Bits and Bobs

A new lady at the allotments has taken over a plot. Our year at the allotments runs October to October so we have time to tame a previously unoccupied plot before spring arrives, I assume. Her plot has a medlar tree on it and she doesn't know what to do with them (yet!). So my friend and I each fell heir to a bagful. I have never made anything with medlars before so I made medlar jelly because it is another thing to put in my Christmas hampers. All adults are having a Christmas hamper this year so I need lots of things to put in them. Medlars are not high in pectin so I put in a couple of pounds of apples in order to guarantee a set. It is very nice and my husband was pleased when there was a little drop over that would not fit in the jars. He very kindly offered to use it up for me.... : )

I now have three members of my family in isolation. Two of my grandchildren have been sent home from school to isolate for two weeks because somebody in each of their school years has gone down with Covid. In fact, in their school, there are 5 classes in rather than the 21 there should be... And my daughter's school has had one member of the senior management team go down with Covid so all the staff have been sent home to isolate so therefore the school has had to be closed. Fun times.

I went to Lidl to do my shopping and got a scratch card for £1 off my shopping. Exciting! Only £1 but it was free and will be used against a Christmas treat for us : ) Also, I was sent a £2 coupon for Comfort fabric softener. Comfort is one of the few I can use without coming out in a rash. I don't use fabric conditioner very often and a bottle normally lasts me about a year or perhaps longer. The coupon had to be used at Sainsburys and they had their large bottles at £3 so it cost me £1 with the coupon. I was happy to pay £1 for my next year's supply : )

I joined Olio a few weeks ago to see where that would go. Olio connects people with food to spare with people who would like to use it. Some of the members in my area obviously work for a supermarket or some sort of food shop as they list umpteen heads of broccoli or whatever. However I am finding that the cost of petrol far outstrips the value of the item to be collected. So I have not collected very much from Olio yet. I did get a bag (unopened) of gluten free bread flour for my gluten free granddaughter and also 4 x litres of UHT semiskimmed milk. I still think Olio is a good idea because it stops food going to landfill.

My preserving year

I don't seem to have written "my preserving year" this year to remind me what I have made. I haven't actually made much because we still have some jams and pickles left from about 3-4 years ago. They keep for ages if there is a good seal on the jar which is why I like using "poppy tops" if I can. Still, I like to give freshly made jams etc in Christmas hampers so I have made some with the fruit that has come my way.

Elderflower champagne (and some more elderflowers in the freezer to make cordial)
Apple scrap vinegar
Blackberry and apple jam
Blackberry chutney - not made this before so I am waiting for it to mature to taste and see if I like it
Damson and plum jam

Autumn jam - bits and pieces of autumn fruit - crab apples, sloes, damsons, elderberries. I sieved it to remove all the stones and pips so it is a smooth jam with no "bits" and the flavour is fantastic.
Tomatoes preserved in oil - https://theelliotthomestead.com/2020/08/preserved-tomatoes-in-olive-oil/

Quince and lemon jelly

French apple jam - https://thriftylesley.com/home-made-french-apple-jam/

Medlar jelly

Onion marmalade

Herb salt

Pam Corbin's souper mix

My Preserving Year 2019

I was given a bucketful of plums so I have started on my preserving year - my record of what I made. I find this a useful memory jogger for me, especially if I forget/don't get around to labelling everything. Jars that are given away always have nice labels but stuff that is just for us may just get a piece of paper tucked in the box. And pieces of paper in this house seem to get up and walk away somehow... : ( Hence my list - it gives me a bit of a clue.

Jams

Plum
Blackberry and apple (21 lbs)

Chutneys

Red pepper and chilli jam

Drinks

Strawberry soda

Days away

We have been back to Cambridge for three more days of meetings for my husband. Usually I really enjoy pottering around because it is such a lovely place. however this time I had hurt my ankle and by the time it had hung down in the car for the length of the journey there, I had a good sized pumpkin sitting between my leg and my foot. It had gone down a bit by the next morning but walking was somewhat painful so I didn't go very far. Or the next days either. I didn't even get to the river which is one of my favourite walks. Maybe next time....   and if I could work out what I have done to my ankle, I would try hard not to do it again!

