Thursday 22 September 2016

Loving September's free food


Isn’t September a bountiful month?  I’d never really given it much thought or appreciated it quite so much until now, living where we do and doing what we love.  We’ve just harvested a basket full of plums, lovely and ripe straight from our own tree.  There’s a tonne more but the wasps were quite vicious, so note to self, put jam pots out next year to capture the little blighters.  We managed to get a good harvest of blackberries after going back to our old hunting ground (the ones round here never came to fruition), a good many windfall apples, though I’m leaving picking the Bramley’s until later in the month, a tub of damsons and some eating apples.  Many of these things we can’t take any credit for, nature did it all itself – as Louise said in her blog, don’t you just love free food?
So there’s going to be River Cottage ‘Glutney’ recipe on the go, plum jelly, Asian plum sauce and of course the traditional crumbles, plum and apple etc.  As we have the new freezer ready to use, it would be criminal not to. 
Does anyone have a plum cordial recipe they swear by?  If you do, please share, thank you in advance.

7 comments:

  1. Hi, I too could do with a plum cordial recipe so please share if you find one. A tip for picking plums, wear rubber gloves wasp stings on tohe hand are very painfull. I had 200 lb+ of our victoria plum tree this years all shared among our neighbours who pick there own, a communal plum tree.

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    1. Great tip thank you. I'll be sure to share if I find ome. Hopefully before its too late

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  2. I picked the first of our apples today and had it at lunch time, we dont have many as they are only young trees, I havent seen many wasps this years or ladybirds come to think of it

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    1. There will be plenty of apples in years to come I bet. No I haven't re ladybirds now you mention it

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  3. I'm hoping there are some blackberries left when I get back from our break. O picked a large bag before coming away,really fleshy ones.

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  4. A simple plum cordial as written about on my blog -

    'Just add 350g sugar for every half litre of strained plum juice and heat in a pan until the sugar is dissolved, then bottle into warmed, sterile bottles and allow to cool. It can be kept in a cool dark place for a couple of months. If you want it to last longer you can continue on and use the water bath method.'

    Hope this helps :-)

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