Foraging - Natures Food

Gigervamp

It's a good feeling isn't it M.E?

HariboJunkie

M.E. wrote: »

The apple tree on the green outside our house has provided about 30kg of fruit

Wow! That is a fantastic crop. :beer:

rachbc

M.E. wrote: »

My store cupboard is now full of jam, jelly, juice.
76 jars of various sizes.
Apart from buying the sugar I probably paid about 40p for the ingredients (whoopsied strawberries!).
Everything else has been foraged.
The apple tree on the green outside our house has provided about 30kg of fruit which has provided the base for various flavours of jellies including, basil, mint, lavender, rosemary, cinnamon.
The blackberries from the garden, mahonia and elderberries from the roundabout, sloes from the path, crab apples from the neighbour's tree all transformed into goodies.

The left over mush is now composting!

I made a few apple based jellies last year when I was given a carrier bag of bramlies - but didn't think to try lavender or cinnamon - both sound lovely. Did you infuse the jelly after straining and what sort of quantities did you use to get the flavouring balanced?

HariboJunkie

Rachbc do you have your recipe from bramble curd handy please?

rachbc

no sorry - I'm at work now but can post this evening if you can wait. its a Sarah Raven recipe so might be worth a bit of a google

HariboJunkie

rachbc wrote: »

no sorry - I'm at work now but can post this evening if you can wait. its a Sarah Raven recipe so might be worth a bit of a google

Thanks Rach. I found it here.

rachbc

HariboJunkie wrote: »

Thanks Rach. I found it here.

Ahh good - my hens loved the left over pulp after seiving it - had purple faces and purple splatters all over the garden!

M.E.

rachbc wrote: »

I made a few apple based jellies last year when I was given a carrier bag of bramlies - but didn't think to try lavender or cinnamon - both sound lovely. Did you infuse the jelly after straining and what sort of quantities did you use to get the flavouring balanced?

The lavender is a very strong flavouring, so I only used two stem heads, for 4 jars worth. The cinnamon was three sticks for the same amount. I left the cinnamon in the jelly but removed the lavender.
I boiled them in the mixture when I added the sugar.

My brother-in-law loved both.
For his birthday recently, I gave him small pots of each flavour as he regularly has cheese on toast with apple jelly.

butterfly72

I have a chestnut tree in the garden. The squirrals are busy throwing them to the ground so I'm guessing they are ready/ripe. I think they are the edible type but not 100% sure! Does anyone know of any good links so I can identifying the chestnuts and info on storage, prep, recipes etc. (sorry, haven't read through the whole thread - this may have already been posted!)

thanks

HariboJunkie

butterfly72 wrote: »

I have a chestnut tree in the garden. The squirrals are busy throwing them to the ground so I'm guessing they are ready/ripe. I think they are the edible type but not 100% sure! Does anyone know of any good links so I can identifying the chestnuts and info on storage, prep, recipes etc. (sorry, haven't read through the whole thread - this may have already been posted!)

thanks

The sweet and the horse chestnut look quite different so it should be easy to identify which you have.

Sweet chestnut



Horse chestnut



Try this site for lots of tips on dealing with them.