Using your produce?

[Tony]

Is anyone currently using produce they've made? We're eating did apples and the like, salsa and stuff but to be honest we didn't make anything this last autumn really so we've not for any freshly preserved stuff.

How about any of you?

 

[Toddy]

Dried fruits…apples, pears, mangos, strawberries and we still have four dozen jars of jam and chutney stashed in the pantry.
Raspberries, brambles and blackcurrants in the freezer are nearly finished though. There are half a dozen wee bottles of sloe gin and whisky, and one of home made cointreau type liqueur. I also still have one bottle of my homemade wild strawberry syrup
I also have eight jars of peaches in brandy syrup left.

I make the boozy stuff, but we really don't use it. I'd be better just preserving stuff in sugar syrup I think for my tastes. Thing is though, I'm not so keen on the sweet either and I don't think they do well in salt

I still have dried vegetables too. From onions and woodears to sweet peppers and carrots/parsnip/celeriac mixture. Not a lot of those left though. The herb drawers are slowly emptying too.
It's just that time of year. I am so looking forward to Spring and Summer

M

 

[Mike313]

How do you dry the vegetables, Toddy? Is there an advantage in drying versus freezing? (I suppose it saves space in the freezer?)

 

[xairbourne]

I’m now roasting my own coffee which has spolit me, I can never happely purchase coffee while im out. Curing and cold smoking bacon, made chorizo for christmas - cold smoked that. While we had the cold smoker going we put cheese, water, garlic and salt in there, the cheese stole the show it kept getting better.

 

[Toddy]

How do you dry the vegetables, Toddy? Is there an advantage in drying versus freezing? (I suppose it saves space in the freezer?)

I steam them in big chunks and then when they're cold I cut them up into cubes. I dry those in the dehydrator.
Peppers, I roast and skin, and then dry them when cut up.
Woodears/jellyears/tree ears I just cut up finely and dry. They turn out exactly like the ones in Chinese stir fries
Onions are either fried and dried (not so keen on those tbh) or just cut up into small pieces and dried. They soak and cook quickly.

All are great for soups and camping Really lightweight too.
If you put in a handful of the assorted kinds into a grinder it makes brilliant veggie stock

M

 

[John Fenna]

Hedgerow jams, jellies, wines and liquers regularly feature on our menues - started a rather nice Blackberry wine at the weekend...
From the garden - We have finished our spuds and onions but the blackcurrants are still holding out (as jam) as are the raspberries and the pickled Nastursium seeds - the herbs are starting up again already!

 

[oldtimer]

Thanks to British Red's recommendation, we are still eating our Early Nantes carrots, from the garden, pulled fresh as needed. One sowing has seen us self-sufficient in carrots since last spring. And perpetual spinach, well- perpetual! Herbs lasting well.

Parsley picked, bagged and in the freezer is a success.
The store cupboard still has plenty of jams and chutneys made from our own produce- gooseberry, currant, grape lasting well.

Early salad crops already germinating on the kitchen window sill.

A French friend produces the most delicious fruit leather which he brings out at our annual community picnic up in the hills. I've never managed to learn how he does it- seems it's a family secret. I love to produce something English this year just to disabuse them of their unjustified poor impression of our food. Any suggestions?

 

[Dogoak]

Chutneys, jams, dried ceps and chanterelles and some gravlax made last month in the freezer

 

[Janne]

I made quite a few jars of Mango Jam, Mango and Lime Jam, Banana and Mango Jam.
All in both Set and Runny versions.
Plus a couple of jars of Cuban thyme and Lime Jelly

Then the only fish we eat is the fish we bring back from my fishing trips to Norway, skinless, boneless. Last summer we brought back about 50 kilos. Almost finished.

I make my own sausages sometimes, but that does not count as I buy the meat.

 

[Toddy]

Xairbourne, that's a heck of a crop of dinners

Janne, I wish we could grow mangos here; I am very fond of them dried. I buy them when I can get two or three for the pound, peel and slice and then dry them off in the dehydrator. Marvellous chewy sweetness

M

 

[bearbait]

The Damson Gin is waiting impatiently to be bottled.

 

[Janne]

Toddy, you should taste the tree ripened ones. Must be the tastiest fruit on Earth.
I plan to buy a food dryer next time I visit Florida. Dried Mango makes an excellent snack.

 

[Wayne]

I didnt really get much time to grow veggies at home this year. I did manage to forage quite a bit on the nature reserve i manage. Quite a few dried and pickled greens. Still have about 4 kilo of sloes in the freezer. I am eating a fair amount of hawthorn and rowan jelly.

I also have quite a large amount of smoked vension and jerky floating around. Deer is culled for conservation by the Forestry Commission.

 

[Robson Valley]

I run an "American Harvest" food dehydrator. My all time favorite is a case (20lbs?) of Vine-ripened Roma tomatoes. Sliced in thirds lengthwise, one load overnight = done. Then packed in good olive oil, seasoned with Italian Mixed Herbs. Still 20+lbs Saskatoon (aka Service aka Amelanchier) berries in the freezer next to 10lbs black currants. Did not get out last fall for wild Hazel nuts.

 

[Laurentius]

I have not yet finished all my frozen beans, and haven't even touched my pickled beetroot and red cabbage yet. I don't think I will be running out of dried chillis any time soon either.

 

[Tengu]

I gave most of my preserves as Xmas presents but I kept the pickled onions and pickled eggs for myself.

 

[Tony]

There's some seriously tasty description going on in this thread , it's a pity we're all so distant from each other, a meet up and share one day would be cool

 

[xylaria]

From what I grew or foraged, I have one pumpkin left, but plenty of oca and mashua. In the cupboard I stil have plum sauce, pear in jars, suaerkruat, ketchup, pickled samphire, and the worst of the plum homebrew. We have drunk the all good stuff, it took some effort but we managed. Still growing there is plenty of chard that has just plumped back up, and kale. I have only had the garden one year, and the free polytunnel ddnt survive the first storm. The old apple tree has canker and although it produced plenty of fruit it didn't keep. The good apples were eaten off the healthy trees I brought with me. My front garden has the largest bay I have ever seen, it needs chopping in half if anyone wants some. I have rebuilt the polytunnel with bamboo, it is so much sturdier than te orginal.

 

[bigbear]

Well in to the hungry gap here, just taken our last parsnips from the allotment.
Drinking home brew, damson gin and blackberry brandy, not all at once mind.
Pickled beets fro borscht, green tomato chutney and beet pcikle for preserves, the rumpot for dessert, and a freezer full of last years veg in various guises from just blanched to curried, in tomato sauce, etcetc.
Very satisfying and cheap living, whats not to like ?