Preparing for Winter V

Laura_Elsewhere

LameWolf said:

We do make jam, a fair bit of it from foraged fruit, because DH likes a small dollop of it with his bran flakes; we also keep a couple of his pals supplied, and give the odd jar to NDN as a thank you for moving our wheely bin back to its place after the bin men have been; also it's a task we enjoy doing together which counts for a lot. I don't make chutney though - I don't care for it myself, too sweet for a "savory" item imho, and DH worships at the altar of Branston Pickle.

The sum total of my cooking today will be potatoes (to be potato salad to go with dinner) and hard boiling some eggs (also for dinner). Too darned hot for any other cooking.

That's much the same as us - I make a bit of foraged-fruit jam most years.

We have a jam tart each quite often as a nice sweet thing with lunch - it's less than a teaspoon of jam because we use my Gran's pre-war pastry cutters and even the largest one is smaller than modern ones - it's surprising how subtly all our portions have got bigger. 
I worked it out once and one jam tart is 20g, c.86 calories, 10g carbs, 4.9g sugars, 4.6g fat - compared to a quick google for Mr Kipling, from whom one jam tart is 35g, 139 calories, 23g carbs, 11g sugars, 4.7g fat. 
Quite a difference! 
(I also make fairy cakes - again, old-fashioned sizes so less unhealthy, but also for a giggle I make "pixie cakes" which are just like fairy cakes but smaller - 63 calories, 8g carbs, 5g sugars)
And same as you, it's something we often do together, which is nice. And it makes a lovely present for all kind sof odd little "just because" situations like your wheelie-bin-returning neighbour, etc. 


I could make pickle or chutney but we both love Branston and discovered through comparisons that one or other of the big supermarkets has it on very good offer almost year-round, as they do other things like Magnum ice creams, so now we never buy Branston or Magnums at full price, but always at a hefty discount  

-taff

Not sure about making your own jam being uneconomical. Free fruit [blackberries, rhubarb, apples or whatever you can forage, little plums, damsons etc ] and a less than £1 bag of sugar gives me nearly six jars of jam Seeing as I like the 'extra special' ones rather than the bog standard, this saves me roughly a tenner.

Laura_Elsewhere

-taff said:

Not sure about making your own jam being uneconomical. Free fruit [blackberries, rhubarb, apples or whatever you can forage, little plums, damsons etc ] and a less than £1 bag of sugar gives me nearly six jars of jam Seeing as I like the 'extra special' ones rather than the bog standard, this saves me roughly a tenner.

Yes, we costed it out in iirc 2017 and worked it out, inc electricity for cooking and hot water for washing up, it came to less than 20p for a 1/2-lb jar, and the cheapest preserve we could find at the time was 17p for very very cheap'n'nasty additive-laden "lemon curd"...

When you read labels, even brands I had always thought of as "good" increasingly have worrying types of sugars, the sort that are implicated in the increasing obesity levels because they don't occur in nature - high-fructose corn syrup being the most widely-known. It's so much cheaper than using sugar so it boosts their profits. Many companies used the sugar-tax as a loophole to replace some sugar with HFCS or with artificial sweeteners, even in their non-diet versions, when legally they didn't need to (a well-known blackcurrant squash, I am looking at YOU). It just made their profits even bigger, plus they raised the price, and then blamed the sugar-tax, whilst enjoying their twice-increased profits... hmmm... 

So when you start looking at what is actually IN many jams, it gets much more attractive to make an occasional batch!  

basketcase

Laura_Elsewhere said:

boultdj said:

silvasava said:

Tomatoes have just started ripening and the cucumber plants I was given have really produced so I've been able to keep friends and family supplied. I wont be making any chutney this year, Ive got some Quince and Date from 2007 and Pear from 2015. we do eat it but only occasionally. My climbing beans are prolific so I've been blanching and freezing them so we'll have a stock over the winter, surplus tomatoes will be roasted and frozen ready for soups and casseroles etc. I've enough fruit in the freezer to do some jam if needed but I probably wont make any until the autumn. I'd like to plant some winter greens but DH doesnt like Kale or Chard so I'm at a bit of a loss for something that is relatively easy to grow. 

