THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

GreyQueen

Definately, and take particularly good care of small persons, they can suffer badly in temperatures and with degrees of sun exposure that don't particularly trouble adults.

At one time in my life, my group worked the fairs and festivals as childrens' entertainers. Every festie would haves some nitwit parents holding redfaced screaming toddlers in their arms, not knowing why their LOs were bawling their heads off.

Child would be bare-legged and bare-armed in some cute little playsuit and minus a sunhat and thirsty. I lost count of how many of these isshews we resolved by putting after-sun milk on scorched limbs and ordering the parents into the shade and giving water to LO. As in, resolved in 1-2 minutes, nitwit parents would look at us in awe as if we were some kind of miracle workers, rather than just full of commonsense.

On Crete, I have seen local mothers out with babies in prams. Pram hood up and a folded bedsheet linking the hood with the handle, along with periodic pauses to play peekaboo with the LO to assure them that mummy was still there.

Cappella

We've got a beautiful summer going on here in 2018. Join me, in spirit, as I admire the jewel-like orbs of home-grown redcurrants and the felicitious combination of lavender bushes and self-sown field poppies under a blazing blue sky. And the sunflowers, don't even get me started on the loveliness of sunflowers and the heavy drone of velvety bumblebees weaving between the aforementioned floral offerings......... ! And the frogs by the standtap, with their glorious eyes.

Lovely poetical post GQ I really enjoyed it

We use pallets on the allotment to build all sorts of things with. I'm sure any local site would happily take them of your hands OP.

Question: has anyone made black currant cordial? Harvests haven't been great generally on our plot, but the currant bushes have produced magnificently and I don't want to waste a single one. Food prices are likely to soar over the next few years so prepping is even more important.
Anyway, if you have:
1: What proportion of fruit to fuice did you use?
2: Did you water bath it or just pour hot into well sterilised jars?
I'd like it to last longer than a fortnight. There's going to be a lot of it, and I've already made jam and jelly.

[Deleted User]

I've made blackberry cordial in the past and run the cooked fruit through the jelly bag for juice. I think I used 12oz of sugar per pint of juice to make the cordial and I store mine plastic bottles (with a good head space for expansion) in the freezer. They keep for a year without deterioration but you have to keep the cordial in the fridge when you defrost the bottle and use it up as if it was fresh or it tends to ferment. We found it was nice poured over vanilla ice cream or over a plain sponge pudding or cake for dessert. It would work as well with blackcurrants too!

fuddle

Youngest DD came home early from school on Friday. She felt sick and out of sorts. I couldn't work out why so I asked her what she had been doing. The whole school had spent the morning in a hot hall practising for the end of year performance. I asked had she been able to take her water bottle. No. I was so cross.

mardatha

Cool grey skies and rain up here. I'm open for a awap...

Karmacat

Has anybody ever done anything prepper-ish with the internal drawers from dishwashers? I'm getting a new dishwasher today (it *is* a prep - it saves my hands from further arthritic damage in case of tshtf, as well as being cheaper by using less water and heating less water. Thats my story and I'm sticking to it. La-la-la).

Anyway ... I keep looking at the windmilly things, under the top drawer and at the bottom of the cavity itself, and I can't help thinking what an almost-readymade windmill they make

Any other ideas?

DawnW

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

I've made blackberry cordial in the past and run the cooked fruit through the jelly bag for juice. I think I used 12oz of sugar per pint of juice to make the cordial and I store mine plastic bottles (with a good head space for expansion) in the freezer. They keep for a year without deterioration but you have to keep the cordial in the fridge when you defrost the bottle and use it up as if it was fresh or it tends to ferment. We found it was nice poured over vanilla ice cream or over a plain sponge pudding or cake for dessert. It would work as well with blackcurrants too!

I made raspberry cordial earlier this year, using raspberries from the freezer. I always add a teaspoon of citric acid to help avoid the fermentation issue (though I still keep it in the freezer / fridge).The raspberry pulp, left over after straining off the juice for the cordial, was cooked with apples and a bit of sugar to make a pretty decent fruit pie filling that could then (as it had been cooked) be refrozen. It makes a nice drink, diluted (a lot, it is very concentrated), a dessert topping as described by Mrs L, and great ice lollies for kids if you make it a bit stronger than you would for drinking, and then freeze in moulds I can't see why it wouldn't work with any fruit of that kind. It is very easy and doesn't take long.

I got the idea/ recipe from another poster on these boards, Pippi Longstocking (thanks Pippi!) What Pippi said is basically to:

Put the fruit in a pan, just cover with water, bring to the boil and simmer for 5 mins or so. Strain the fruit, keeping the pulp. (I didn't bother with the jellybag, just used a sieve). Pippi uses equal quantities sugar to juice of a 1 pint to one lb ratio. Gently simmer for just enough time to dissolve the sugar. Add a teaspoon or so of citric acid. It keeps in the fridge for a while, but freezes for ages. Pippi says she does all fruit cordials this way (sorry, can't fnd her original post to link right now, but will try to later).

I am sure you could use sterilised bottles / water bath to preserve instead of freezing if you preferred, though I haven't done this personally.

maryb

Just had a look in my River Cottage preseving book by Pam the Jam (Corbin)

She says for each 1kg of blackcurrants add 600ml of water Bring slowly to the boil and mash it with a spoon until juices flow freely. Run it through a jelly bag overninght and then add 700g sugar to every litre of juice and heat until sugar is dissolved. She says if you bottle the cordial while it is hot in sterilised bottles it should keep for several months but if you want to keep it for longer you have to process the bottles in a water bath. The problem is getting a pan that is deep enough to completely submerge the bottles.

I do have a suitable pan - it's like a small galvanised dustbin. I bought it in a French supermarket and they usually have them at this time of year as the French do a lot of preserving. However coming back from holiday with an already full car and trying to get that pan in as well did not make me popular with DH:D

DigForVictory

Happy flashbacks to returning travels clutching useful kit.

It wasn't like a journey to wales was that odd, with the old kitchen sink & draining board lasted to the roofrack, but a student pal was truly baffled at my glee as I piled bottles of wine into a really well made wicker basket. Which did stick into the legs something gruesome, but I got back with the wine carefully handled & a top notch basket which lasted another two decades! The student friendship lasted too.

I reckon it is easier to coax a jampan home than it is to coax china. My menfolk get distinctly sniffy about cradle with care bags on laps, whereas equipment for jam? Striking increase in cooperation....

Cheapskate

I agree with everyone's comments about heat-prepping, given the current weather. We've never been too bothered by heat, being sensible enough to strip off (only as far as common decency will allow!:rotfl:), open windows early morning and close before noon, drink plenty of water, etc. However, last week I felt decidedly odd all week, being quite poorly by Friday, suspected some sort of infection - even though I NEVER catch bugs - but now I think it was a bit of heat stroke, despite following by own advice above!! Now, I've just gone 50, not a weak and weedy type, so am now bullying the littlies into drinking more, etc. Not pleasant, and glad it was only slight illness!

We're forecast rain later this aft, very sorely needed, local reservoirs are greatly reduced and we've had moorland fires worse than previous years.

My fruit trees are literally on the ground, trying to save windfalls to cook & freeze, and hoping for a decent harvest before the bugs/birds get 'em! Never seen the trees so overladen!

A xo