really old style living?

RAS

ChocClare wrote: »

My original cores and peel are still in but the whole thing hasn't been on the go for more than about a month. I was going to tip the lot I've got away when I use the vinegar for the hens' water. Interestingly, none of them have gone brown, so there is clearly quite a lot of acid there. It does smell very vinegary.

The "proper" method for making vinegar is explained here. It is much more scientific than my method! DH has a bottle of HUGELY EXPENSIVE bought cider vinegar, so I might take a bit of the mother from the bottom of that and add it into my next batch. Saves messing about waiting for a fly to pay a visit (not that that would necessarily be a problem - there seem to be MILLIONS this year).

Just happened to have picked up an almost perfect - clean dust jacket- early copy of Seymour's Self-sfficiency book at the local festival for 20p. He advises that the old way of doing this was to take some birch twigs that have been soaked in vinegar, put them in a funnel and pour the cider or wine over them to innoculate the vinegar bacteria.

mama67

I've just bottled up some rhubarb champagne fiizz, and put some elderberry in to brew .

Also pickled some samphire which DH picked yesterday.

RAS

ChocClare wrote: »

I I have ultra successful rhubarb taking up about a third of the garden and chard taking up another third. I cooked some of the chard (which does look lovely) the other night and we all agree WE HATE IT, so that's quite sad - still, it looks nice.

Chard - yummy.

However, is this rainbow chard or some such? or Lucellus(SP)?

How did you cook it?

Try:

Fry an onion gently in butter or olive oil until soft but not highly coloured. add some shredded chard (leaf only) and when that has melted down, add some cooked black eyed beans (either hot or re-heated from a can). Stir gently until hot and serve.

ginnyknit

Just had chicken wraps with honey, ginger and soy sauce - very cheap and easy. I just stirred the sauce (grated ginger) into a stir fry and bubbled it up for a bit - yum!

Am making the vinegar, if nothing else it will do for the chickens - saved 90p a bottle there - or maybe more judging by my shopping trip today to Mr T. No value SR flour to be found. Am going to nip to Aldi and see if they have any as I don't want to use my stash. The prices seem to be shooting up every week and Im beginning to worry.

Dd having a few problems with the house as the last tenants did a runner ( taking the brand new washer with them!) leaving huge gas and eleccy bills thus the electric was cut off today before DD could change it over. Anyway she has stood her ground with the landlord 'Ting Ting' as she is known :T and wants it sorted by Friday so she can move in properley. Its going to be a true O/S house as she is listening to everything you guys tell me and she is nobodys fool - thank goodness.:)

Patchwork_Quilt

The leaves and stems of chard go in our curries, stews, pasta sauces etc to bulk them out a bit. They take on the flavour of whatever they are in.

ChocClare

I made a risotto with the chard, chopping up the stems and shredding the leaves.

TBH, the leaves would probably be all right, but the stems had a really earthy taste that we just didn't like. I might just try the leaves and forget the stems. My mum was just saying she loved chard, but she only used to eat the leaves when she was a gal.

In other news, gave some vinegar to the hens today, who lapped it up - I chucked away the first lot of cores et al yesterday, and am now ready to start a new batch. I have a litre of pale but obviously cider vinegar-y vinegar. It was the fact that it was made out of what was essentially waste that made me want to go for it in the first place, and I'm pleased I did. My first lot was made with very bland Tesco value apples, so I'll see what it's like with "real" apples off my tree as I gradually start "processing" them.

RAS, thanks for both your tips, I'll give them a try.

Ginnyknit, sorry to hear about your DD's problems, glad she is holding her ground. Just warn her about credit ratings - when we moved into our last-but-one house, I had two burly men turn up at my front door to repossess "my" TV, who would not believe that I wasn't "Mrs Church" (the previous owner). Luckily, her mum lived next door, so I sent them in that direction for her to confirm it, but it was quite intimidating. Then, when we went to buy... something, can't remember what, we weren't denied credit, but we were going to have to pay an extra deposit (can't remember any more, this was twenty-odd years ago) or something because there was a credit risk associated with our address. I know I had to go on to Experian and add a note that the previous owner had now moved on and we had nothing to do with her. It was such a pain!

Our local Tesco's has value plain and SR flour - 42p each. These things seem to go in cycles - they've had no value fizzy water for WEEKS (just back in this week) and no value yorkshire puddings either :mad: If you're having a shortage of flour where you are (where are you?) maybe I'd better stock up while it's to be had. I do generally try to keep a good stock in, plus we've two hundredweight of wheat, although admittedly, that doesn't exactly make the lightest Victoria sponge!

katholicos

RE: leaves being composted, thanks to all for your advice. I agree that it is by far the best way to leave them separate from the compost heap. I'm trying the black bin bag method as well as the compost heap method, for composting....so think i will try the black bin bag method for the leaves, or alternatively i have some chicken wire i can make a recepticle with, and then put them in that.

DD came back from her weekend in the countryside with a car boot full of foraged goodies....the majority of it all is still sitting in the boot as there is an overwhelming amount of fruit to deal with...apples, pears a small amount of blackberries and a couple of carrier bags of corn that were growing on a public highway that had escaped from a farmers field...apparantly...

Hippeechiq

seasalt wrote: »

Oh, and does anyone else cheat by grating the fat for eg scones/pastry etc? It's what my mum always did and I got into trouble at school for "cheating" but by the time my sister started cookery, the (same) teacher was teaching them all to do it that way. Long time ago now though!

Grating it? What, is it frozen first?

ChocClare

Delia swears by grating the fat for pastry, so you're not alone! "Cheating", indeed!

seasalt_2

No. not frozen, just cold, out of the fridge - has to be hard fat for this method - I tend to use cheapest butter I can find as don't really want the hydrogenated fats that are in most margarines - but works with eg stork too. Saves all the "cutting-in" etc with a knife - and often can't be bothered to get my food processor out of the cupboard. Just keep the fat floured so that it doesn't stick to the grater or itself and move the grater about so you don't get clumps. then just needs a very quick rub-in with the fingertips before adding the liquid. I think - but could be wrong - that my mother originally got the idea out of a cookbook called something like "I Hate to Cook" by Peg Bracken? Wouldn't work with soft margarine though.