The next 10 days will feature posts relating to the preserving ideas presented in our article in Edible Toronto. We`ll be sharing ideas on cherries, peaches, tomatoes, elderflowers, peas, hot peppers, raspberries, currants and berries.  We`ll touch on infusing, dehydrating, freezing, canning and pressure canning.

The most difficult part of putting the article together was dealing with the sheer quantity of choices from the summer harvest (easy for me to say as Dana is the designer who just makes it look so easy to me).  It`s tough to believe we go from the first strawberries to the last tomatoes in about 3 months.  Summer is an intense preserving time in our house and an essential time for us to keep busy in order to have locally produced food year-round.

A rumtopf is a great place to start as it includes fruit from the entire growing season.  It`s also a great place to start preserving as it doesn`t require water bathing or much equipment of any sort (more on that in a few paragraphs).  For those of you looking for it on the chart, it’s not there – this appears as a recipe separate from the chart.

A rumtopf is a winter treat. Treat fresh fruit with sugar (measurements follow) and let it steep in rum for several months. The fruit can be consumed and the liquid sipped as a Holiday toast.

A proper rumtopf is made in a crock which seals the jar and keeps it dark. Our friends Tigress and Sarah B. Hood both have samples of wonderful crocs that they’ll be using for their recipes.  We are experimenting with a clear glass container that we’ll be storing in a dark and cool place.  It’s our hope that the darkness will suffice and our see-through jar will provide a window into the layers of the harvest like some sort of mineral deposit.  The safest bet is the croc but a dark and cool place should easily preserve fruit in a clear vessel as long as it seals.

We’ve started with strawberries, spiced rum and brown sugar.  Here’s our start (we’ll update through the season):

Here`s the recipe as it appears in Edible Toronto (thank you Gail for allowing us to share this):

Buy or pick the first fruits that are in season locally and delightfully fresh. Wash and dry the fruit.†If using fruit with a stone (pit), remove the stone. Peel any fruit that can be peeled, such as peaches and pears.

Cut the fruit into bite-sized chunks.†Weigh the fruit (I prefer weight over volume for accuracy) and place it in a large bowl.

Add 50 percent of the weight in granulated sugar (so, if you have 500 grams of fruit, add 250 grams of sugar).†Let this stand for an hour (or overnight in the fridge); this is known as plumping the fruit.

Transfer the fruit and sugar mixture to the non-reactive†container and add just enough rum to cover.

Cover the container with plastic wrap before putting on the lid to help prevent evaporation and loss. Always keep the fruit completely covered, adding additional rum as needed.

Repeat with fruit all summer long by adding layers of different fruits to the same jar.

Store in a cool, dark place.

After the last addition of fruit and rum, wait at least six weeks before serving.