What are you preserving?

[SaraR]

I see you folk preserve lots of berry and fruit. Up here we don't do so much but we are air drying moose meat and smoking dry fish - I'm don't know what you call this fish in English.
we dry or smoke meat by cutting long thin threads of meat and hanging it out of reach of critters. The air here is much drier than I noticed in your country.

In Sweden, 'lutfisk' - lye-cured stockfish - is a traditional Christmas dish. I assume the stockfish comes from Norway, where they use it more frequently in everyday cooking than we do.

I think smoked meat (and fish) is much more common than air-dried here in the UK. There's been quite an increased interest in doing it yourself over recent years and especially during the pandemic.

 

[bobnewboy]

Well, the weather wasn’t ideal to follow my other outdoor pursuits yesterday, so I revisited Hugh’s (@British Red ) recipe for caramelised onion chutney. It is quite time intensive, and makes the kitchen smell (nice or otherwise, depends upon your point of view ), but the results are well worth it. It’s only a shame that a massive amount of chopped onions turns into relatively few jars of chutney, but what chutney!……

Link to the original post here here ….And direct to YouTube .

We also have a glut of mini cucumbers - we’re eating at least one a day each and they still keep coming - so I have also revisited Hugh’s pickling video also here on YouTube

It worked nicely last year, but this year we’re going for a plainer pickle with a couple of the suggested spices left out. It’s so nice to open them at Christmas or anytime during in the winter and enjoy your own efforts.

 

[Toddy]

A friend has been shooting pigeons for one of the local farmers. There's only so much pigeon breast that you can eat though, so he's been turning them into burgers and there's now a stash of them in our freezer for HImself
I am tempted to try canning some of the meat this year. We used to do rabbit under beef dripping to keep it, and from memory it lasted very well indeed. Old fashioned potted meat.
We're going to try potted hough from venison later in the year, just to see how it turns out. Pressure cook it down to make decent jelly, shred and season the meat and pot it.

 

[Woody girl]

Five jars of blackcurrant jam today. Still have a pound of currants left, so may make cordial, saving a few for a summer pudding, served with fresh cream....mmmmmm, my favourite pud of all time.

 

[Woody girl]

2lb of ( yellow sticker) cherry jam added to the shelf of preserves.
First blackberries picked at the weekend and an apple and blackberry crumble was made for pud on Sunday.

 

[Woody girl]

Oh, I is busy!!!
Pickled my shallot onions, 1x large pickled egg jar full to the brim.
Damsons waiting for damson jam, just chopped and salted veg for piccalilli tonight, so that's tomorrow's job, and i picked an ice cream tub full of blackberries today, for the freezer.
Apples are falling off the tree, so will be juiced, and when I've got time in the next day or so, I'll pick what I can and apples will be stewed for the freezer.
Might give my cider press a whirl too. I always have a huge glut of apples, as I get given bags full.
This weekend will also be time to make blackberry and apple jam, apple chutney, and beans to be frozen, tomato sauce to make and bottle, courgettes to dry, and I'm still waiting on the pumpkins to grow to size.
I've planted some winter veg, more carrots, turnips, swede, and potatoes that will hopefully be ready for Xmas. Sprouts got decimated by catapillars.... again....brassica are a no go round here, despite double netting them this year.
I love autumn, but harvesting and preservation is full on and tireing when it's single handed.