The Garden Fence - help and support in tough times

nursemaggie

I'm surprised anyone can get into some of those positions in yoga softstuff. Pilates I would like to do. I could look around for a class after I come off my treatment. I think it would do me good.

We all know you have core strength in the figurative sense and after all that gardening and gravel moving I think you must have it physically as well. I think all physiotherapists would have been torturers in the past. Give me an occupational therapist any time they get you back to fitness after an accident without setting off all your other pains.

When I broke my arm I practically crawled out of the physio gym on my hands and knees, every joint in my body was in agony.

They transferred me to the occupational therapist. They use machines to get your limbs fit after an accident. They also have a gym with machines like bikes and rowing machines. I must have rowed to Aus and back a few times before DS was born. She used to set me a limit every day of how far I could row once she knew I was pregnant. She blamed the rowing machine for him being prem.

Love the names you have given my dressing gowns. Love Raisu san too.

Floss Tadcaster is nearly 20 miles from York towards Leeds. Ilona it's about time they fixed your bridge. I hope everything is done in your house before winter, though DS says winter arrives next month.

Softstuff

I think physios here are really a cross between physios and occupational therapists in the uk. Over here if you're injured at work it's physios who do the rehab to get you back there (paid for by workers comp).

I joke about my sadistic physio, but she's changed my life. I went from a person with a limp, a bad back and an immobile painful shoulder to someone who can move 3 tonnes of gravel in a couple of days with no discernable effect. A physio in England caused me nothing but pain with no positive outcome. There's good and bad in all professions though.

And pilates done well can be good for anyone I suspect. Yesterday's class was an hours torture, but I have no after effects, not even a little ache. The class isn't going to be fun, but that's why they call it pilates and not "the pub"

Floss

nursemaggie wrote: »

...Floss Tadcaster is nearly 20 miles from York towards Leeds. Ilona it's about time they fixed your bridge. I hope everything is done in your house before winter, though DS says winter arrives next month.

I was never very good at geography! And does DS mean that winter arrives at B&Q?!

fuddle

A couple of Q's for you today toughies.

Do the rules for keeping cooked rice safe for consumption apply to short grain pudding rice too. I'm wanting to put a batch in the SC this morning for supper but not sure whether to double it for tomorrow too?

Also does anyone know really OS ways of preserving without adding bought pectin? I'm wondering if there's a natural way of doing it as I have a nice supply of frozen rhubarb ready to turn into jams for my stocks.

Also would jars fresh from the dishwasher be clean enough to preserve and if not how do I go about ensuring they are clean enough.

Thanks always learning

Softstuff

Fuddle, I don't panic about rice. When cooked I pop it straight in the fridge and reheat until piping hot the following day. But yes, same thing applies with pudding rice. Really the bother is leaving it standing around warm for a while.

As for pectin, some fruits have their own pectin, apple peels and core in particular. You can pop some peel and core in a muslin bag I believe and boil it with the other jam ingredients.... but I haven't tried. Same thing with lemon seeds too. I tend not to bother, I like a softer jam and seldom have so much fruit that I'd make more than a couple of jars for fairly immediate use.

As for preserving jars, I wash mine in hot soapy water (lids too), then pop them on a baking tray in the oven to dry out. That also sterilises them, then to get a good seal on the jar you put the hot preserve directly into the hot jar and screw the lid tight. When you're filing, be sure not to get any jam around the rim. As it cools, the lid sucks down as does the little button on it if there is one.

Hope some of that helps.

[Deleted User]

I make and keep rice pud in the fridge, we eat it until it's gone over a few days, seems to be fine and we've never had problems. I never use pectin for jams and jellies, if you add an apple you'll not know it's there with the main fruit as it dissolves in cooking. You can add lemon juice to things like strawberries that have little pectin too and that gets a decent set. If you have apples and peel them before you use them, pop the peel and cores in a pan with some water and bring it to a simmer and cook it until it's soft. Strain off the liquid and you have a pectin full fluid that can be added to your fruit with the water to cook it and you'll have set jam!

I put jars I'm using into the dishwasher and that does sterilize them, to pot jam you need the jars hot so before I pot up the jam I'm making I put the oven on low 120ish and pop the dry jars into it to heat them up. Hot jam into hot jars is fine, hot jam into cold but sterile jars could mean the jars shatter.

Floss

Fuddle I don't add pectin to rhubarb jam, just ginger - it makes the most gorgeous jam ever! Another one to try is rhubarb and orange jelly, made with the juice of 2 large oranges and 1 lemon.

Dishwasher clean jars are ideal - jars need to be hot for the jam though.

jamanda

Fuddle, I make rhubarb (and sometimes with ginger) jam just with rhubarb and sugar and it is lovely. There is enough pectin in it to set.

monnagran

I'm a bit late but yes, I'm for adding apple to jam every time.

Life is still a bit chaotic here. DIL is home again but her poor mother is not too good. The doctors think that she will probably never walk without a frame. So sad as she was such a healthy, active person. The primary cancer turned out to be myeloma, (I think that is right) but she has to recover from the spine operation before they can start treatment. Oh dear, she is such a lovely lady.

Silva: Did you realise that this weekend is the 'round the island race?'
Cue gales, hurricanes, tornadoes and disasters of all colours.
Stay on terra firma.

x

ivyleaf

monnagran Is the weather this weekend one of the expected things, like it always raining on a Bank Holiday? Rotten shame though. Do they cancel it if the weather's bad?