Preparing for Winter V

Laura_Elsewhere

I have used one of these for years - intended for babyfood, it freezes in sticks about as long as a fish-finger - then you can freeze the sticks stacked into a box or in a bag, and they take up so little space. I have all kinds of things frozen like this - homemade chicken liver pate (3 sticks does 2 big slices of toast for a quick hot lunch, defrost in under an hour) and beaten egg, and pizza topping sauce leftovers, and oh, just oodles of things! 
It's still under 6 quid. I bought mine a good ten years ago and not a sign of tearing or holes or anything. They do pink, green, blue. 

https://www.vibranthome.co.uk/pink-silicone-baby-food-freezer-tray-cks-zeal.html

-taff

Floss said:

Is OSB like grown-up chipboard?!

Kind of, but chunkier bits

basketcase

@Mummy2cheekymonkeys and @Laura_Elsewhere

   Thanks for the links.  I'll explore both.  I like 'multi-purpose items like the muffin cases -  though I have to say I'm taken with the idea of egg fishfingers! Do they take a full egg or do you have to split it and freeze separately?

   Sounds like both will come in useful...!

Laura_Elsewhere

We use "mixed size" free-range eggs, and basically one beaten egg goes into one of the fingers, so to speak! It's just so useful having a frozen amount bigger than an ice-cube but smaller than most of the small containers around! 

Laura_Elsewhere

Re flour - our Sainsbury's this morning had huge sacks of flour reduced from 10 to 5 quid, plain and SR

[Deleted User]

We'll soon be into August and I'm noticing the evenings drawing in very slightly already, certainly dawn isn't arriving at 4 am any more and it's still dark out at that time of day.  I'm getting glut crops of beans both runners and French, so many we can't eat them all so I've dehydrated some, some are in the freezer as of this mornings picking and I've perfected French bean salad, along with tomato salad and courgette ribbon salad which are the other two crops beginning to give more than we can eat. The rhubarb in the garden looks like it will give another good picking so that will be made into rhubarb chutney during the coming week.  I'm building my store week on week and we're managing not to dip into it and live mainly on what we grow and what we can get fresh from the supermarket delivery.  Looking forward to apple season when I shall make as much windfall apple puree as I possibly can to freeze and make as much dehydrated apple as I can too along with apple jelly and apple chutney.  Hopefully people will put out their windfalls if not the big fruit farm locally sells seconds boxes and we'll buy a box or two of those to process.

Laura_Elsewhere

@boazu your posts do make me wistful for more storage and a proper garden!!! Someday...  

Masses of thunder at present, with rain but no visible lightning - we probably need to hassle our buildings maintenance people about the gutters needing cleaned before too long. 

[Deleted User]

I love preserving season Laura, always have and on Christmas morning we have a tradition of opening a jar of bramble jelly for breakfast and getting the smell of summer and remembering picking the blackberries in the summer when it was warm. It's something we started when the girls were tiny and they do it themselves now which is lovely.

Laura_Elsewhere

Oh, even in this tiny top-floor flat I manage the preserving! Although I made virtually none last year due to various upheavals and disasters - but the previous year I got completely carried away and made over 40 lbs of preserves.... there are only two of us!  

Lovely to have the traditions passed on like that! 

Cheapskate

My dessert apple tree is groaning, but the fruit is never crisp, always mushy, so I never know what to do with the fruit. Might simply peel, core, and freeze whole this time or make a quick apple sauce.  Also got loads of plums this time, enough for jam as well as crumbles etc, and more to give away. Bramley tree has been very slow to get going, but might be a few apples this year. 
I'd like to prep my newish allotment over the winter, ready for next spring. Need to cardboard most of it, and try again in the new year.
Re winter prep, I have to get some more smokeless for the stove, 2 new HWB, restock the pantry, use up my wool stash to crochet extra blankets, and do some batch cooking.

A xo