What are you preserving?

[punkrockcaveman]

Fruit seems to be everywhere we look at the moment- the rowan berries are just about in season, the plums are well in. I managed another session on the bilberries and had yet another crack at the fruit leather, although these two required a longer drying time.

The dark one is rowan, bilberry and plum with a bit of granulated sugar added. The light red one is strawberry (frozen from the garden harvest a few weeks earlier), plum and crab apple with a little local honey added.



The far right one shows you hoe much I've eaten of that first batch!

 

[British Red]

Its tomato time, so today is 5 litres of bottled and a load dried...

 

[British Red]

Today, it's chillies. Our favourite variety today - ohnivec - 8" long and good, but not excessive, heat

 

[Woody girl]

Damson jam for me today. 3 jars , I make far too much jam!
Have some blackberries and a couple of apples, so solar fruit leather with them tomorrow.
Been solar drying courgettes today too.

 

[Robson Valley]

Shellfish. For millennia, First Nations here on the coast cultivated every possible beach for clam, oysters (the size of your hand) and festoons of mussels on the rocks. The middens are tens of thousands of cubic meters of shell. Bottomless in some places.

I want to steam buckets of little butter clams. Then shuck and string them on cords and smoke dry them. My grandpa did this out behind his shed in Vancouver, BC, where he built boats.

I plan to do a bunch of beef curing, smoking and drying this winter.

 

[British Red]

Today has been horseradish foraging, preparation & sauce making. I have to say that horseradish is probably my favourite tracklement!

 

[TeeDee]

Today has been horseradish foraging, preparation & sauce making. I have to say that horseradish is probably my favourite tracklement!View attachment 75856

@British Red How far through the year does your preserved items last you? What I am meaning is , of the items from growing season one - how far or close to growing season Two do you get if you consume at a normal rate?

I appreciate preserved goods can last a very long time but I wonder how close you are to one in - one out.

 

[British Red]

@British Red How far through the year does your preserved items last you? What I am meaning is , of the items from growing season one - how far or close to growing season Two do you get if you consume at a normal rate?

I appreciate preserved goods can last a very long time but I wonder how close you are to one in - one out.

It's not really one in, one out, we build stores through Summer and Autumn and consume them through Winter & Spring but we generally manage okay. We aren't self sufficient in bulk carbs though, we do buy in rice, flour etc.

 

[British Red]

Just a little Creme de Cassis preserving today - Fiona picked the last 5 pounds of blackcurrants so I snaffled a kilo

 

[punkrockcaveman]

Brilliant BR. I need me one of those funnels- is it just a kilner jam funnel or something a bit more specialised?

 

[British Red]

Brilliant BR. I need me one of those funnels- is it just a kilner jam funnel or something a bit more specialised?

It's exactly that - I use them constantly for filling jars!

 

[punkrockcaveman]

I've just finished drying a load of spearmint and yarrow for tea. Just a low oven with the door cracked, stems and all on a perforated pizza tray or cooling rack. Once dried the stems can be stripped into a bowl.

fresh spearmint

Fresh yarrow

Stripped stems

Dried spearmint

Dried yarrow

It's worth noting the flower heads are much easier to dry as the leaves will dry to nearly nothing

 

[punkrockcaveman]

Last year's crab apple vodka went down so well that me and a couple of mates have chipped in to creat a monster batch with a big 5 litre kilner jar. The basic recipe is 1kg sugar, 3 litres of vodka and as many apples as you dare fit in the jar! Chopped in half you can pop out the seeds with a point of a knife.

 

[Woody girl]

I made apple pie vodka once, delicious, just added some cinnamon sticks to the apples and vodka.
Have just foraged a bag of nice sweet eating apples yesterday, may have to make some more this year.
The damson gin is under way, and blackberries ready for winter crumbles are in the freezer, along with a nice harvest of beans.
Drying home grown tomatoes tonight.
More blackberries to be collected tomorrow for a gallons worth of wine. Don't drink much at all, but always a useful present or swop for labour or favours.

 

[Robson Valley]

Probably the only preserve that I've made recently would be lime marmalade. Some times in the autumn, our little grocery store gets a load of very nice, big,unblemished limes. Two dozen will keep me busy, putzing around, for a couple of days. I have had people pick my cherries and grapes, I'm sure to get a few jars of treats in compensation.

 

[British Red]

Tomatoes are keeping us really busy at the moment as well as waterglassing eggs for the inevitable egg drought during moult

 

[British Red]

The last if the years bacon got sliced and packed today. Just chickens to process and some venison hopefully and that's our meat preserved

 

[Mesquite]

All of these and a lot more


Were turned into this

 

[British Red]

We are on to the root veg now. We love tiny "canned" carrots. Melt in the mouth and super sweet. The water makes the best gravy

 

[plastic-ninja]

Damson gin is a big thing up here in the Lyth Valley. Our damsons/bullaces are wild & very sharp but an amazing flavour. I’m allergic to gin so I make damson rum with dark rum & half the normal sugar and also some damson Eau de vie which comes out around 80%abv & has to be cut with distilled water back to around 50% before I can use it in cocktails. Whisky works too; my favourite is Jamesons.