Shirley Rose Varenye
I had the honour of farm-sitting for a friend, out in a tiny bit of paradise along the West Coast Road… Where June means ROSES.
I’ve long been intrigued by the idea of rose preserves, and was really taken by this blog post that includes an uncooked recipe for Russian sweet rose spread. It took me almost no time to harvest these petals from the old farmhouse’s venerable bushes, and the tedious work of cutting off the base of each petal was helped along by a couple podcasts.
Ingredients: Rose petals, granulated sugar, rum, and lemon juice. I didn’t have fresh lemons, so used 2 tablespoons of bottled juice instead.
It was very satisfying to run this through the food processor!
I packed the resulting paste into four 125 mL jars and one 250 mL jar, which I’d sterilized ahead of time in boiling water (along with the lids).
Now, we’ll let it rest in a cool place, and taste it in August.