However, we took some back roads on the way home, and on one totally deserted road, I found a patch of elder. So now I have a couple of nice fat bags of elderflower in the freezer waiting for me to find the time to make some elderflower cordial and elderflower champagne. I have been and bought some lemons so all I need now is that elusive commodity, time.

Happy New Year

A slightly belated greeting but I wish you a happy and healthy new year  for 2019  : )

We had a lovely Christmas. We spent Christmas Day with our son and his family. Elder daughter and her family spent Christmas Day with younger daughter and her family. Then on Boxing Day we all went to younger daughter's house for tea together. She organised each of us to bring certain items to contribute to the meal so that it was an easy meal for everybody. We had fun!

On New Year's Eve we went out to our friend's farm with a few other friends and saw in the New Year. I'm not used to late nights like that and it took me about three days worth of early nights before I felt human again...… And I only drank fruit juice too!

We are looking around for a new(er) car. Ours is 2004 and is definitely beginning to show its age. We have had it for 8 years now and I've been really taken aback at how much prices have gone up in those 8 years. Our car goes well but it is all those electronic gizmos that are beginning to go wrong. For example we now have two windows that won't go up and down, including the driver's window, which is a pain at a car park barrier where you have to actually get out of the car now to put in a code. There are an awful lot of other little signs of age so we thought we had better bite the bullet and start looking around - but there is too much choice. and as I said, the prices are so high. Aargh.

We went to see little grandson yesterday. His mum will have to go back to work in February so my visiting days are numbered. I really enjoy playing with him and he is virtually walking already and at nine months old. He just needs to hold on to a finger to give him the confidence he needs but it doesn't look like it will be long before he is off and away.  The cat is constantly finding new little hideaways where she feels safe from him.

We had a nasty discovery on Wednesday. We have our big chest freezer in the shed beside the house and we use that one to store meat. Well, we haven't  needed to open it since before a bit before Christmas. And it had stopped working and we have lost all our meat. And the smell of a whole freezer worth of putrid meat was just indescribable. My husband had the delightful job of  emptying it and taking it to the council tip while I went down to church to spend the day baking. He has scrubbed out the old freezer out and it is currently sitting at the end of the garden to air out before it becomes a pest proof store for the hen food in another shed. And Currys delivered our new freezer this morning. They give you a four hour delivery slot after 10pm the night before the delivery and then the driver is supposed to ring you 30 minutes before he is due to arrive at your house. Well he didn't. Fortunately my husband actually heard the doorbell because he doesn't always and I was in school invigilating an exam this morning and worrying because they had not been in touch. They were supposed to phone or text me 30 minutes before arrival but they didn't. And they broke the edge of the little wall beside the shed with their big feet so I am not happy with Currys. I've never had any problems when we have bought things from ao.com so guess where we will be buying from next time.

A friend was given several chickens. She wanted to put them in her freezer but she had to empty it out to have enough space for the chickens which were more valuable than some of the veg in there. she gave me a bag of limes so I have made lime marmalade for the first time. I am disappointed in the colour because it is a kind of a brownish colour but the flavour is wonderful. And I won't notice the colour on my wholemeal toast anyway, will I : )

Preserving year 2018

This year my preserving year has been the smallest in many years. We have things left from last year and even a few jars from before that. so we didn't need much to be made this year.  Really my chief aim in doing any preserving was Christmas presents.

So this year I have made:

elderberry syrup
elderflower champagne
elderflower cordial
blackberry and apple jam
cucumber relish
cider vinegar

The elderflower champagne and cordial have turned out really well this year. I still have a bottle of the cordial left and I will need to use that a little more sparingly as shop bought stuff is not only horrendously expensive, but doesn't taste anywhere near as nice, even when made up with sparkling water. I still need to make some marmalade as that is one thing we are nearly out of and also some is needed to go in Christmas hampers. So that is it for 2018.

