Monday Night Preserves - Christmas Mincemeat

I make no apology that Christmas preserving is going to be top of the list for the next few posts.  It's so exciting and with it only being our second Christmas here, we're still developing new ways and traditions.

Yesterday was Stir Up Sunday and we made our Christmas Pudding which I posted about but I also made the sweet mincemeat, again something that I haven't made before.  It smelt amazing!  I can't believe how easy it was to make.  Thank you to Lou for spurring me on to do it, just by being her.

Last year I treat myself to Mary B's Christmas recipe book, worth every penny I have to say and this is the recipe I followed. 

I used dark rum as I had it in the pantry and wouldn't use it for anything else, so in it went.

I used fresh cranberries opposed to dry as stated in the recipe, which after a couple of frantic messages with Lou, I decided to follow the recipe regardless and just leave it in the simmering oven for a bit longer, to cook them through. 

I'm very pleased with the outcome, 4 good sized jars.  We'll be making mince pies with this soon, so I hope it tastes nice.

Christmas is coming and I intend to enjoy every minute! 

Monday night preserves - basil infused olive oil

I wouldn't expect to be saying in October, almost November that I had basil growing in the greenhouse.  In fact, I'm pleased that I managed to grow any basil at all.  I'm having one of those realisation moments when I think about how far we have come.  We hadn't successfully grown anything before we moved here and to think I am preserving regularly and enjoying meals from the veg plot is a really satisfying feeling.  Preserving in general is a great feeling for me, be it shop bought, gifted or grown items and I hope that even if just one person could be inspired to preserve as a result of these posts then that would be amazing.

The basil I grew are green and red.  The red one came free with the Grow Your Own magazine that I subscribe to which send seeds with each order.  I also grew standard green basil which just loves to grow and I plan to fill my window sills with it next year!

Tonight I started to tidy up the greenhouse and brought the basil indoors.  The kids picked the leaves off for me and they did a great job.  Grace washed the leaves and put them in the salad spinner for me.

I put both red and green in together so I hope they will work out.  I sterilised a jar and packed the leaves in.

 

Once full of basil leaves, I filled with olive oil and put some cling film under the screw top. 

 

It's now on the preserving windowsill with the plum wine (which is going 2 different colours randomly).  It'll stay here for 2 weeks before being strained and rebottled in time to go in the Christmas hampers.

 

A really quick, but hopefully tasty preserve.  I'll use this to cook with and also as a salad dressing to remind me of long lost summer days :)

Monday night preserves - Onion Marmalade

The onions which we planted towards the end of last year were harvested a few weeks ago and have been happily drying in the barn.  Now every single one of the red onions bolted and tried to go to seed.  The white ones are fabulous though.  They were planted as sets which my old next door neighbour told me are more prone to going to seed, so I'll bear that in mind for the next lot.  With this in mind, the red ones need to be used up first.

So I picked a recipe from Pam's book that used some of these onions and the redcurrant jelly that I'd thought was done for.

2kg of onion went into the food processor to be finely chopped.  They were put on a low heat with 100ml of olive oil and cooked down for 40 minutes.  Then I added 200g of demerara sugar and 150g of redcurrant jelly and left it on the low heat for another 30 minutes, moving it to the higher heat for a few minutes at the end.

The colour wasn't exactly inviting at this point!

I took the pan off the heat for a minute or two and added 350ml of cider vinegar and 50ml of balsamic.

 

It cooked on a higher hear for another 10 minutes and when I could scrape the pan clean in one pass of the spoon, it was ready.  This made 5 good sized jars (which I didn't take the labels off as I was sick of trying). 

This will be used with cold meats and cheeses, toasties and pork pies and the like but one jar will be kept for Christmas to have with the Christmas ham.
Most importantly to me it's used the jelly which I thought would stay in the pantry forever and 2kg of our own onions. Perfect seasonal preserves!

