This past Saturday I had my first ever booth at the 2nd annual Farmer's Market in the town we live. I started last fall doing some canning. My father-in-law had a lot of green tomatoes that would have gone bad or gotten destroyed by the upcoming frost. He called me and asked if I would make him some green tomato preserves, reluctant at first I agreed. I found a recipe that he described was like his mothers. I have canned tomatoes (ripe ones) in the past but never tried my hand at preserves or jams. The green tomato preserves were a success! Personally I didn't care for the taste, but my father-in-law and his brother said they were very close to what they remember "Nanny" used to make. This was the start of something!! I enjoyed myself so much making the preserves, and he had so many more green tomatoes that I had to do something with them all. So, I remember a recipe that a dear friend who passed away last year gave me and I started on the mission to find it and make green tomato pickle. This is the best pickle! The tomatoes are crisp and sweet. I always remember having a covered dish lunches at church and knowing those pickles would be there. After the success of both green tomato projects I set out to try my hand at making jams and preserves. I love it almost as much as decorating cakes! Last fall into the holiday season I made apple cinnamon jelly, apple pie jam, berry christmas jam, hot pepper jelly, and cranberry apple chutney. I also did lots of baking and set up my booth at all of the local holiday bazaars with my husbands cousin. So, when she suggested I rent a booth at the local farmer's market I thought it would be a good place to market my jams. I never thought they would go over so well. I started with 7 cases of jams and came home with 3 cases. Some of the flavors I sold were raspberry lemon marmalade, bumbleberry jam (a mixture of blueberry, raspberry & strawberry), strawberry orange marmalade, apple pie jam, apple cinnamon jelly, hot pepper jelly, grape jelly & strawberry jam. I have been invited to the Warsaw farmer's market the second saturday in July and I have registered for the rest of the season @ the Tappahannock market the 3rd saturday July-October. I have plans to prepare jams and preserves with the seasonal fruit I can find such as peach preserves and peach chutney, cinnamon blueberry jam, strawberry peach, blushing peach (peach/raspb.), watermelon rind pickle and sweet pickles. I will also have cake balls in a variety of flavors. And yes I have samples of the jams as well as the cake balls!
