Juice

When your pantry is full of more jam than you can give away as Christmas presents, and enough fruit in syrup to see you through a nuclear fall-out but the fruit keeps on coming, then it's definitely time to make juice! This is one easy way to process an overload of fruit, and it's a nice way to consume it, too. 

Fresh juice will only last a day or two in the fridge before it begins to ferment, but if you pasteurise it, bottle it, and/or freeze it, it can last for much longer.

2023 was the year of fruit. There was such an overwhelming abundance of pears, apples, and grapes that I finally went halves with a neighbour on a juice press. The result was a chest freezer full of juice: 12 litres of pear juice, 10 litres of apple juice, and 60 odd litres of grape juice.