Apples and marmalade

Life never seems to slow down but just seems to have periods that are either busy, really busy or frantically busy. We've been away to Cambridge for a few days for the last time this year. My husband had several days of meetings and I went too. I love having the opportunity to just potter around and Cambridge is a lovely place with lots of nice places to walk and lovely old buildings to look at.

I've had a birthday and so has my son and we had a family meal which was great fun. I do so enjoy it when all my family gets together.  My son prepared the main course and I did the pudding. We had apple crumble made from lots of the windfall apples I had been given. Most of them were very small and it took me about six hours to peel and cut up enough of the tiddlers to make apple crumble for 17, some of whom have hollow legs where pudding is concerned. I watched two films that I had recorded while I prepared the apples so it felt less like a chore. I did feel quite smug that I had not wasted all those little apples but at the same time,  I had definitely had enough of preparing apple by the time I had finished! I made two roasting tins full of apple crumble. The larger one was left plain and the smaller tin had sultanas added because I really like that. Most of my family don't like dried fruit so I felt that I had chosen the right way round. So which one did they almost all opt for? Next time (with larger apples!!!) I'll put the sultanas in the bigger tin : )

I've used up some more apples in some apple marmalade. I had not come across that before but it tastes really grapefruity and my husband thinks it is lovely so it may well become a regular on my list of preserves. It contains grapefruit and lemon but the main fruit is apple. I got the recipe here:

https://homefarmer.co.uk/recipe-apple-marmalade

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My preserves for the year

I've not got very far off the starting blocks in terms of preserving this year. Truth to tell, we still have quite a lot of jam and pickles from last year and some from the year before but I would still like to make some so that I have things that are useful for gift baskets at Christmas. I tend to make a small amount of pickles and/or chutney each year anyway. My husband is a staunch fan of Branston and eats that only rarely and therefore doesn't eat my homemade offerings. I love them but it takes a while to get through a jar on my own and I like variety and as they keep for literally years. I make some each year so that I can have variety. I also put some in my Christmas gift baskets.

So far this summer, I have made lots of cordial. I had to give up tea and coffee a couple of years ago because they started upsetting me. It was hard to give them up but my insides have been so much happier that I am glad that I did. So I have a good lemon cordial recipe that I was given many years ago and ring the changes sometimes by replacing one of the lemons with a grapefruit or an orange. It is much more concentrated than bought squash and tastes miles better and it is definitely cheaper. It is also very easy so I'll keep making it. I have also made about a gallon of elderflower cordial and have some elderflowers in the freezer for future cordials. When I made the elderflower cordial and had sieved it to bottle it,  the lemons looked way too good to throw out in the compost. So I reused them and the elderflowers too and made a half batch of what tasted more like lemon with a hint of elderflower cordial. It was very nice.

I also made a double batch of elderflower champagne. I found it a little strong this year so I dilute it with a good dollop of sparkling water. This makes it go further so I am happy about that as it will last longer. It is really refreshing on a hot summer's day. Now if only I knew where to get one of those....
: )

I'll add to this list as I make things so that I have a list that is useful to me, come Christmas.

Jam

Damson
Raspberry allsorts

Pickles/chutney

Sweet chilli sauce (present for my son)
Green tomato and banana chutney
Sweet cucumber relish (two batches, one with extra onion)


Cordials

Lemon
Elderflower
Elderflower with a hint of lemon

Other

Bottled apple sauce

More jam

I've made some more jam. I got my hands on some sloes and wanted to do something other than sloe gin with them. There is a section of hedge along the perimeter of the allotments which catches the sun all day long and there was about a pound weight of big black golf balls (huge blackberries) just waiting to be picked. So I did. I added in some windfall apples  just to make sure it set. I've made jelly with sloes before but not jam. This jam has a wonderful flavour and I really like it. It is sharp in the way that marmalade is sharp but sweet at the same time. I cooked the sloes first and sieved them to remove the stones. I wondered if it would be too much of a faff but when I tasted the jam I decided it was definitely worthwhile.

