What are you preserving?

[punkrockcaveman]

Part of my personal skills development this year was to try and learn more about preserving, especially wild foods. The last couple of years has seen me concentrate on my foraging skills more and more, and it's great to find wild edibles, but so often they are fleeting harvests, and once picked wild foods tend to have a short shelf life.

Around my neck of the woods we have just started getting some fruit harvests- I'd imagine in other areas you are well into the season. Locally we are getting good harvests of bilberry, the lingonberries have just started (I'm chuffed to have found a few patches as these are very localised around me) and a little further failed in some of the warmer climes the hazelnuts and plums are coming good.

Preserving with sugar, alcohol, oil and vinegar are all on my list- I've started with the first two as I think they are easiest!

So my first preserves of the year are plum jam- with added crab apples for pectin- I needn't have worried about pectin as apparently plums are very high in pectin and acidity so they make a perfect jam by themselves.



My 2nd preserve is lingonberry and bilberry gin liqueur, nice to get one in early so it will be ready this side of Christmas with any luck!



I'm a bit annoyed I didn't pickle any early shoots this spring, I'll have to get on that next year.

What have you guys been preserving? What's good to preserve near you this time of year?

 

[Toddy]

Just now we're awash with raspberries, rhubarb and gooseberries.
I've been making up pie fillings and canning them in Kilner jars.
I used to make them up and fill the heavy duty stand up bags and put them in the freezer, but they take up too much room; the jars are easier.
The apples aren't ripe but the rowans are coming on very quickly. I think I might gather and freeze some until I can make apple and rowan jelly.

I'm also drying herbs in net bags (a voile curtain makes loads ) everything from mint and red clover to bog myrtle. The meadowsweet flourish is out and I'm drying that too, and I've been gathering the reedmace pollen to add as protein to flour. It keeps very well in a jar without anything but drying.

Lifted the garlic and I have peeled some of it and have it steeping in olive oil. It makes an excellent drizzle oil for garlic bread or focaccia type ones.

There are a lot of seeds worth gathering too, from poppies to nigella and chives.

It's a lovely, hopeful, time of year

M

 

[TeeDee]

I made some Sea Weed base Chimmi Churri the other day.

< spicy ! >

 

[wookii]

I've made Blackberry jam and Mulberry jam.... although the Mulberry didn't work out very well. It hasn't set and I'm not sure if I actually like the taste.

 

[bobnewboy]

Raspberry extra jam ( first prize at the village fete!), raspberry gin, raspberry jelly. Blackcurrant jam, blackcurrant jelly, blackcurrant and raspberry jelly. Rhubarb and blackcurrant vodka (came out lovely and another prize ). French bean chutney and some red pepper and French bean chutney. Pickled cucumbers - thanks for the video Hugh! Tried a dozen pickled eggs……Had to make some more shelves for the cupboard.

When the free apples are available I’ll start on the various pie and crumble fillings in combination with our now frozen soft fruit from this year.

We’re still eating last year’s raspberry jam, bullace jam and sloe jelly (Hugh again!). I did try the lemon and mustard seed chutney mentioned in Food For Free, but even my taste buds found it a bit too much…..

 

[punkrockcaveman]

Brilliant sounds like we've all been at it

@wookii never had the pleasure of mulberries. Probably due to the pectin content?

@TeeDee any chance of a recipe/guide? Sounds great!

 

[TeeDee]

Brilliant sounds like we've all been at it

@wookii never had the pleasure of mulberries. Probably due to the pectin content?

@TeeDee any chance of a recipe/guide? Sounds great!

I went on a Sea Weed foraging course the other day - tried a few different things and one type of seaweed - Serrated Wrack ( Fucus Serratus ) - had the necessary amount of , familiar texture, taste , consistency and abundance to put it on the top of my list of things to do stuff with.

Other Sea Weeds of course can be used in different way but I think its also important if one is including them for their macro nutrient profile - to ensure you can collect and use in abundance.

Add to that , that you don't want to be visiting and collecting from the coast on a regular basis I think means one needs to be looking to preserve seaweeds - which leaves dehydration to powder , lacto fermentation (?) or pickling.

