As The Workhouse Approaches....How To Do Everything To Avoid It, the Old Style Way

lucielle

Grey Queen, stand the jar of honey in some boiling water and it will go runny again. Slopes back to lurkdom.
L

grandma247

Lincolnshire plum bread is very nice. There are a lot of recipes on the net with variations but I seem to rember mine was a very simple one with prunes in it. I can't find it at the moment.

GreyQueen

Wow, thanks, maryb, I have taken notes and will be off to Little Mr T soon. I like the sound of your pie tin but lack something similar so will be using my Pyrex. I have a lot of Pyrex, some of it Grandma's, and I really like it because it's so multi-functional. Will report back tomorrow on how the pie turned out.

Lucielle, thanks for the tip about the honey; guess what I'll be doing later today?!

Now I really MUST get off this addictive website, get washed and dressed, take my library books back, check for suitably OS-titles, whoopsie hunt, then come back to mend a couple of pairs of shoes.

Who said life's just a load of old cobblers......:rotfl:

maryb

ChocClare

Can I ask your opinion about bottling/canning?

I made a big batch of the basic curry sauce from the Takeaway Secret which makes curries that really are to die for. I usually freeze it in batches but it's fairly liquid and uses up a lot of room in the freezer. I was thinking of bottling it in Kilner jars because apparently the smaller size Mason jar lids that they sell in the US are the right size for the new Kilner jars as well as the smaller jars that you can get in France. And the US lids are unbelievably cheap compared with the UK or even France. I can get my husband's niece to send me some very easily. So that would make bottling the sauce feasible.

It's based on onions, chopped carrots, a chopped green pepper, lots of tomato puree and a tin of tomatoes, plus, of course, things like garlic, ginger and spices. Tomatoes by themselves are acid enough to bottle in a water bath but with the other bits and pieces in the sauce I was thinking it would be safest to pressure can it. DH has offered to get me a new pressure cooker for my birthday and I know they aren't usually good enough to do pressure canning because you can't keep the pressure constant enough, but I had a look at the Kuhn Rikon cooker site which seems to suggest it is, in fact, possible to use theirs for low acid foods (though it's a bit confusing)

http://www.kuhnrikon.com/tips/canning/

On the one hand it says they don't make a pressure canner but on the other hand it says that low acid foods have to be canned at 240 degrees Fahrenheit (10 pounds pressure at sea level). Further on, it says when the second red ring on the valve appears, the internal pressure has been raised to 15 pounds per square inch above the external pressure (254 degrees Fahrenheit). That would suggest that you could use this type of cooker. I wouldn't use my old Prestige pressure cooker because I can quite see that it would probably let too much steam escape to keep the pressure constant.

I'm thinking that because of the high tomato content it would probably work - or do you think I would be taking a chance? This would probably be the only vegetable type thing I would want to bottle apart from actual tomatoes, which are fine if they are by themselves

grandma247

Not chocclare but I do both types of canning.
Maryb a way of checking if it is acid enough is to find some ph testing sticks ,the ones with the coloured squares that show the ph. I know a few on the canning group use them if they are not sure. The PH needs to be under 4.6 to be safely canned without a pressure canner. You could possibly add some lemon juice to bring it to the right PH.

Also I had a quick read of the site and saw this.
A pressure canner is a specially made heavy pot that has a lid that can be closed steam tight. The lid is fitted with a vent (or petcock), a dial or weighted pressure gauge and a safety fuse. Newer models have an extra coverlock as an added precaution. It may or may not have a gasket. The pressure canner also has a rack to keep jars from bumping into each other causing possible breakage. Because each type of canner is different, be sure to read the directions for operating your canner. Kuhn Rikon does not manufacture a pressure canner.

This is a link to the USDA book on canning for anyone interested.

jackieglasgow

Yes redlady that is all you do

flowertotmum

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did tihis work

taurusgb

EstherH wrote: »

I definitely add carrots, loads of them. Garlic if I think about it but not celery. I shall try some with celery as I bought some whoopsied the other day for making soup. Thanks for that. Esther

I always hated celery eaten raw in salads so rarely bought it. Having bought some for DH -who ate 1 stick then left the rest to go soft in the fridge - I decided to use it in cooking (I HATE waste!) and was amazed at just how much flavour it adds to sauces and soups.

Can't imagine not having it in the fridge now and it's as important to me as onions and garlic

grandma247

flowertotmum yes and they are real cuties.

redlady_1

rachbc wrote: »

You can't say that and lave us hanging - recipe please - my lot eat my hm bread but complain its not a good as warbies (yuk)

700gms white flour, 250 milk skimmed and 250 water, pack of yeast, 1 tspn salt and 1 of sugar, about 25gms of butter. I cannot believe how light it is. I am going to try with a bit more milk to see if I can get it softer still but it now flops over when you cut it. Enjoy rach

And its even better when you have home made butter to go on it! Christ, how easy is that to make.