So I have updated my Preserving Year post to include this jam. We have some grapes on our vine and they are nearly ready to pick to make some grape jelly. We don't always get enough grapes to be worth doing anything with them but this is a year when hopefully I will get about 5lbs of jelly.

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Autumn is on its way

With the weather today being cold, wet and windy it feels like we have suddenly turned a corner and left summer behind. I was hoping that summer would bow out gracefully and slowly. Hopefully we shall have a bit of warm sun still to come.

We went to a bbq on bank holiday Monday and a group of us went for a walk. The person whose house it was and therefore knows the area, suggested the walk.  We went along and took our three grandchildren who have all had birthdays in August and who are now 2, 4 and 7. Seven and a half miles later, we struggled back to the house.  The seven year old coped fine and obviously could have gone further. The four year old managed well for the first five miles and then had to be carried. The two year old managed a couple of miles and had to be carried the rest of the way. My arthriticky knee managed at first but by the five mile point, was protesting loudly and we still had a third of the way to go.  Not fun!

Naturally, as always, I had a plastic bag in my pocket to fill with any goodies for my rabbit as we were walking across fields and public rights of way. I did find various things for the rabbit but I also found some crab apples, elderberries and a few damsons.  I added a couple of windfall apples to this as well as a handful of blackberries and made five small pots of hedgerow jelly to add to my store.  It is a lot of work for such a small return but it has a fabulous flavour. It will be great with meat but will be just as good on my breakfast toast : )

I have more blackberries to pick and will make some more blackberry and apple jam. I'd like to make a little bit of chutney and mayber a pickle or two. My husband likes Branston and not much else but I love pickles and chutneys.  I have tried hard to broaden his mind but it remains firmly set on Branston and pickled onions. The only time I have managed to get him to try anything else (with the verdict of "It's alright but I prefer Branston") was a tomato and apple chutney made with tinned tomatoes. Windfall apples are relatively easy to come by if you know anybody with an apple tree. Tinned tomatoes are currently four for £1 at Asda so it is an inexpensive chutney to make. It also uses just ordinary vinegar, not spiced, and white sugar.

http://www.saga.co.uk/lifestyle/food/sundries/gardeners-windfall-chutney.aspx

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Losing a month

My goodness me, where did August go?  I seem to have blinked and missed nearly a month here.

We had holiday club at church. So that took up a week.  I was working with a group of six year old and my husband had seven year olds. My goodness were we tired by the end of the week! We had over 80 kids in total, aged from three to ten but with a couple of twelve year olds as well. It was a good week, though, and we enjoyed it and the kids did too. We had all the parents in with the kids for a bbq on the Friday. That was very popular. I ended up serving burgers. I don't thing I have ever even seen so many burgers in one place before. Think 80 kids with parent/s and sibling/s...

I have been making lots of jam and also a jar of pickled eggs.  I have been updating my previous "Preserving Year" post so that I know what varieties of jams I have made. The family will be pleased as none of them make jams at all.  I have been dithering about investing in some Kilner jars and trying my hand at bottling. I have got as far as looking up the price of the jars on Amazon and Lakeland. The thing is that the rings or metal discs have to bought new each year and that sounds expensive.  I know the food would be fresh and if grown yourself then you know what fertilisers etc have or have not been used. The food used would have to be cheaply acquired but then there is all the gas used and the cost of the seal not to mention the work involved.  Tins of tomatoes are on offer at four for £1 at the moment in Asda. That is cheaper than the cost of the seal and without any effort involved other than carrying the tins home.  I don't know anybody round here who does any bottling and I would love to have a chat with somebody who does. My freezer is always full and this would be a way of preserving some fruit for the winter without using the freezer.