Monday night preserves - Christmas spiced red cabbage and home grown chicken

When I think of preserving, my thoughts don't always lend themselves straight to the freezer which is crazy really as it's one of today's modern options for preserving our harvests.  This week we have switched on the new (to us) chest freezer that we were given, as we will shortly have the pigs to fill it.  It seems to be working fine thankfully, got to love a freebie.
So that got me thinking and when I wandered round the veg plot the other morning I noticed every single red cabbage was doing great and they would need harvesting very soon.
So for my Monday preserve, I decided to trial a Christmas cabbage recipe as those of you who were hear last year know I love red cabbage at Christmas!  It freezes amazingly and tastes even better afterward in my opinion.
This new recipe from BBC Good Food which is Spiced red cabbage.

I've used 2 heads of cabbage for this recipe as mine came in short of the kilo that it recommended, but not far off.  I also used 2 red onions of my own, very satisfying feeling.  Don't the cabbages look pretty?

Method taken from BBC Good Food.

Sweat 2 onions and add the zest of an orange and a cinnamon stick after 5 mins.  Give them a minute to fuse and then add the cabbage (shredded and washed), 150ml port and a dash of red wine vinegar.  Bring to the boil and then simmer for up to an hour.  It looked delicious!

 

We also dispatched our first Ross Cobb chicken at the weekend which was to see how big it was based on it's current age (9 weeks).  We're wanting to slow grow them but trial and error as to when they would be ready.  Well it surprised both of us, already weighing in as a table ready bird of 1.8kg.  I'm really pleased as this is a milestone for us, meaning we will never have to buy shop bought chicken again! 

For those who are interested we also did a cockerel, but he will be as tough as old boots I think (weighed in at 3kg, a Rhode Island Red) and we did them using our new area set up specifically for working on the poultry.  As this is a preserving post and to avoid upsetting people just looking for preserving info, I'll post about that in another post later this week.

So our freezers are now starting to fill up nicely for the leaner growing months ahead.  We're one step further onto the path of self sufficiency (long it may be!).

Monday night preserving - currant cordial, toffee vodka, redcurrant jelly

What a week of harvest! It's a full time job when things get going isn't it? We harvested everything in the below photo on Sunday.

Buster is just making sure things are in order.

Now technically I don't think toffee vodka is a preserve? Regardless it is going on my Monday night slot as the quickest, simplest vodka recipe we have done so far.  Ste's Mam mentioned that she had some toffee vodka last Christmas and she really liked it.  We popped a packet of Werthers in a litre of vodka and hey presto, job done. We are shaking it twice a day until the toffees dissolve completely.

The colour isn't that attractive but we're told it's a lovely warming drink on the cold winter nights.  What I didn't realise is the kilner jar is a 3 litre one!  Not to worry, it'll be freed up soon for the next item and this won't take long to dissolve.

Next up was another alcoholic Christmssy drink.

Earlier this year I read on Tricia's, Tarragon and Thyme blog about cherry brandy and thought we have to give that a go.  We've just harvested cherries from a couple of our trees before the birds got to them so the perfect opportunity to give it a go.

Again, it is very simple to do.  We added pierced cherrys to a bottle of brandy and 300g sugar. For extra Christmas feel I popped a cinnamon stick in too. In a couple of months we will strain it all and keep the cherries for something else, no doubt also Christmassy.

Next up on the harvest was the currant bushes. Goodness me they take a while to harvest but it was enjoyable as we all sat around the currant bush and just chatted on together.

We harvested 1.6kg black currants (this time) and 2.5kg red currants. It was our second harvest of black currants, the first lot are in the freezer.

The black currants were made into a super quick cordial and some of the red were too. Recipe as follows:

Put 1kg berries and 300ml water on low heat and simmer for 10 mins. Mash with potato masher to speed things up. Don't do this is you prefer a clearer juice (you'll get less cordial for your money if you do that though). Strain through a muslin cloth and the resulting juice should be added to granulated sugar:  for every 500ml liquid add 300g sugar. Stir over low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Add 1tsp citric acid and stir. Bottle into sterilised bottles. It is delicious. These will be used quickly so we didn't water bath but if they were for Christmas then we'd water bath.

