The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

[Deleted User]

I don't think apples and pears and the harder fruits go into Rumtopfs, just the stone fruits, berries and softer things like grapes.  If you have lots of apples left and don't mind more preserves I've a very old recipe for Apple Ginger which is an alternative to breakfast marmalade.   I'll post the recipe if you fancy giving something like that a go?

3secondmemory

boazu said:

I don't think apples and pears and the harder fruits go into Rumtopfs, just the stone fruits, berries and softer things like grapes.  If you have lots of apples left and don't mind more preserves I've a very old recipe for Apple Ginger which is an alternative to breakfast marmalade.   I'll post the recipe if you fancy giving something like that a go?

Yes please!😃 I am a big fan of ginger and I do you like to mix it up I am a big fan of ginger and I do  like to mix it up On the toast front😃

i’m hoping to make a few jars for gifts and a few to swap
 

Si_Clist

Any surplus apples here get peeled, cored and sliced on the Hurdy Gurdy then bottled, or chunked, stewed and bottled as Apple Mush for later use in crumbles, or if the stove's on, turned into dried apple rings.

Link to the Hurdy Gurdy - £8 well spent! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-in-1-Apple-Peeler-Slicer-Corer-Dicer-Kitchen-Potato-Fruit-Vegetables-Cutter/323703399824?hash=item4b5e39e590:g:LuEAAOSwFTde4vS4

3secondmemory

I’m not a fan of deserts and puddings – I like apple sauce and apple in pork casserole but I don’t bother with crumble or anything. 

Just a shame to let anything go to waste. I haven’t got the room for a dehydrator. 

[Deleted User]

Apple Ginger
Equal quantities of peeled, cored and chopped apples and sugar
1/2 pint of water for each 2lbs of fruit
2oz chopped preserved ginger or 1 rounded teaspoon of ground ginger for each 1lb of apples
1 teaspoon of lemon juice for each 1lb of apples

Put the apple and water with the ginger and lemon juice in a heavy pan and cook gently until a puree, add in the sugar and keep stirring until it has fully dissolved and stops 'crunching' on the pan base.  Bring to the boil and cook over a medium heat, stirring very often until a spoonful dropped on to a cold plate forms a wrinkled skin as it cools.  Pot up and seal the jars.

If you like very ginger flavours when the jam is at setting point and before potting up a couple of balls of preserved stem ginger chopped very finely can be stirred through the jam in the pan.

Hope you like this if you try it 3second.

Greenglockenspiel

Thanks for the greenhouse advice, I am definitely leaning towards polycarbonate. It’s for the allotment and I have spent quite a long time picking out pieces of what I think were formerly greenhouse glass panels from the soil!

I am planning to make a Rumtopf, just waiting for my new big Kilner jar to arrive. I haven’t done it before though so no advice! I do have a couple of German-language cookbooks including a Christmas one so will dig that out to see if there’s a recipe in there. I miss Germany the most in winter but won’t be travelling this year so I’ll also be trying to make my own burnt almonds 😋😋

elaine241

I made rhubarb vodka early on in the summer, adding some strawberries mainly for colour , otherwise it looks like wee!  
I have been literally wading through kilos of beans both runner and french!! I am sure there must be nearly 20 kilos in the freezer already!!! I have another 4.6 kilos ready to go in and another bucket full waiting to be processed. Plus I only picked half the row of french beans so there is still more to come! I bought a vacuum sealer from L*dl ages ago as it was in the 30% off bin. After a bit of trial and error I have mastered it ( instructions non existent). It saves all the faffing around blanching as it seals the beans really tight. I have never blanched things very often and I have found the beans don't go black even if they were in normal freezer bags. 
My potatoes have blight but all the foliage has been cut off so it can not get to the tubers. I have six big rows of various spuds and when I dug up some of my salad potatoes they were absolutely huge! I have a dehydrator so I may try potato slices although I find I forget to use my dehydrated stuff as its in the back of the pantry. I use the microwave to dry herbs as I find the colour lasts better. My next challenge is to use all the tomatoes or put them in the freezer for future use. I have bottled toms in the past but again they were hiding so forgot to use them. I have used them in stews etc despite being bottled 5 years ago! They looked, smelt and tasted OK when I opened the bottle, so in they went and nobody had any ill effects! I may make a huge vat of fresh tomato sauce and then bottle that using a water bath method. I am sure I would use it more as its ready to go!
Has anyone made home made wine? I have made some in the past and I am thinking of elderberry or blackberry as this year seems to be a bumper harvest. I was told that Rowan berry wine is nice , has anyone ever made this or had experience of it, good or bad?

[Deleted User]

Try drying tomatoes to semi dried in the dehydrator Elaine and then putting them in oil in a jar in the fridge for topping pizzas and eating with cold cuts.  I put virgin olive oil on mine and then the oil can be used for salad dressings when the tomatoes are used up, gives a nice flavour and means no waste.

jamanda

I used to make lots of "hedgerow" type wine.  I had to stop when it got out of hand and I ran out of space when my parents moved in with us.

I ended up with 80 demijohns of wine and lots bottled up.  DH reckoned if we had a fire we would take the whole village out.  Blackberries make lovely wine, and you can vary it with different yeasts, e.g. port type. Elderberry is lovely too, but I haven't made rowan.  Tried everything else, mind you.  You get 6 bottles of wine for the price of a bag or so of sugar and a bit of yeast so it is very economical.

Eventually your friends will refuse it because they well remember the last time they had to literally crawl home when the fresh air hit them.

Nargleblast

I found a Rumtopf recipe online last year, can't remember the site but it was simply layerings fruits with sugar and covering with rum.

You start with a layer of strawberries in June, bit of sugar sprinkled over, cover with really strong rum. Each month you add a layer of whatever's in season, say raspberries and cherries in July, currants and blackberries in August, peaches/nectarines and plums in September. October it's apparently been traditional to add pineapple, fresh or tinned. You then put clingfilm over the fruit with the jar lid on top, and leave it till Christmas Eve. The man of the house  traditionally opens the jar and serves it up. Children can have cream or ice cream with theirs, adults have a shot glass of the syrup on the side. I left out the pineapple, and just used standard strength rum, and it was still gorgeous so now I have two jars on the go. If you search for traditional German recipes you are bound to find it.

edited to add - I didn't start mine till August last year but it was still good.