Do any of you do any bottling?

We have also been trying to tackle our wood pile. In the spring, our chop saw broke. Then the chain saw developed a fault and needed a new part. It was still under warranty and we had a bit of trouble but eventually we got the part replaced and had a working saw again. And we got the chop saw sorted. The thing is that we were into exam season by the time we had the saws working again so my husband had no time at all left over to do anything with all the wood we had collected. So yesterday, our son and son-in-law came round and the three of them spent the whole day cutting up wood with both saws and also with the axe. They got through a lot of wood and we are very grateful to have such help and to have a good amount ready to burn : )

Our granddaughter came round in the afternoon and acted as gofer for the three of them. My job was to keep them all fed and watered. No easy job with the amount of physical labour involved in cutting up the wood.  I went shopping on Thursday evening and was delighted to get some of our favourite bread rolls reduced to 10p a pack. I would have made some nice bread in the breadmaker for them but these were posh rolls for less than it would have cost me to make the loaf. My secret weapon was a plentiful supply of cake and a huge pile of scones served with homemade jam and cream. There were only three scones left by the end of the day so I know they were appreciated : )

And then there is the allotment. Blink and you can't see the plot for weeds. The war is on!

And my little hens are laying well now. And eating for England, just like teenagers with hollow legs. Yesterday was the third day in a row that they have laid an egg each. Hence the pickled eggs mentioned above as it is a means of preserving some for the winter (for my lunches, probably in a salad) without using the freezer. I expect I shall be pickling a few more now that they are getting into a rhythm with laying.

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A new jam lover

I've made 20 lbs of gooseberry and elderflower jam over the weekend. Today I made 8 lbs of blackcurrant jam. At least I call it blackcurrant but the bushes are a cross between gooseberry and blackcurrant which produce large currants that taste exactly like a blackcurrant. I've forgotten the actual name of the bush. Maybe you could tell me?

After I had finished potting the jam, I went to sit down for a few minutes as my back was protesting. After a short while I became aware of a strange noise and went back to the kitchen to investigate. I found one of my young cats standing on the cooker enthusiastically washing the jam pan out with his rough little tongue.  He was really enjoying the jam : )

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The Preserving Year

Or, to be more precise, my preserving year. I find it helpful to have a list of what I've made. Jams etc keep for longer than a year so if I make a slightly different list of preserves, then it gives us lots of variety during the year. Most of my preserving happens over the summer so a post in July seems appropriate and I can go back and edit in whatever new thing I've made. It also reminds me what I've made when it comes to making up hampers of goodies for Christmas.

Drinks

Lemonade
Elderflower Champagne
Elderflower cordial

Jams


Blackberry and apple (2 batches)
Blackcurrant
Blackcurrant and rhubarb
Gooseberry and elderflower (2 batches)
Hedgerow jelly
Lemon, ruby grapefruit and orange marmalade
Orange, lemon and ginger marmalade
Plum and vanilla
Raspberry
Rhubarb with a hint of ginger
Rhubarb and vanilla
Sloe, blackberry and apple
Strawberry
Strawberry and Rhubarb


Other

Apple and onion relish
Mrs Beeton's excellent pickle
Pickled eggs

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Birthday time

I've been having fun recently.  My younger daughter and my son and I all have birthdays very close together so this year we had a joint family "do".  Everybody came as well as a few close friends and we had fun just chatting and catching up.  My daughter organised the food and everybody was detailed to bring a particular dish so it wasn't too much of a chore for anybody.  The grandchildren really enjoyed themselves as there were lots of people willing to play with them.

I've also had a couple of days away in Cambridge this week. My husband had a meeting there and the hotel charged per room and not per person so I went too.  I've never been to Cambridge before so I got to wander round while he was in his meetings.  I loved looking at all the old buildings and colleges in the town centre. My one complaint is that there were very few places to sit down and give my weary feet a rest.