For a recipe I just used around 60-70% sea weed along with a standard Chimmi Churri recipe

What I did notice was that the concoction will yield a little 'slime' on day 2/3 but the vinegar soon neutralises this and you just have a tasty sauce for all sorts of things- BBQ's , fish , Potatoes , cold meats etc etc

 

[Woody girl]

Beetroot chutney, and I want to do some piccalilli. Mmmmm!
My cauliflowers and shallots bolted in the heat, so I will have to buy some ingredients for the piccalilli this year.
Can't have enough piccalilli!
Normaly making loads of preserves by now but I still have lots of last years left, and I'm waiting for the chance to get some cheaper sugar. 95p a bag in co op, but I have been told it's 65p in b&m, wish I'd known when I was in there the other day, but I wasn't food shopping, so I didn't look.
Next week!

 

[British Red]

. Pickled cucumbers - thanks for the video Hugh! Tried a dozen pickled eggs……Had to make some more shelves for the cupboard.

Any time , just done a big batch myself

 

[British Red]

Our stuff is mostly very prosaic right now. We are in the middle of tomato season so picking off a few kilos a day

I'm getting fairly expert at peeling them

This batch wound up as Bolognese . The onions are rubbish this year (its been too dry) but the marjoram, thyme & rosemary are pretty drought tolerant.

Next batch will likely be chilli. It's honestly exhausting keeping up with it all at this time of year.

 

[British Red]

We are pretty much done with soft fruit now, but top fruit looks to be massive this year. We haven't started on the carrots or squash and have 35 cockerels and, fi gers crossed, a couple of Fallow yet to put up.

In best Jaws voice "we're going to need a bigger pantry"

 

[Woody girl]

I need more shelves too, but I've got nowhere to put them, I'm actualy storing some frozen fruit in my friends freezer.
I have barely started on the blackberries and soon the apples, and damsons.

 

[wookii]

Brilliant sounds like we've all been at it

@wookii never had the pleasure of mulberries. Probably due to the pectin content?

@TeeDee any chance of a recipe/guide? Sounds great!

I think so as I didn't add any additional pectin... The juice is quite syrupy, so I thought it would be ok. It's set up a bit in the fridge though.

 

[Robson Valley]

My favorite herb and spice mixes have a lot of mint in them. Dried, it's the most expensive herb in the grocery store. I have a friend with a "mint patch, "he's happy to see some disappear each year. "Some" as in a bin bag of mint.
I spread it out on a table then strip and jar the leaves. It isn't very strong but by store prices, I get possibly $75 worth for nothing.

 

[British Red]

A slightly different bit of preserving today.

Rare breed pork loin, slow cured in black treacle, oak smoked then hand cut

 

[StevieE]

Oh that looks fantastic British Red

 

[Woody girl]

I'm 99%vegetarian, but I think I could eat that!

Disaster with the last batch of my special recipe chutney.
Almost to the point of done, phone rings in living room, so thinking its a quick call I'm expecting, I answer...the rest you can guess........compost bin recieved my burnt offerings

Anyone know how to get half an inch of burnt chutney off the bottom of a stainless steel maislin pan quickly?
I'm in full flow, and need it fast.
I could cry!


Found the pan cleaning solution. I went to the hardware store and got a gadget that cleans burnt food off of stove tops, and some pan cleaner called pink stuff.
The scraper was hard work, but it got the worst off within 2 hrs of hard work, and I repolished the pan bottom with pink stuff. Sorted!
Too late to start again tonight, and my back is killing me slowly, so I'll start again tomorrow.
What a waste of good food and electricity. Phone and door go unanswered tomorrow!!

 

[Robson Valley]

Experience has taught me never to leave my kitchen with anything cooking. I never expect to be away for very long so I turn everything off (10 minutes. Big deal).
Baking soda, sodium bicarbonate, steaming in water in the pan, seems to lift the char but don't expect speed. I have a stack of sheet pans. One has been a mess for a couple of decades so it just might get binned this week. The nicest are the newest 1/2 sheet size, I can fit them 2 at a time in the oven.

 

[punkrockcaveman]

There's been a glut of bilberries recently and a mate has been having a big harvest of raspberries from his garden too. I really fancied making a fruit leather but I knew it wouldn't work with these fruits as they are low in pectin. Luckily a rummage through the freezer found a large tub of sloes and crab apples, so I stewed the lot up and passed it through a sieve, it was really gloomy at this stage so I had high hopes. Added a little local honey and in the oven on greaseproof for around 5 hours at 60C, left out overnight and it's perfect!

 

[British Red]

Outstanding!