Saw some black currants at the green market this week, and got 3 pounds for $10. With it I made two and a half liters of Crème de Cassis (using a bottle of red wine in the process, and three cups of vodka donated by a friend who had it in her freezer for months - she does not drink, and it was left over by a guest -).
As the recipe called for filtering the juice, I was left with a loft of soft black currant wine mush, and decided to make jam with it. Adding equal parts of sugar, and a cup of black cherries bought at the same time but languishing in my fridge (I ate some raw and got an allergic reaction, so left them alone after that, but could not bring myself to compost them), I just canned five cups of delicious black currant/cherry jam! The residual wine in it gives it a flavour to die for!
So I have very expensive French Cassis liqueur and out of this world jam, at a very very good price!
By the way, the Cassis recipe called for discarding the mush!
Elle*. pretty pleased, and going to get more red currants and black currants while they are in season!
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You will hear thunder and remember me,
And think: she wanted storms. The rim
Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson,
And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.
Anna Akhmatova "White nights"
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