I'm still processing fruit. There are still quite a few blackberries on the bramble in our garden and I'm still stewing windfalls with either blackberries or sultanas and putting bags of stewed fruit in the freezer along with another bag of plums that I was given. I still have sloe and apple jelly to make and I have citrus fruit in the fridge for marmalade. I'd quite like to make some sweet apple chutney too.  I've made piccalilli because I know my daughter would like some for Christmas - and when it was all bottled, I realised that I had forgotten the mustard.  So I'm not quite sure how that will turn out...

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Jam time again

I've been busy making jam again.  So far I've made:

cherry
damson
blackcurrant
blackberry and apple
blackberry and plum
blackberry medley
raspberry
four fruit marmalade
apple and sloe jelly
autumn jelly
piccalilli


No pickles yet.  Our little tree has excelled itself and I have processed about 50lbs of damson plums.  I have 16 bags of stewed fruit in the freezer and many lbs of jam.  We have a bramble in te garden that I would not let my husband get rid of until I had picked the fruit.  So far I've had about 4lbs of fruit from it as well as picking blackberries from any other place that I find them.  I've managed to scrounge apples from a couple of people to add to the jams and have four (so far!) bags of stewed apple with sultanas in the freezer for winter puddings.  I love stewed fruit with yoghurt for pudding. Yum! I've also bottled 12 small jars of apple sauce.

We lost our big freezer and also our little one in the last year. We've replaced the big one but not bought a little one.  I was trying to do without it but I answered a Freecycle ad last week and have now got a new (to me) small freezer again. Yay!  The theory goes that the small one gets used to house the harvest and gets turned off when empty.  My last little one never got to be empty because I would fill it with yellow stickered bargains.  I was so upset when that one died because we didn't notice until there was a funny smell and so we couldn't rescue anything.  Right now, having extra freezer space, I feel like a squirrel putting away a good food store for the wintertime : )

Talking of jam - has anybody else spotted that Lidl have their sugar on sale at 39p?  It is only just a year ago that sugar was nearly £1 a bag!  I shall have a few packs in store for Christmas baking and further marmalade making. I suspect Aldi will have their sugar at a similar price too.

This post has been edited to keep my list of preserves up-to-date so that I know what I have made.

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Pickle recipe

This recipe is for one of our favourite pickles.  It is not expensive to make and you can play around a little bit with the quantities and it will still be fine.  I found the recipe originally in a book from the 1970s by Alison Burt called "Preserves and Pickles".  I thought I'd share it because it is so easy.

It is a recipe that gives an amount of "prepared apple" which I really like because you can use windfalls.  If you only have a box of windfalls then it is a bit difficult to judge how many bits of reasonable apple equal the amount of whole apple in the recipe.  My ancient jam recipe book (HMSO book from the 1960s) also tends to take the "prepared apple" approach. 

Sweet Pickle with Apple

2 lbs apple (prepared)
2 cucumbers
4 large onions
1/2 pint brown malt vinegar
8 ozs white sugar
1 teaspoon celery seed
1/2 teaspoon each ground ginger and turmeric
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Peel cucumber and cut into 1/4 inch dice.
Peel and chop onions finely.
Place prepared apple, onions and cucumber in a pan with all the remaining ingredients.
Bring to the boil, stirring all the time to make sure the sugar is dissolved.
Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.
Put the pickle into hot, clean jars and seal immediately.

Notes on how I did it this time:
I didn't have any turmeric so I left it out.
My celery seed has a price label of 40p and it must be ancient - so I was generous with it.
One of my cucumbers had gone off so I just used one.
My onions were what I would have called "medium" so I used five.
I had a small amount of spiced vinegar left from last autumn's preserving so I used that.

