: 8 cups chopped fruit, 6 cups sugar, 1/4 cup lemon juice, boil for 30 minutes. I burnt my tongue on it but it tasted great. I put it in the fridge and ran off to work. We'll see how I did at breakfast tomorrow. I suspect it will be a little runny--I'll save your notes for pectin.

What a waste, the fruit comes in all at once and I was so busy the last couple weeks I just couldn't get to it.

 
But even if the texture is just fine, they taste like grass now, in comparison with many years ago.

I find so much of the fruit and vegetables like that now.

But then when I was a kid, no one had a dishwasher (well, they didn't exits until I was a teenager. So I guess some things are better.

 
I'd rather handwash the dishes and have a chin-dripping juicy piece of stone fruit any day!

OK, maybe not when I make la$agne, but any other day.......

 
I think you are right about the 5 minute ripeness window - growing up, we had an apricot tree

in our back yard, and in it, my Dad built a tree house for me. We used the fruit for all of our "meals", and I am ashamed to admit I ate so many over those summers that I got sick of them, and didn't touch them for years.

When they finally caught my fancy again, I couldn't find a good one for love or money. I finally had a perfect one a few weeks ago, from a woman in the neighborhood whose family own fruit orchards.

 
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