 

You will see I also made more strawberry jam which I've blogged about before. I'm sticking with that recipe as it's divine and I have received so many compliments for my first batch that I don't want to change a thing. On potting up, I filled these jars even more than last time, so they were virtually over flowing. Fingers crossed it is as nice and for no mould!

I've also started some redcurrant jelly tonight which I'll finish telling you about tomorrow as when I've gone to make the recipe tonight, I need to let it drip overnight.

Here's what I've done for now.

I've added 400ml to 1kg currants and simmered for 45 minutes. I'm draining this through a jelly bag tonight ready to finish tomorrow night.

 

Monday night preserving - Rhubarb wine, rhubarb vodka, chamomile tea and drying herbs!

What feels like a long time ago now....On May Day, I harvested lots of rhubarb with Grace.  We needed 3kg to make some wine with.  We got a lot more than 3kg! 

The leaves went in the compost bin, which some people worry about as they're poisonous (Oxalic Acid), but fear not, the leaves are broken down rendered fine to use as compost.  People have done it and survived and that's scientific enough for me.

After washing the rhubarb we chopped 3kg up and put it into a sterilised fermenting bucket with 2.6kg granulated sugar.  I sterilised the bucket using a powder from "The Range" which you make a solution from.  It's £1 a pack and I hope it works as we have struggled with sterilising (or sanitising) in the past.

 

The bucket was sealed and left for 3 whole days. The recipe I used was John Wright's.

We added cool boiled water to make it to 4.5 litres and added the other bits and pieces which you can find in the link. We left it for a week and it nearly blew the lid off the fermenting bucket so we moved it to the demi John after about 5 days and fit a bubble trap.

Tonight we decanted it into sanitised wine bottles. I knew we were going to need wine bottles so I sacrificed a few Friday nights and managed to drink enough rose wine to free up enough bottles for the rhubarb wine! The things I do for preserving!! It looks really good and I am pleased with the outcome. We need to get the labels off still!

For the rhubarb vodka we added 600g chopped rhubarb to a litre of vodka, 200g sugar and some orange zest. It was left for 9 weeks then we strained it through a muslin and back into the bottle it came from! You don't need to use expensive vodka, we just got a lot on offer. It tastes nice and we are going to make some more so we're stocked up for Christmas gifts and visitors plus the odd tipple night of our own!

For the chamomile tea I harvested a pint size amount of chamomile flower heads and dried them out overnight in the dehydrator.

It turned out fab. I stored the dried heads in a clip top jar and tested some out. Pouring boiling water over a few heads, left it to steep for 2 minutes then poured back through a sieve into a mug. It tastes really nice and is very good for you. I'll be keeping this one.

I did the same for the herbs I harvested, mint, lemon thyme, rosemary and lemon balm then ground them up using the food processor and mortar and pestle. The rosemary had to go back on as it just won't dry! 

The rosemary went back on with some tomatoes from the greenhouse and mushrooms (from Aldi!).

I also managed to stew some rhubarb for the freezer for later in the year to make a nice crumble as we have not had one yet this year!!

All in all a good preserving night and a base for me to work on for next years ideas.

Monday night preserves - rhubarb pickle, dehydrated Swiss chard, strawberry cordial and strawberry vodka

I'm really enjoying using my Monday nights to do preserving. It's a really satisfying feeling preserving seasonal produce that we've grown right here!
I harvested some more rhubarb tonight and hardly touched what was in the plot. The plants are doing amazingly. Using Pam Corbin's book still, I make the spring (I know, it's summer) rhubarb relish. It's the first time I've made a spice bag up and as I don't have any special bags, I used my imagination. A muslin cloth with a knot tied in it. After all, that's all it needs to be right? This one contained 2 snapped cinnamon sticks, 6 cloves and a piece of bruised ginger.

The bag was placed with 500g sugar, 100ml of both cider vinegar and water and placed over a gentle heat to dissolve the sugar. Then taken off the heat for 20 mins to allow it to diffuse.
Then the chopped rhubarb and raisins go in and it was simmered for 30 mins.

Then piled into sterilised jars. Again, I've used some of the smaller jars that are for Christmas hampers. The other 2 full jars will be kept into the depth of winter when we need a bit of summer happiness.