I've had a bug and am off work so I couldn't face standing to do all that chopping and I used the food processor to chop it all.  Next time I might use the grater attachment as processed cucumber was a bit of a mistake...  All the previous times I've made this pickle, I've chopped everything finely by hand and it does give a nicer looking pickle but the key thing is the taste.  After all, when the pickle is in a sandwich, I can't see whether everything is neatly chopped or not : )

This pickle will be ready to eat before Christmas.  It is sweet and tangy and is wonderful in a cheese sandwich.  If you like your pickle hot and spicy, then add something to pep it up.  It is a very tolerant pickle. It also keeps well.  I've got a jar from the batch I made three years ago and it is just lovely.

Edited to say that this quantity made 8 jars this time.  The jars were all smaller pickle jars that would have held about 12ozs or a little bit less.

Free food : )

I read a post on Facebook that says that there is likely to be another coupon in Thursday's Sun newspaper for Morrison's - for £5 worth of free fruit and veg with no strings attached.  I shall be popping round the corner to have a look on Thursday to look at a copy of the Sun to see if this is true. 

I do hope so! I've told my son so that he can get his copy as, with another little person in the house, anything that stretches their budget will be very welcome. And we've been out with them to the park this afternoon to run a bit of energy off the children and get a breath of fresh air for the grown ups.  They let my daughter-in-law out of hospital yesterday at 9pm(!) and she has had both the doctor and midwife visit this morning so she really wanted a gentle saunter in the park for a few minutes before sitting on a bench to watch the rest of us run after the older children and push swings etc.  It was lovely and sunny and probably did her a bit of good after four days in hospital.

I got some more blackberries and was given a bag of windfalls so I've made some more blackberry and apple jam.  I've also diced up the cucumbers I bought for 24p from Lidl and have them sitting in salted water before I pickle them tomorrow.  I've got marmalade to make and hopefully jam from the little not-quite-damson tree we have that a squirrel kindly planted for us.  I've also got some half price peaches and nectarines from Lidl and want to make some jam from them.  Guess what is going to be in the food hampers for my friends at Christmas? I've got a recipe for apple marmalade (with some grapefruit and lemon in as well) that I'd like to try.  My son has a small apple tree and I can't see that he will have the time or the inclination to do much with the apples this year. That is where my bag of windfalls came from and I'm hoping for more.  Mind you, I was sat for ages with the bag of windfalls, a bowl for the nice bits, a bowl for the reasonable peel and cores, and a very large bowl for the bits for the compost heap - and when I got to the bottom of the bag, I'd filled the compost bowl, got a decent pile in my "reasonable " bowl and a measly 16 ozs of prepared apple to go in my jam.  I cooked the peel and cores to mush and sieved it, measured it and added that to my jam too with an apprepriate amount of extra sugar.  I do like some apple in with my blackberries because it ensures a good set, the apple takes on the blackberry flavour and as well, it kind of spreads the pips out, if you know what I mean.  Small blackberries can mean that there are an awful lot of pips in the jam and I don't like too many pips.

Jam!

I've been picking blackberries.  Yum.  They have got to be one of my favourite fruits and they are free too - my favourite price.  I got some windfall apples so I've made blackberry and apple jam today.  That is the first for 2014. I won't be making so much this year because I made such a lot last summer.  Two summers back I didn't get my hands on any fruit at all so I didn't make any jam.  So I went a bit overboard last summer in case this summer was a poor harvest again.

I find homemade jam to be a versatile commodity.  It is good to eat but it is also good for giving to somebody as a thank you present or to put in a hamper as a Christmas present.  And it keeps for years - literally.  Earlier this year, we found a small number of pots which my husband had decided to store at the back of the shed, for reasons best known to himself, and they had been completely overlooked. They were dated 2001! But they were absolutely fine and have now been eaten.

Still on the subject of food, I had a lovely find in a charity shop when we were away last week.  I found a cast iron griddle and I was so pleased.  I shall be using that on the top of the woodburner to cook soda farls in the winter. I'm not sure that the lady in the charity shop knew what it was because she looked quite bemused when I took it to the till and was obviously delighted with it.  I used my frying pan on the woodburner last winter but I was a little worried in case I damaged it as it was quite expensive.  Griddles were invented for the sort of job I have in mind and a cast iron one will last me the rest of my life : )

Lidl had their cucumbers ar 29p this week so I've bought 5 and my next project is cucumber pickle.

