Cowberry storage for the winter: collection rules and some recipes

Cowberry - a plant that has long been used not only as a delicious berry, but also as a plant with pronounced curative properties, actively helping with diabetes as hypoglycemic, and in arterial hypertension - as an antihypertensive drug. For this, not only ripe fruits are used, but also leaves, and therefore storing cranberries for the winter is an obligatory measure for knowledgeable people. The correct method of harvesting its harvest is of prime importance. So, if the berries should be harvested only ripe, in the period from August to September, then the leaves should be carefully cut from April until the second half of May, when the buds are absent or are just beginning to germinate. The reason for this is the maximum utility of the green parts of the plant at this time, but the leaves collected during the summer season quickly turn black and lose all the useful qualities that cowberry has. The recipes for harvesting this unique berry for the winter are not difficult. This is drying, cooking jam, jam, marmalade. It can also be stored fresh, wiped with sugar or soaked, and tastier and more useful will be its combination with other fruits or berries, for example, raspberries or cranberries.

Drying

Cowberry storage for the winter is facilitated by its high content of benzoic acid, thanks to which the washed berries can simply be soaked in water or a weak sugar syrup in a large, preferably wooden, container. So it must be unchanged for a whole season, but if the housewives want to enjoy this delicacy all year before the next harvest, it is better to wash the berries, dry and dry in plastic bags. Even longer will be stored lingonberries. For its preparation, washed berries should be spread on a towel and left in the shade until the moisture evaporates completely, and then pour it onto a baking tray, put it in the preheated oven, turn it off and allow it to cool completely. Cowberry storage for winter, dried in this way, will be long, if you put berries in jars and tie with cheesecloth instead of a lid.

Jam with honey

Extraordinary tasty and useful is a special jam from cowberry cooked with honey. The beginning is very similar to the usual recipes: first the berries should be carefully sorted and washed, and then problanshirote about 2-3 minutes in boiling water. But here are the subtleties: for the preparation of syrup, in which you need to cook lingonberries on low heat, per 1 kg of fruit you need 100 g of water, a pound of flower honey, a pinch of ground cinnamon, 2-3 cloves of cloves and one teaspoon of grated fresh peel Lemon. And for about 10 minutes to complete readiness, 2-3 mint leaves, linden and pink petals should be added to the jam. Then, as usual, pack the resulting delicacy in dry jars and close tightly with lids. Cowberry storage for the winter in this form should be done in a dark cool environment. The best place for this is a storage room, not a basement, since the room should be dry and ventilated.