THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

DigForVictory

Today is the start of a whole new chapter in preparedness - not only have I dehydrated halved baby tomatoes (with a scrunch of black pepper & a wisp of basil apiece), I then vacuum packed them!
Finally, when the urge to leap like a gazelle with ADHD wore off, I added a Sharpie to the box the packer lives in. Preparedness includes deciphering "what the heck that was" possibly months later. [Shall we draw a veil over why I feel the need to remind myself to label? I defrosted the freezer recently.]

I also dumped out several jars of jam that had not set & had gone mouldy - I now have Still More Jars & a dangerous glint in the eye. My family are waiting for the adrenalin to wear off (& for me to put the kitchen knife down, oops) but are making supportive & encouraging noises! Youngest, eyeing me laying mint leaves onto dehydrator trays, grunted "weed" approvingly - I explained this was to become mint tea time future & got a shrug & nod back! That's very nearly a handshake deal that when I ask for a pot of Home Grown Lebanese Mint Tea, he will excavate the little plastic bags labelled Mint, open one, dump it into a pot, add boiling water & *then* forget & wander off!

I also reviewed the Edible Hedge. Yes, one side of the garden is planted with things that are devoted to both keeping neighbours at a distance whilst also producing jam & jelly futures. Hawthorn, beastly prickly & so stuffed with pectin, it pretty much sets as it cools. Ideal colleague to blackberries, raspberries, tayberries, jostaberries, gooseberries & even the small but surviving loganberry I was given. I honestly didn't think Preparedness as I laid weed suppressant fabric & so on, I was adrift on jam fantasies.

A long time ago (before the Falklands, which gives any UK folk an idea when I'm on about) we used to attend (& occasionally compete) in the local village fruit & flower show. Where one lady defeated all comers at the Welshcake & thus was debarred from entering the year after to give every other baker a chance at the certificate. Where us children made fantastic animals from fruit & vegetables (& more than 4 legs meant it stayed stood up on the table in the marquee for longer). Where the villagers competed politely over the best fruit jam & runner bean & so forth. All beautifully presented, every certificate fought (genteelly) tooth & nail for & of course every family assuring the competitor that theirs was naturally the best (we were not wholly daft!) no matter who got First, or Second, or Third, or even Commended. As you could race in to find your jar had been opened, tasted and No Card Left At All (oh, the mortification). The whole shooting match crumbled with the Falklands as the marquees were part of the War Effort & never came back. The local regiment was amalgamated, then demoted to a TA base & today's children rarely see a real jam competition or listen to the mutterings about so-&-so's Runner Beans. Poor souls. It was great fun.

Plus my maternal grandmother was a firm believer in making Full Use of God's creations (the only woman outside a convent I knew who made & drank nettle soup), and thus even my busy working GP mother made jam & marmalade and set us to useful tasks (picking, peeling, chopping - why have children & Not use them?!) then allowing us One Jar each of the results. She adores still the tiny 25g jars - big enough to get the flavour, small enough to enchant children, guests, the sick & other beneficiaries. My sons blinked as I swooped on about 25 little jars of past their date mustard. The mustard was emptied into another pot for applying to the soles of the feet for anyone with a streaming cold (my lads have learned swiftly to either use the blinking handkerchief provided or have "just a cough"). The jars I scrubbed out & presented a glinting dozen empties to mum & have the other tinies stashed with the other hoarded empties.

My husband thinks this is all ridiculous. My eldest is reading up on chilli jam & being altogether less doubtful. Middleson is reserving judgement until I produce a strawberry jam for him to decide if it is worthy of his sponge cakes. Youngest had to overcome his disappointment that you can't make Nutella that way but, having put a happy dent in my mango chutney stash, is ready to try almost anything. I'll get them prepping yet. Weaning off leaving wrappers, crumbs & even unfinished comestibles in their rooms is a separate challenge. Blackmail, a mother's ever reliable weapon in the gentil art of raising sons, has not so far delivered.

On a separate thought, we harvested our patch of bere barley a few days ago. Straw in all directions, heads with wains like needles picked and hauled in and sorted & the very best for seed we have hand picked and stashed and just rubbed through a garden riddle (heavy duty sieve) to get the worst of the wains off. It's pretty hair-raising to see what we started with, what we ended with & yet How Far we are still from flour. Come the end of the world, I'll be raising root veg rather than cereals. That said, himself got a very authentic straw stuffed mattress from the palaver. Rest of us got sweaty & backache but also a turn on the mattress/palliasse.

Himself is grousing he can't be bothered to pick rushes this year to make rushlights. It's one of the few remaining family bonding activities we do, and it has a solid prepping use - a rush and the right bit of fat from near the kidneys of a sheep & you boil & filter that & you get a very lovely tallow which does not burn stinky or spit (it's any leftover raff & scraff in the fat that does that), and you peel the rushes & draw them all absorbent through the hot tallow & let them dry & lo - rushlights. (To read The Reverend Gilbert White on the subject, read here - I think Himself wouldn't object to "Decayed Labourer" on his tombstone. (Live with a research historian, learn the oddest things! Mind, all our lads can start a fire with flint & steel, which impressed the socks off one scout leader.)