Making Marmalade

There are a lots of blog posts around at the moment on the subject of marmalade.  I've only once made marmalade from scratch with Seville oranges when a Spanish girl (from Seville itself) stayed with us and brought me some as a present.  She told me that the orange trees grow along the roadside and people can pick them if they want to, much as we do with blackberries.

Seville oranges are in the shops around now but they are pretty pricey so I thought I would post about how my friend makes marmalade. She uses a recipe that was in an ancient copy of one of Marguerite Patten's books.  She always uses this recipe and because it gives a fairly soft set, she adds half a tin of Mamade with the appropriate extra sugar and water. This guarantees a reasonable set.  You need to stir the Mamade before taking out half.  The other half will freeze if you don't need it straightaway.  Add the Mamade, extra sugar and water at the point where you add the sugar to your cooked oranges so you have it all together ready to bring to the boil towards a setting point.  This is another way of stretching the pennies because sometimes you can pick up a reduced price net of sweet oranges in the supermarket.  The combination of the flavour of the sweet oranges and the Seville oranges in the Mamade is really lovely. You do need a big jam pan or huge saucepan to accommodate everything, though.

To stretch the pennies even further, I have often added a half pint of apple pectin stock to the above mix along with an extra 8 ozs of sugar.  The result is a slightly more jelly-like texture but the flavour is still very good.  This produces an extra pot of marmalade really for the cost of the sugar because the apples were free windfalls.

One last point - I have tried this using a pressure cooker to reduce the cooking time and therefore the amount of gas used.  Shirley Goode said in one of her books that the anount of liquid should be halved by the end of the cooking time.  So I tried cooking the oranges in the pressure cooker with just one pint of water and it worked really well.  I ended up with the quantity of marmalade that I was expecting and the orange peel was cut up in a fraction of the time using scissors. Result!

Sweet Orange Marmalade

1 lb sweet oranges
2 pints water
2 lbs sugar
juice of 2 lemons

1   Cut or mince oranges finely, removing the pips
2   Soak peel and pulp overnight in the water, together with the pips tied up in a piece of muslin
3   After soaking, put fruit, water and pips into a covered pan
4   Simmer slowly until peel is quite soft
5   Take out bag of pips
6   Stir in warmed sugar and lemon juice (Add the Mamade, extra sugar and water at this point)
7   Bring marmalade to the boil
8   Boil rapidly in an uncovered pan until setting point is reached. This will take about 20 mins but start   testing after 10 mins.

Even more jam again

I've been working my way through the fruit that I collected last weekend.  So I made sloe and apple jam.  I sieved the sloes to take the stones out and then I sieved the apples too so it has the consistency of a spread.  I bought a mouli mill a couple of years ago (from Amazon using e-vouchers that I earned doing surveys) and it really takes the effort out of sieving things like this.  There were a handful of blackberries that went into this jam and the seeds went through the holes in the mill so it is not quite seedless but I love the flavour.

And I've boiled up hedgerow jelly tonight made from the rest of the fruit from that country lane.  I thought the jelly was going to be this year's failure because I boiled it for 55 minutes before it showed signs of setting and I thought the flavour would be spoilt.  The last spooonful went into a little bowl and we can try that tomorrow.  I'm too tired tonight so I'll wait to pronounce judgement.

Last summer I didn't get my hands on any fruit so no jam whatsoever was made - just some marmalade to add to Christmas presents.  I kept all my jars, though, and have added to my collection through the year.  It is just as well, since I've made so much this year.

I'd like to make some apple chutney with some of the windfalls I was given and then I am all jammed/pickled out.  I think most people will be getting a hamper for Christmas this year : )