Would Chinese cabbage, pac choi, bok choi be of any use? From what I've read the are winter hardy.  Japanese onions are planted in October same as broad beans, for early spring harvest. Then it's just the brassica family, sprout's, broccoli, calabrise, purple or white sprouting broccoli and old faithful, cauliflower, called all year round, as that is what it does, Oooo! Cabbage as well.

And, @silvasava , do think of lambs lettuce (aka 'cornsalad' in American) and red chard and suchlike - sow them in Aug/Sept and you can have fresh salad leaves right through the winter, even in snow and ice. 

Also Chicory, Land Cress, Endive, some lettuces - Winter Density, All Year Round, Grenoble Red etc, Rocket,Spinach, Pea Shoots.  Not a brassica fan myself.  How about sprouting seeds?

3secondmemory

basketcase said:

Laura_Elsewhere said:

boultdj said:

silvasava said:

Tomatoes have just started ripening and the cucumber plants I was given have really produced so I've been able to keep friends and family supplied. I wont be making any chutney this year, Ive got some Quince and Date from 2007 and Pear from 2015. we do eat it but only occasionally. My climbing beans are prolific so I've been blanching and freezing them so we'll have a stock over the winter, surplus tomatoes will be roasted and frozen ready for soups and casseroles etc. I've enough fruit in the freezer to do some jam if needed but I probably wont make any until the autumn. I'd like to plant some winter greens but DH doesnt like Kale or Chard so I'm at a bit of a loss for something that is relatively easy to grow. 

Would Chinese cabbage, pac choi, bok choi be of any use? From what I've read the are winter hardy.  Japanese onions are planted in October same as broad beans, for early spring harvest. Then it's just the brassica family, sprout's, broccoli, calabrise, purple or white sprouting broccoli and old faithful, cauliflower, called all year round, as that is what it does, Oooo! Cabbage as well.

And, @silvasava , do think of lambs lettuce (aka 'cornsalad' in American) and red chard and suchlike - sow them in Aug/Sept and you can have fresh salad leaves right through the winter, even in snow and ice. 

Also Chicory, Land Cress, Endive, some lettuces - Winter Density, All Year Round, Grenoble Red etc, Rocket,Spinach, Pea Shoots.  Not a brassica fan myself.  How about sprouting seeds?

I’m a sprouter - really into pea sprouts atm. 😃

I am doing a taste test atm because I usually grow micro greens in water main but have started noticing how much better flavour they have grown in compost. 

VJsmum

I make marmalade from the mamade tins of pulp but a batch usually lasts 6 months - it's nicer than most shop bought and no chopping all those marms    As part of a click and collect shop i accidentally bought a 5kg bag of sugar .  I did think about making jam but decided we'd only eat it when we didn't need to.  I will probably end up doing a batch of chutney as i can't see all my toms turning red now, which will use some of it up.  One batch of the chutney will last through the winter as we don't eat that much of it.  Otherwise the sugar mountain will very gradually get used in the mamade making and the odd cake or crumble.  We don't have much that's sugary, but when i make a cake i just use granulated sugar, CBA to bother with getting or making caster..
 

jamanda

I don't use green tomatoes.  I do ripen them on windowsills (or in a drawer if you can chuck the rubbish out of it first).  Mine seem to be a bit slow ripening this year too.  Hot weekend forecast so I'll be checking the shades of green very carefully.

Mrs_Salad_Dodger

My tomatoes are also a bit slow turning red - just 3 so far ☹️

-taff

jamanda said:

I don't use green tomatoes.  I do ripen them on windowsills (or in a drawer if you can chuck the rubbish out of it first).  Mine seem to be a bit slow ripening this year too.  Hot weekend forecast so I'll be checking the shades of green very carefully.

I was still eating tomatoes from last year up until April, they took that long to ripen

Primrose

If your're growing upright tomatoes it does help to trim back some of the leaves near the fruit clusters to allow as much sun as possible to access them.  I've been picking them from my tumbling plants in patio pots for a fortnight now but these varieties tend to start ripening earlier.