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.

 

[Woody girl]

Got some realy nice lemons last week. 6 of them from the reduced aisle.
I've kept the rinds and made sugared lemon peel ready for Xmas. They are now dry and ready to be cut into dice ready for storage. I use them in lemon cakes , and they make a lovely decoration on iced lemon cup cakes.
I might do some orange as well if I get the time.
Oh, and I'm making use of the sun, saving electric and using my dryer trays outside on the table to dry lemon balm leaves for tea, and wild garlic leaves to make wild garlic salt.

 

[Tengu]

There are lots of things you can do with the Humble Lemon.

Found a couple of books at the thrift shop;

Jams and Chutneys -Thane prince
Sainsbury book of preserves and pickles- Heather Lambert.

I have my eye on my friends rhubarb patch.

 

[rowen]

Bacon jerky?
Does that count, I was in Lidl and saw there kilo packs of cooking bacon for £1.80 ish, it was perfect, bought 10 packs and have been experimenting ever since.
The girls didn’t even realise it was bacon!

 

[abilou]

Experimenting with venison bilong. Seems to dry quite well with a basic recipe and financially more advantageous than selling venison mince. Packaging is more expensive however!

 

[Woody girl]

Jam season starting again. 3 jars of raspberry jam made today.

 

[Woody girl]

Non of my garden tomatoes ripened, and some had started to go manky, so I picked anything viable, and made 5 jars of green tomato chutney(why is it the recipes say it will make six 1lb jars, but I end up with 5?)
Anyway, guess what? I didn't burn anything this year!!!!!!(so far) The pan didn't take a week to clean, and I'm a happy bunny.
My hanging basket tomatoes are still(just about) going, and I've picked two pounds of yellow and red ones. They look super in the bowl...now, what to do with them?

 

[bobnewboy]

When we have a glut, or can’t store extra tomatoes, we have them fried on a chunky piece of toast for breakfast. Heat a little olive oil in the pan, fry a little sliced onion (and garlic if you like), add some fennel seeds. When the onions are becoming see through, add the roughly chopped or sliced toms, and cook until soft. Get the toast on, and then add a handful of chopped basil to the toms. By the time the toast is ready the basil will have wilted in the pan and scented the kitchen. Put the toast on a warm plate and ladle the tomato mix over it. A quick grind of black pepper and rock salt, and devour.

 

[Billy-o]

Couple of jars of sauerkraut with the usual cabbage/caraway procedure, plus a kale version as an experiment. Some pickled red cabbage. Its not so much preserving, though obviously that too, but more that I just like the taste.

Picked up some pectin to make room in the freezer. Too many blueberries.

 

[Woody girl]

When we have a glut, or can’t store extra tomatoes, we have them fried on a chunky piece of toast for breakfast. Heat a little olive oil in the pan, fry a little sliced onion (and garlic if you like), add some fennel seeds. When the onions are becoming see through, add the roughly chopped or sliced toms, and cook until soft. Get the toast on, and then add a handful of chopped basil to the toms. By the time the toast is ready the basil will have wilted in the pan and scented the kitchen. Put the toast on a warm plate and ladle the tomato mix over it. A quick grind of black pepper and rock salt, and devour.

Ooh, that's reminded me of shashunka. Fry the onion, add tomatoes and paprika, cook down and then make a couple of Wells in the mixture, add eggs into the wells, and pop on a lid if you can to help set the top of the egg. Serve with crusty bread, or on sourdough toast. Yum.
Used to make this at camp using tinned chopped tomatoes, instead of fresh ones.

 

[TeeDee]

In terms of the actual jars and related apparatus for preserving ( I've seen a little gizmo that seems to sit on top of a jar with a metal top and it sucks the air and creates a vacuum before sealing the jar ) what do people favour and where from? I'd imagine there is a one stop shop that specialize in all things preserving?


Also - am in need of a good functional ( but basic ) vacuum bag sealer - seals the plastic after its sucked all the air out.

 

[Woody girl]

I got a basic cheap vacuum sealer from lidels. Works fine, can also be used to make boil in the bag stuff (su vide?) I think it was about £25 a couple of years ago, pre covid. The bags came on a roll which you cut to size, seal the bottom, fill and then seal properly.
I've watched a video yonks ago about sealing jars with a brake bleeder, but you still need to buy the hose and jar top sealer things, so you might aswell buy one that has all the components for both bags and jars in one if you can. Mine will seal jars, but It didn't have the jar top sealers with it. Bit of a pain. Lakeland used to do them, but not sure if they still do, I've bulk bought my jars from them though. Mainly because I can go to the shop, but I'm sure you can get better bargains on line.

 

[Falstaff]

Pickled eggs, and homemade saurekraut. Tried salting some belly pork but not really any good, too salty even after soaking. Oh and some honey, but I don't take much from a hive.

 

[Forest fella]

Marrow Chutney, But my late Gran would come back to haunt me if I gave out the recipe.

 

[British Red]

This week it's been preserving our own smoked paprika. Honestly the smell is incredible!