I also put some blanched Swiss chard (1 minute) in the dehydrator as I want to make some green powder. Basically vitamins and minerals in a jar which I can sneak in to food that the kids won't notice but it'll also add flavour.


We've also popped some of the millions of strawberries we have into some vodka with a bit of sugar (200g per litre of vodka for my reference). There's a bit for us to test and again, some for Christmas hampers.

Finally, earlier this week, we made some strawberry cordial. I brought the strawberries and water to the boil, crushed them a bit then added to sugar to the cooking remix, left them overnight (500g strawberries to 400g sugar and 500ml water). The sugar needed a little heating through again to dissolve and the strawberries were crushed a bit more with a masher. We strained it overnight again and poured into sterilised bottles. So easy! It's delicious. Ste prefers this one however the elderflower still has the edge for me.

I am going to get my thinking cap on for next week as so many things are ready to harvest and I don't want to miss capturing any! I hope someone finds these preserving nights helpful, even if it is just to provoke thoughts about seasonal eating and knowing where our food comes from.

Monday night preserving - elderflower cordial

After a crazy week of work, we had a fabulous weekend with friends and family letting our hair down. More about that during the week as tonight is all about preserving for me.
June is the month of the elderflower here. We've been patiently waiting for the flowers to open and be fresh and healthy, before they go over and we wait patiently again for the elderberries that follow. The weather of the last few days has been perfect for picking elder flowers. We are lucky to have loads of elder trees around here which we found last year.
So as usual, off my little family trooped and gathered enough heads to loosely fill 2 carrier bags. Classy or what?

No one else ever comes here for any foraging, not a soul in sight.
Back home we shook off any bugs and put them in a large saucepan with the zest of 2 oranges and 4 lemons then poured just boiled water over them until covered.

I left the saucepan overnight with a fly cover on to keep it clean whilst it cooled. Then I strained it whilst I sterilised the bottles in the usual way of washing in hot soapy water and drying in the slow cooker.

For every 500ml of liquid we added 350g sugar, a teaspoon citric acid and 50ml of lemon juice. I simmered it at 90c before cooling and straining it again once cool enough. We made enough for 4 litres of cordial.
Now interestingly, the cordial colour was nothing like last years. It looked almost black in the pan and I think that's because I used a pan and not a bucket. However if you make it and it looks dark and awful, stick with it as it came good in the end.
I water bathed those which I will keep to Christmas gifts.

They turned out great and it tastes delicious!

The rhubarb wine is now in Demi johns bubbling away so once I decant it into bottles I will do the post about it.

Monday night preserving - my nemesis strawberry jam

Those of you who have been with me since the beginning will remember my devastation last year when I lost a lot of my jams to mould. Some people may roll their eyes at the thought of being devastated over something like that. However when you look at the time spent growing, nurturing and tending to fruit, the cost involved for the recipe and the time taken to make it, it becomes more understandable I think!
So you can imagine what was in the back of my mind when I collected these beauties. Yes it is strawberry season again and I love it! Daily pickings from now on?

I harvested just over 1kg with some of them not making it inside as you've got to eat the first few stood there on the veg plot, right? Yummy they were too.
I followed Pam Corbin's (River Cottage Pam the Jam for those who don't know) recipe in her preserves book.
She suggested mashing 200g of strawberries with 200g of granulated sugar and warming through then adding the remaining 800g of strawberries and heating slowly until soft. So off I went.

I then added another 300g of granulated sugar and 450g of jam sugar plus 150ml lemon juice which I was surprised at but maybe that's needed because it wasn't all jam sugar?
The colour was changing to that amazing deep red you get from the strawberries cooking.

I brought it to a rolling boil and waited for it to get to temperature which was around 7 or 8 minutes.
In the mean time I sterilised the jam jars in the Aga and the lids on the top in a pan of boiling water.

I am really pleased with the results and will be keeping a close eye on these jars for any sign of mould. These little ones are testers for the Christmas hampers I am going to be doing.
Thanks for reading my Monday night preserves rambles. Next week is rhubarb relish and rhubarb wine.