FREEBIES, FORAGING AND PRESERVING

Last week started off rather fabulous! Had a lovely day out with a fab friend of mine who also happens to be a brilliant forager and after a quick nosey around some charity shops in Faversham and a drinkie in the pub, we headed off to Brogdale to see what we could find for free in the car park.

Loads of nuts; but I don’t need those as still got some from last year and haven’t picked my crop from this year yet in the garden.  However, there were crab apple trees!!  So picked a hell of a lot of those (after weighing was approx. 41b of ruby red crabbies) and around the corner was a cooking apple tree with windfalls, so picked up a far few of those too. On the way home we found roadside plums and managed to grab approx 2lb of those as well.

After I'd removed the crab apples for pectin, this was what remained.

Dinner was veggie and chickpea chilli with oven cooked paprika potato wedges and a side of cooked broccoli just so there was some colour as otherwise it was a bit brown, shall we say.  Don’t normally use chilli powder as I prefer either fresh chillies or dried;  underestimated the strength as, even for me, it was a bit tongue zingy (although I rather enjoyed it).

Tuesday wasn’t a good day as I woke with chronic back ache and could hardly move, so ice pack and feet up for the day and an easy dinner of roasted pepper, tomato, garlic and red onion pasta sauce with pasta (of course); normal for them and new buckwheat pasta for me.  Was impressed with the buckwheat as the flour is quite bitter in taste, but in the pasta it was not only bearable but gave a good extra flavour.

Wednesday I was back on my feet, if a little slow and time to tackle the plums which were, by now, beginning to go over and a few had gone a bit mouldy.  However, with no vinegar and very little sugar it was destone, blitz, add lemon juice and sugar and shove in the dehydrator in the hope that after it’s dried out I’ll have plum fruit leathers. Then 2lb of Crab Apples were cut into quarters, boiled and strained, then re-boiled and strained ready to make liquid pectin.  Once I had the strained liquid I poured into an old ice-cream tub and placed in the fridge to be dealt with another day.

Pectin (non heat treated)

Dinner was an oven cooked kedgeree which was made by layering halved mushrooms, sliced onions, a cup of rice, spices, frozen peas and frozen smoked haddock and then covered with 2 cups of boiling water and covered with foil.  This was placed in a preheated oven, 180C, and cooked for an hour, stirring approx. half way through and checking on the rice.  Also boiled some eggs in a saucepan and once rice cooked and water pretty much absorbed, halved the eggs and added them to the mix.  Have to admit to eating the rice as was not in the mood to faff making up something separate for me.  Felt bloated for rest of the evening, but at least I know it will pass by morning.

Thursday I was out most of the day, so easy dinner of sausages, carrot and potato mash and green beans for them and a frozen low fat curry and mash for me.

Onion 'marmalade'

Friday, achy back, but nowhere near as bad as Tuesday.  Partner delivered sugar and cider vinegar so I can get on with preserving. Finished the pectin liquid by boiling until reduced to almost half and poured in sterilised bottles.  Will heat treat over the weekend as I need to go and get some corks, so at the moment bottles are sealed with their original metal lids and they are being kept in the fridge.  As well as that, onion marmalade made; we were given a bag of red onions for free from our local farm shop as they were going over and he couldn’t sell them.  After picking them over we managed to have enough to make the marmalade and have bagged of pre-diced onions in the freezer.

5kg Beet Sugar (It's preserving time again)

Cider Vinegar (It's preserving time after all)