In a break from catching up on past weddings I thought I’d write a short blog on what I’ve been photographing lately. In one word it’s ‘Preserves’. 

This all started back in October, this year, when I bought a new jam and preserve making book called ‘Pam the Jam – The book of Preserves’ written by Pam Corbin. I bought the book originally for the jam making recipes but reading through the book, suddenly the idea of making a few chutneys seemed appealing. I’d never tried making chutney but I fancied a new challenge. If the chutneys worked out, I thought they would make nice, personalised, Christmas presents to give to our friends and family.  

I’d bought the book at the right time of year as there was an abundance of free fruit around. We were given home grown courgettes (zucchini), cooking apples, conference pears and tomatoes, all of which I turned into chutneys using Pam’s book.  

I’ve been regularly making jam, over the past year or two, and as a result I had plenty of spare jam jars. I could use them at a push but I really needed smaller jars for the chutneys. They were going to be hard to source via recycling from friends and family so I bought a bulk load of 300g jars from Wares of Knutsford. This size jar worked perfectly for most of the recipes.  

Despite being new to preserving I didn’t have any disasters. I’ve refined my technique with each batch and all of the chutneys have turned out well. Much better than shop bought varieties. The feedback from my testers (some might say victims) has been really positive and I’ve already had some jars returned empty.   

In recent weeks I turned my hand to pickling, again following recipes in Pam’s book. I’ve tried traditional pickled onions, pickled shallots and pickled jalapeno’s. They look great in the jars but I can’t say how they taste as they’re currently pickling away for Christmas.  

I can wholeheartedly recommend Pam Corbins book.  A lot of the recipes in the book are modern jams with a lot less sugar added than a more traditional jam recipe. I haven’t tried making a jam using a recipe from the book yet as we’re still well stocked up from jam making earlier in the year.

You can find Pam’s book on Amazon here. She also has an Instagram account under the user name Pam_the_Jam where she posts the odd recipe.

All images: ©Stephen Hyde 2007-2025 – All rights reserved.