Yellow Egg Plums Don't Grow True From Seed

When we lived around Evesham someone once told me that yellow egg plums grow true from seed. That's one of the reasons there are so many around that area, they'd often grow them around the outside of the market gardens as an extra cash crop. 

Well even though I know the science of why it shouldn't be true I took a punt and dug up a seedling from mum and dads farm. I planted it about 8 years ago. 

Preserving Is A Family Affair

As our children have got older we've had to start putting more food away to last us longer. 

Luckily they all love helping and the last few weeks there's been quite a few times with  us all sat round a table prepping a harvest to preserve it. 

Trying To Get A Years Worth Of Snacks

Snacks are much under rated in some self sufficiency books. 

But for us they are a high priority, my kids are proper grazers and have lots of snacks during the day. 

And it's my aim to try to produce more of our own. 

Dried Pears

I was helping with the cake cafe after school the other day and when it was time to clean up they were getting rid of anything that might go off over half term. 

I managed to bag us 10 bottles of milk and a bag of apples before I asked what was happening to all the pears in the baskets outside the key stage one classrooms. No way would they keep for a week over half term in that warm school, some had started to turn already.

Autumn Days

Autumn always seems to come faster than I expect. I do love it, but it is over so quickly and before I know it the fire is lit and winter is here. 

But Autumn has plenty of treats and I'm enjoying trying to use my evening once I've picked the kids up to enjoy them.

Dehydrated Baked Beans

This is a bit of random one, but there is logic in my madness I promise!

So I dehydrated a tin of baked beans the other day. I know this isn't 100 percent normal behaviour but I'm on a bit of dehydrating marathon at the moment.

A friend and I were going wild camping a few weeks ago, the idea being that we could only take what we could carry. A simulated "bug out" where you have to just grab a bag of stuff and get out the house. In something like this weight becomes very important as soon as you have to walk any kind of distance.

How To Make Dehydrated Soup Mix

My wife and I both love eating soup, it makes for a great lunch with a fresh roll or for a warming tea. 

 The other night I made a huge batch of squash soup for tea. Some of my squash have just started to go bad so it was time to use them up. In the end I made about 6 litres of soup and it was really tasty!

I have no real set recipe for soup, I tend to just make it up as I go alone with what I have to hand. This one contained half a Oregon Homestead Squash (about 4kg I'd guess), three large onions, 6 cloves of garlic, a couple of white beetroots (so as to not colour the soup), one massive carrot and enough water to cover the lot. I then left it cooking until everything was soft and tender.

Good Value To Grow

1.4kg of Organic raspberries picked from the fruit garden Friday morning.

Waitrose organic raspberries are £24 per kg so that's £33.60! 

Although I'd probably settle for their essential British range at £12.75 per kg making this little lot worth £17.85!

If I only had a small garden I'd concentrate on growing berries, tomatoes, salad leaves and courgettes I think. Heavy cropping and high value.

With these we ate some fresh for our lunch, then I made half a dozen jars of raspberry and apple jam (I think it works better with apple so it's not so "pippy").

And dehydrated a load to add to our breakfast, cakes and cookies. These are pretty intense if you have them straight out of the jar! 

Hopefully I'll pick a load more this week as well.

What would you do with a glut of raspberries?

Dehydrating Courgette/Zucchini

There aren't many certainties in gardening, but I can pretty much guarantee you one - you're going to have too many courgettes! 

I know I certainly have, well mine are summer patty pan squashes, but you get the idea. I hate seeing them go to waste, I have about eight plants producing heavily and the chickens can only eat so many. 

There's lots of chutneys and pickles that call for squashes but I haven't got the inclination at the moment and my pantry is still quite full of last years chutneys, so I looked at other ways I could preserve them.

It was time to crack out the dehydrator.

Dehydrating Yakon

 On my never ending quest to dehydrate everything in sight after buying my new, pink, dehydrator last month I decided to quickly dehydrate he last of my yakon before it all went bad.

a rather goofy picture of me with some yakon

Last year was my first year growing this unusual tuber, and I wondered how it would do in storage, kept in my frost free shed it kept well over the whole winter and only in the middle of April did it start to rot from the broken ends or where it joined the main stem.

Dehydrating ti was simple, I pealed it, cut it into slices and laid them out on a tray, I think I dehydrated it on the vegetable setting for around 16 hours, so they're really dry and really chewy.

They taste like a sweetened parsnip when dry, I can't say that I'm a 100% fan but I'll happily eat one or two crisps when I pop the lid. The kids, on the other hand, go absolutely mad for them, wanting them as an after school snack when they get in from pick up, the great thing is that as sweet as they are they can't digest any of the sugar they contain so it won't send them loopy!

A good way to use this harvest up and something I'll certainly be doing again next year, in fact I'm going to plant extra with this in mind. 

Dehydrating Rhubarb

Okay with my new dehydrator I've been looking for things to dry! 

I always have an abundance of rhubarb at this time of year (although I've managed to sell quiet a bit this year) and my wife isn't hugely keen on it. 

I decided to dry some and see if it's any good in my overnight oats that I've been eating. It's pointless to dry it if there's no use for it at the end. 

We picked a huge amount and set to cutting it up fairly evenly to put on the nine trays (I think I used eight as I cut the top layer a bit thick), my two assistants laid them out on the tray for me, it's funny watching them stealing bits of rhubarb and then having to spit them out - they took ages to learn that it's quite tart! 

I then set it to dry, I had no idea how long it would take so set the timer for 16 hours on the fruit temperature. I think in the end it was dry at around 13 hours. I don't mind if these go really hard as they're to be rehydrated before eating, not to be used as snacks like some dried fruit. 

It's comical how small this stuff gets after it's done - rhubarb is a lot of water! 

My eldest and me tried some in our oats yesterday morning (added in the night before) they had the texture of a currant as they weren't fully hydrated but with a sharp flavour, a really good and healthy addition to our breakfast with very little cost involved.

Have you ever dehydrated rhubarb? 

What use did you find for it?

Excalibur Dehydrator

Well I've finally done it. I've upgraded our little dehydrating unit we bought from Poland when we were driving a camper van around Europe some 11 years ago. 

I've been on about buying one for over five years and followed countless eBay searches. My wife just told me to get one in the end and stop talking about it. 

So I got an all singing and dancing model - in Pink.

I've gone for the stainless model with a timer and bizarrely it was cheaper in pink than the black plastic model, so that's what I went for. In fact the colour has grown on me and I think it's kind of stylish! I still went for the plastic trays though as I'd read that people were struggling with the stainless ones with food sticking to them. 

So I expect to be dehydrating lots of food in the coming months, hopefully lots of berries to store to have on my overnight oats, amongst other things. 

What do you think? Was it a good investment?

What would you be dehydrating at the moment?

Food Drying

Last year I dried a few raspberries when we had a glut, every time I've used them in my baking they've tasted amazing so this year I've decided to dry a lot more. My little old food dryer is going flat out to try to dry these juicy berries. 

 A full punnet (about what I'm picking a day at the moment) dries down to about 3/4 of a kilner jar.

 While I was at it I also dried some bananas that had gone past their best (and a few apples on the top layer to fill up space), they make great snacks for the kids and I wouldn't have used them for much else (I didn't fancy banana cake today).

My food drier is very basic, just one setting and it's pretty noisy. I was wondering just how good are the more professional models and are they worth their big price tag?