Moment to Moment: Lots and lots of Rose Hips, rose hip ketchup, syrup and marmalade

Where to begin after such a long absence from here, I suppose rose hips are as good a start as any :)

Each year around this time I go to a special beach where the rose hips are especially big and beautiful. Rose hips are the fruits of the rosebushes. Here in Denmark the most common wild rose is the Rosa Rugosa, and they also provide the biggest fruit. I gather many kilos and spend the next days processing them into raw rose hip salsa, rose hip ketchup, marmalade, rose hips in syrup and the rest I dry or freeze.

It is a good idea to pick the hips while they are still orange in colour, so not fully ripe, as they are much easier to process, once fully ripe they "mush" easily between your fingers,

and it becomes even more difficult to remove the seeds.

Working with rose hips, and especially making them into jam and ketchup requires a lot of work as the seeds and little hairs inside need to be removed before processing. I remove the top, cut them in halves and scoop out seeds with the bottom of a teaspoon . Though the cleaning work is tedious, I absolutely adore these little vitamin filled beauties, the colour, the taste, the smell of them cooking and all the lovely vitamin C, A and calcium that they contain so abundantly, a little super food in its own right. Just one tablespoon of dried rose hip powder will provide an adult with the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C. They are also used to treat cold-like symptoms and to relieve symptoms of kidney disease. They are also believed to be of great benefit to people with arthritis and joint aches, and as my joints have been really acting up I am looking forward to see if I notice a difference in the months to come when I add the dried rose hip powder to shakes, yoghurt, sauces and dressings.

Raw rose hips salsa I made with cherry tomatoes, spring onions, fresh chillies, fresh ginger,

cilantro, salt, pepper and cumin.

This is great with grilled fish, with tortillas, rice and beans and also as a dip with corn chips.

Salsa served on grilled fish

To make rose hip ketchup I used;

4 chopped medium red onions and six chopped garlic cloves, fry in plenty of ghee(clarified butter, or simply use butter) in a large pot long with shredded peal of

one organic orange and one organic lemon.

Clean, wash and chop about two kilo rose hips and add to pot.

Add 2 dl apple cider vinegar, 2 dl red wine vinegar (white wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar also works), and 4 dl water to pot, cover and simmer until rose hips are soft.

For me this usually takes a good 20 minutes. Then I get out my hand blender

(it must be a strong hand blender, otherwise use a food processor)

Blend smooth and add about 6 dl cane sugar,

about 2-3 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

1 teaspoon ground allspice,

1 teaspoon ground cloves and 1/2 teaspoon chillies (keeping the children in mind)

And leave it to simmer on low heat with a lid, stirring once in a while, for about 15-20 minutes.

Then add to sterilised glasses (boiled in hot water bath) and seal tightly.

Like this in a cool garage mine have kept for over a year, once opened they will usually last a couple to three weeks in the fridge.

This size portion in our family will last until the rose hips once again grow plentiful along the beaches here in Denmark next august. However you could also just make half for a smaller portion.

We use this in place of ketchup, though both my children feel very strongly that it has nothing to do with ketchup, I disagree and have not bought ketchup for the past two years.

I also use it in tomato sauce and in dressings.

Highly recommend!!

For the jam I used just short of 1 kilo cleaned, washed and chopped rose hips along with just a little water (about 3dl) simmered for about 20 min then added 5 chopped organic apples, simmer again until cooked out. I partially blended the jam with hand blender, leaving some texture in the jam.

Then I added about 500g of cane sugar, and juice of one lemon.

(I thought the jam came out a bit too sweet, but the children loved it , so you may want to add less at first and then add more to taste)

Super yummy..

For the first time I made rose hips in syrup, and it is certainly not the last, so delicious!

In a pot I squeezed out the juice of an orange, added the rinds (peeled off with a potato peeler)

from the same orange, scraped out seeds of one vanilla bean and added along with the vanilla pod, together with 175g of cane sugar. Simmered till sugar was dissolved, then added halved cleaned and washed rose hips (about 250g) and simmered on low heat under lid for a good 20 minutes.

These tasted great on top a grilled cheese blackbread sandwiches.

I can imagine they will be great on top of yoghurt, salad or even as a side to salty foods.

I made only one glass and keep it in the fridge.