The Preserver's Year

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Hi everyone

Any one got a recipe for preserving cucumbers? I've found a pickle recipe but it only keeps for a month?

morg_monster

I'm hoping to make some jams and chutneys this year, our first with a garden! I will be having a look through this thread for some recommended recipes.

I've just started freezing our runner beans and hope in a few weeks I'll have enough to make a batch of chutney (no glut, just decided I still don't like them much, even when grown myself!). I'm weighign them before freezing and writing the total on the bag each time. Our tumbling toms have been ripening for a couple of weeks now and I'm refrigerating some to make chutney or something - we've found the taste to be not that great, and the skins quite thick, although they are improving now, so hopefully the rest of the crop will be better fresh. The thing I'm most looking forward to making is nigella's chilli jam with some of our cayennes. MMM!

I've been surprised how early the blackberries have appeared - is it just me but i thought it was more the end of the summer? OH found lots on the golf course behind our house so we're going to go there to pick this weekend. Hoping to make bramble jelly and some kind of alcohol, of course! Maybe gin. We were in the cotswolds at the weekend and just couldn't believe how many fruit trees there were everywhere, and all groaning with produce. Wish we had that here where we are (surrey), but suspect they are all in people's back gardens.

Gigervamp

The blackberries are about a month early here.

Whereabouts in Surrey are you? I used to go blackberrying on Mitcham common. Also, not quite Surrey but near enough, Wimbledon common and Richmond Park are great for nuts.

annie123

Hubby works near Mitcham Common and woe betide him if he forgets to tell me as soon as berries are ready!

I have just been given an old aluminum saucepan, massive deep thing, by an elderly neighbour.
She said it has been sitting in the same cupboard unused for 20 years, but can't remember what she used it for.

Its spotless except for dust and in good condition so once its had a good wash wondered if I could use it for jam making?
I only have a medium saucepan and a small one, so I make jam in batches in the microwave and it would make life so much easier if aluminum was OK with fruit.

Gigervamp

I think aluminium is ok for jams but not chutney. I think!

A couple of other places in Mitcham that we used to go foraging when I was a kid was Morden Hall Park (and it's lovely to go there for a picnic too) and The Cannons park, by the cricket green. At the Cannons, there used to be loads of crab apple trees. Don't know if it's changed now though, it was a long time ago!

annie123

Mordon Hall Park is lovely and often full of berries near the tram line at the rear, only ever driven through cricket green, will stop at the Cannons Park and see if there are any crab apple trees still, thank you for the ideas.

roosterpotatoes

Ive been a lurker on this board for a little while now :hello:

I thought id post as i took the kids blackberry picking today, they are both boys, age 4 and 2 and they loved it.
Where we live is very rural so plenty of things like this to do:j

Didnt get a large amount today but will go back in a week or so and pick the ones that were green today:D
We have a cooking apple tree, not sure what kind of apples but they are ready now so looking for things to cook.

I moved my blueberry bush, blackcurrant bush and gooseberry bushes to make room for my raised veg bed which is doing really well, so next year i will have loads of berries to make goodies with :eek:

Savannah02K

Gigervamp

when you say you use same weight of frozen fruit as you do weight of fresh fruit, do you weigh the fruit whilst frozen and use that measurement or defrost it, and use that weight?

Thanks, need to make some jam fairly soon, got two freezers and they're both jam packed with goodies from garden/friends/farm shop etc.

Gigervamp

I weighed it while it was still frozen. The fruit weighs the same frozen or unfrozen.

morg_monster

Thanks for the advice!!
Well we went out to a random bit of meadow near the River Mole on Saturday evening and picked 2kg in about 20 minutes! Couldn't believe it! And I would say the black ones made up only about a quarter of the fruit; there were so many more red and green ones. I made yummy jam which was about 75% sieved (didn't want TOO many pips), and will be going back again this weekend for more I think; am thinking more jam, blackberry vodka, and I found a recipe for blackberry chutney on the good food website.
I also made Nigella's chilli jam, which is divine, and some chutney with cherry tomatoes from the garden. At the moment I'm picking 800g every 3 days, and there's only 2 of us in the house, so there's only so many we can eat. And the big tomatoes are starting to ripen now too! Argh I'll be drowning in the delicious things!