Marrow & Ginger Jam (with a hint of chilli)

I wasn't expecting to be posting on here so early in the year, but it just goes to show, you never know what you might find yourself doing on a Wednesday morning?!

My freezer has been stocked with a jumbo marrow that I grew last year and had absolutely no idea what to do with. I don't even like marrow... it was more of an experiment to see how big it would get.

This was it in all it's glory:

So, a quick search on the internet discovered a couple of recipes for marrow jam with varying quantities of ginger & chilli, so I decided to have a go. This is what I used:

3lbs (approx.) frozen marrow
4 apples (empire)
juice of 2 lemons
large piece of root ginger
4lbs jam sugar (with added pectin)
2 large red chillies

and this is what I did:

Peeled, cored and cubed the apples, placed in the pan with the already cubed frozen marrow.

Cooked without adding any extra liquid until tender, crushed everything together and added the lemon juice.

Peeled the ginger, chopped it in half and threw it in the pan along with the whole chillies.

Brought the mixture back up to simmering point, removed from the heat and stirred in the sugar until it dissolved.

Returned to the heat and brought it back up to boiling point, gave it a stir and let it simmer...

simmer some more...

and simmer some more...

... until it finally thickened up (about 2ish hours) and it actually looks and tastes like jam. Then removed the ginger and chillies.

I shouldn't really be surprised because I did pretty much follow a recipe or two, but I suppose because I used frozen marrow and have never made jam before I was expecting it to go wrong.

I decanted it into warm sterilised jars while it was still hot, and sealed them. I think it looks quite impressive if I do say so myself.

The kitchen needs a good clean though... mental note, must get a funnel; attempting to spoon hot jam into hot jars is a dangerous and messy business!