The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

-taff

elaine241 said:

 The garlic have sprouted so I am wondering whether to just leave them there, does anyone know if they just make bigger bulbs or lots of smaller ones as the individual cloves grown the year before have sprouted? 

One clove makes one bulb if left in the cold over winter [ the cold aids the splitting into cloves in the bulb to be] so if you left a whole bulb in there, each clove could theoretically sprout and form a new bulb, but in practice, because they are all squashed up , you're not likely to get a bulb from each clove, they're just too close together and garlic is a heavy feeder. You'll still have usable and edible garlic though however it turns out.

CCW007

elaine241 said:

This year I have splurged on an American pressure cooker, something I have wanted for years and just does not come up second hand in the UK. My aim is to can any vegetables I grow that I can not immediately use. My freezer went wrong in the old dairy and nobody noticed until I had lost all my beans/veg etc that I had frozen. It defrosted then refroze several times so the produce in there is only safe for hen food. Also with slightly more trepidation I will experiment in canning meat that I buy reduced. I will only do a small amount of this as I am aware of the risks from botulism and other nasty bugs. It will be experimental as I have a freezer in the house for meat that I keep a close eye on.

I received a bonus in 2020 and treated myself to a pressure canner - it is brilliant once you get past your nervousness.

So far I have tended to do veggies and meals (bolognaise, chilli, beef stew) but I did pick up some very cheap organic chicken breasts and some cheap drumsticks which I raw canned.  The cats have the drumsticks but you do need to be careful about making sure there are no bones.  The breasts I will use for curry etc.  I also did hunters chicken - breast wrapped in bacon raw packed.  20 minutes in the oven to reheat and apparently they are very tender and full of flavour (I don't eat meat so cant say from experience!)

After Christmas I ended up with loads of potatoes and parsnips from Olio so I canned those and did carrot soup out of the LO carrots.  All free apart from the energy to process them.

RAS

I'm finding more and more erratic gaps in the local supermarkets.

My preferred coffee has not been stocked by the local branch since last summer. Recently they did not have in my second choice either. And I used to be able to get vegetarian baby food for the food bank at several local stores. One now stocks some at intervals; and I suspect at least one other person stocks up when they see it as often I go back and find it stripped out of the cases and the meat varieties still there.

When I volunterred last week, I took the opportunity to check out the store there where I found the coffee in the autumn. Multiple packs of my preferred variety on the shelves, with all the other options. The only baby food in jars was vegetarian and I'd have got more if I'd not already been carrying a lot already. Think if I miss a train, I'll check them in future.

At other times, all sorts of things have disappeared for several weeks, ranging from mayonnaise to gherkins or tuna in oil. 

I can't eat most ready meals, but the few that are OK are often missing when I look.

Oh - and a lot of trains are missing, due to staff shortages and ill-health despite the reduced timetable.

LadOnTheHill

If you're doing pressure canning, check out Rose Red Homestead on YouTube. She goes into the science of canning in a very easy to understand way.

Nonnadiluca

Lots of empty shelves in Lidl this week, apparently they had three days deliveries waiting to be brought out, but so short staffed, due to covid, they hadn't been able to. If loads of people are off sick it will affect every workplace to some extent but, according to the government the pandemic is over now, so all is well; party on!!!!!!

maryb

I have a pressure canner and I remember I found it utterly confusing and terrifying the first few times and then it suddenly all fell into place. I have a big wok burner on my gas hob which works well and I have found the setting which maintains the pressure at just the right level.

I tend to use it for chicken stock and bol sauce/chillis which take up a lot of room in the freezer and take ages to defrost.  I also use it to can black beans and chickpeas.  It may not save that much over buying cans but it means I can use organic beans which I can buy reasonably cheaply.  I have done stewing steak and chicken but I find the lengthy processing times kill the flavour and texture.  Fruit is better suited to a slow waterbath canning process in my experience otherwise it all rises in the jars and is a mush - but that could be my technique

One thing to bear in mind is that a lot of the available information is American.  They have bigger issues with botulism spores in the soil than we tend to here in the UK.  That said, I still stick to the timings and pressure recommendations

Si Clist might be along in a minute to give more tips.  I know he reuses lids although the advice is not to.  I haven't up til now but as they seem to be in very short supply I'm going to start doing this

ZsaZsa

LadOnTheHill said:

If you're doing pressure canning, check out Rose Red Homestead on YouTube. She goes into the science of canning in a very easy to understand way.

Thanks so much for this. I have been researching pressure canning loads over the past couple of weeks and have been so confused over it. Just watched one of her beginner videos and I’m much clearer now.

Wraithlady

CCW007 said:

elaine241 said:

This year I have splurged on an American pressure cooker, something I have wanted for years and just does not come up second hand in the UK. 

I received a bonus in 2020 and treated myself to a pressure canner - it is brilliant once you get past your nervousness.

I managed to get hold of a Miro pressure canner from Big-River Company  at a frankly irresistible price (some sort of special offer combined with free postage) . Pre- WFH, so it had to be delivered to work - the worst part was lugging a large, heavy and bulky boxed-up pressure cooker from work to the bus stop, a good 15 minutes walk (20 minute stagger on that occasion!). 

Been worth it but definitely not looking to do that again in a hurry!

LadOnTheHill

After a few weeks of not doing anything prep-wise (read: sitting down a lot since before Xmas), we've been trying to have a tidy ready for the new season.

Outdoors, we've properly laid a couple of paths with stuff we got last year, some gravel and loads of bark chippings. They were rubble and covered over with weeds, now they're safely walkable so we can get full access to all of the raised bits without breaking our necks. We've also been chopping a Holly tree down that was right in the middle of a bad and that served no useful function. The garden is pretty productive already, but with food prices going up, we're hoping to save a fair bit. Kalettes we're put in last year, and they're still doing fine. The only care they've had is to be staked up, no other feeding or watering at all. They're delicious too, and not really troubled by pests at all.

Indoors, we've been tidying up the room where everything gets dumped. Cue lots of "I wondered where that was," and "I didn't know we had one of these," (a candyfloss maker, great fun!) and "where did this come from?". Some of it got thrown, some went to a friend who is involved with local groups that can make use of or disburse the things and most got put onto the shelves in proper order. Being able to see what we have and make use of it feels so much better than having the exact same things in disarray.

Si_Clist

maryb said:

 ... Si Clist might be along in a minute to give more tips.  I know he reuses lids although the advice is not to.  

Been reusing both Kilner and Leifheit metal lids both in water bath and in oven since the early 1980s and it hasn't killed us yet.  Yes, the advice from Kilner was/is not to reuse them, but to misquote Mandy Rice-Davies, "Well they would say that, wouldn't they?" so you keep on buying them.

We've also been wombling suitable jars and quarter-turn metal lids and reusing those for at least the last ten years, again without ill effect.  

We're generally not fans of YouTube "how-to" videos, particularly American ones: as I've said on here before, all our "normal" canning technique (such as it is) is based on the information in the old Ministry of Food "Home Preservation of Fruit and Vegetables" book. 

When using the All-American pressure canner, we've always stuck to two sources.  One is the handbook that came with the cooker, and the other's the wonderful "USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning Guide 1" which we downloaded ages ago from the US Dept of Ag/National Institute of Food and Agriculture site.

Ref reusing jars that have had cooking sauces, fruit, gherkins or whatever in them, if you're not sure if any of the lids are OK to reuse, you can get new ones in most of the standard sizes off Ebay and they're fine.