Husband has method for dealing with cold callers. Asks them, with a leer in tone of voice, "What'cha wearing?" whilst offspring giggle like happy loons imagining the face of the shocked caller. We fell off quite a few lists with that...

Spud harvest - ah yes, we too need to get on therewith. Good luck! Frankly anything over penny bit size will be met with startled glee.

milasavesmoney

Dig for Victory, I was raised by a mother who was a child and teenager through the US Great Depression. We put up jars and jars of anything she could get her hands on to store on our shelves. I've known her to call complete strangers and ask if they were going to use the apricots/peaches/plums they were letting fall off their trees. We then would pick their trees and all her sisters and SIL would come over for a big jelly/jam making session. They would bring their own jars and happily take their stash home at the end of a long day. And of course we all picked the fields for bushels of different vegetables to can. Fantastic memories! Thanks for sharing your lovely story. It's made me nostalgic about my youth.

My son liked to deal with cold callers by asking them what they looked like and were they single irregardless of their sex. Those calls didn't last long either. :rotfl:

mardatha

This is from today' National and its very scary:

HUNDREDS of vulnerable people in Scotland were left penniless and having to turn to food banks over the weekend after a controversial new online benefits system crashed.
Computer problems prevented payments getting to families, disabled and unemployed people across East Lothian, the first local authority in Scotland to roll out the full Digital Universal Credit Service, which has to be claimed online, and replaces previous benefits such as housing, jobseekers’ allowance and income support with a single monthly payment.
The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) said it was working to ensure that everyone received their benefits today but it was cold comfort for many who spent the weekend struggling to feed their families.
East Lothian MP George Kerevan received complaints from constituents desperate for help after the system went down and failed to make vital payouts to those in need.
He said: “All computer systems fail occasionally, so the real test is how the human agency involved – in this case the DWP – reacts.
“Sadly, in this case, the response has been atrocious. Rather than take the initiative and alert clients and the public, the DWP has gone to earth issuing a bland “everything is under control” statement. This is not just outrageous it demands a proper inquiry.”

Karmacat

Mar, that computer crash sounds scary.

DigforVictory - I love it! Your hedge sounds brilliant and I never knew that hawthorn berries contained lots of pectin, seriously. I have blackberries in the freezer already (and there'll be more soon) and though I have apples too (local orchard on council land gone wild) I'd much rather have the apples on their own, and set a blackberry jelly with hawthorn. Do you have a recipe? More for a chutney or savoury fruit sauce than jam, I can't eat much sugar.

DigForVictory

Hawthorn jelly recipe per google - looks credible & will be my initial trial.

The hedge just seemed like a nice idea & I then collected extra plants with names that reminded me of jam...

cuddlymarm

Good morning preppers

My mum used to make marrow and ginger jam ( disgusting stuff but she never wasted anything)

Cuddles

maryb

My Charlotte potatoes were pretty disappointing this year but for some strange reason, one plant produced some effing potatoes today. I thought it must have been a rogue seed potato got in among the Charlottes but it looks and tastes just like the others. I can't see anything different about where it was planted and others in the row just produced slightly smaller than hen's egg size potatoes like all the others.

Hope you managed to get rather more effing potatoes than me, Grey Queen. Bet you're tired after digging them up. I was wondering how potatoes fit into your new primal/paleo way of eating. They're quite high in carbs compared to other foods on that sort of diet, on the other hand they were a staple food in the Americas when the Elizabethan adventurers brought them back and the Native Americans sound like they were eating paleo

Emj2016

I don't know if anyone can help me !!

I recently started a new job 2 weeks ago! My friend has just come back off her honeymoon (I havent had any contact with her for nearly 4 weeks ) and told me she has booked us a 4 day holiday to Spain as a suprise for me for me helping out with her wedding so much !!

She now knows I have started my new job and it's gutted!!! (She knew I had the specific dates booked off in my previous job) which is a month away! I would hate her to lose her mobey and would love to go !

How would I approach this with my new boss?? It's only 3 people that work in the small office so nobody has to rely on me neither will I leave anyone in the dark as we do each others jobs? ?

Please would love any feedback??

mrs-moneypenny

Back from my hols in deepest Norfolk, which was lovely.
Digforvictory your comment on freezer produce not being labelled reminded me of the apple and beetroot crumble I made (mistaking the frozen beet for plums) it is not a dish the family are keen for me to recreate, sadly for them I was in kitchen taking somethings through so hadn't started mine, the girls were too polite to say it was horrible so we're soldiering on until I sat down and tasted it, and said it was disgusting and something must have gone wrong. They all thankfully stopped eating the 'fruit' then and carried on with the topping and custard.

My sweet corn is almost ready to harvest do may try that later in the week.

mrs-moneypenny

Emj I'd explain it to your new boss exactly how you've explained it here,it is a surprise trip that's been sprung on you. You could always offer to do overtime before/after the trip to make up for the time you need off. I hope you get the time given to go away and gave a lovely time.