THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

maryb

Online banking site for Natwest is down. Anyone else having trouble?

Elona_2

maryb

I was fine on the site later this morning. Do you have more than one laptop system you could log in on as I am on chrome and have to go incognito to log on ever since the mess they got into a few months ago.

fuddle

Any idea why Americans appear to be so relaxed with canning while we run about screaming botulism? OK, I appear to have over reacted there and been pretty stereotypical but it's just the feeling I get about the issue. I would love to can.

GreyQueen

ziggy2004 wrote: »

I have actually never tried the tinned olives, I love olives though so going to give it a try!

Still not sorted out my pantry ( well DH has to clear out the tools he has been storing in there I have done most of the rest)

My jam is up to 36 jars stored now and there should be a good bramble crop coming too!

These are the A lesto brand from liddly in small glass jars, I've had some fancy-schamncy stuffed olives in little cans from Mr T as they were reduced to 22p a can but was underwhelmed. Once the jars are opened they need to be eaten in a week or so and kept in the fridge.


I really must get out blackberrying soonish but the heat has been demotivating. Once the lottie taters are up, I shall have some spare time. I'll be freezing whatever I cannot eat in real time,


Lovely peeps, as we head towards the dog-days of late summer, camping equipment tends to go on sale in new stores and also be offered secondhand by soon-to-be-ex-campers. If one is in the market, it's a good time to keep one's eyes peeled.

DawnW

fuddle wrote: »

Any idea why Americans appear to be so relaxed with canning while we run about screaming botulism? OK, I appear to have over reacted there and been pretty stereotypical but it's just the feeling I get about the issue. I would love to can.

It may be because the equipment is easier to get in the US? I know you can get it online now, but this hasn't always been the case. They are only relaxed about it up to a point though - I have a couple of US preserving books and they seem to pressure can everything, including stuff we are quite relaxed about such as jam!


Also, we don't really have much of a tradition of it, do we? I remember my Mum bottling fruit years ago, using the water bath method and Kilner jars, and they were always very nice. Speaking as an avid jammer, pickler, chutney maker, who also used to make cheese, yogurt and other dairy products, and salt beef etc, I haven't ever even done this myself though Freezing is just too easy I guess!

maryb

On my iPad now and it seems fine. Bt Internet is being very dodgy this week and we keep losing our connection but other sites were ok just NatWest. Ah well just another irritation on a hot day
Have just set some halloumi cubes to marinate in herbs garlic olive oil and lemon juice for kebabs later. Looking at the packet it had a very long useby date so might be worth stocking up a bit

maryb

Dawn I think the preserving advice we were given in this country was very much geared to wartime preserving. Proper canners would have been pretty well impossible to get hold of whereas most households had big pans they could water bath fruit in. Ordinary pressure cookers were available but not 100% reliable So the safest approach was just to tell people not to try to bottle vegetables. I know the old Ministry of Food info about bottling was the basis for most cookbooks for decades later so it just never got updated. I think that's probably why we have no tradition of canning in this country

I remember an old ad for Williams and Glynn's bank in the 1970s when borrowing was just beginning to become respectable if it was for a worthy purpose. The ad was an elderly spinster announcing to her bank manager that she was giving up the bottle. She wanted a loan to buy a freezer to preserve her fruit instead of bottling it - so much more modern

pineapple

ziggy2004 wrote: »

I have actually never tried the tinned olives, I love olives though so going to give it a try!

I sometimes get tinned olives and transfer them to a jar to marinate in olive oil with herbs and garlic. They are usually canned in brine and it mitigates the 'briny' taste.

Cappella

I live olives. Any olives. I have added some to my store cupboard today and I will toast GQ when we eat them

I've been stewing and freezing brambles and apples for the past two days and have also made a little bramble-and apple jam because I really like it though no one else does. There are more brambles here along the allotment edges, the canal bank and the rough ground next to railway bridges over the canal than I've seen for a very long time. And what puzzles/ worries me slightly is that in a very built up and rather poor urban area I seem to be the only person picking them. Even 5 years ago I would regularly meet people stripping the bushes but so far this year there's only been me. And so I'm torn between stopping - because truthfully I have MORE than enough - and not letting the fruit drop and rot. But surely free fruit should be a huge incentive to everyone? I'm obviously missing a point somewhere but I'm not sure just what it is.

[Deleted User]

I think younger people just don't know what blackberries are and many folk have the impression that if it doesn't come from a supermarket it's probably poisonous and certainly 'dirty' because it's grown in an out of the way place. The need to forage because there isn't enough cash to provide all your food and needs coming into households seems to be in the past not the present.