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. 

Fermented Wild Garlic

With so much wild garlic ready for picking at the start of the month I wanted to properly take advantage of it this year. 

I looked online and in a few books to see what else could be done with this wild harvest. One idea that really got me curious was to ferment it. I've been wanted to try more fermented stuff and as I have a talk on preserving later in the year I thought that might make a useful bit of the talk! 

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?

Chilli Apple Chutney & Raspberry Jam

It's been a couple of very wet days here and to make matters worse the little one has been under the weather. Nothing serious but she's been a bit clingy and not wanting to go outside as much as normal. So while she's napped I've started to do a bit more preserving of this years harvest. 

The first thing I did was to make some jam, just 7 jars but it's a start. These was using some raspberries I'd picked earlier in the year and some of the left over cooking apples from canning the other day. Jam making is so simple and we eat much more of it than we used to! In fact we were down to just one jar left! See previous posts on raspberry jam here and here.

Then the next thing I made was some chilli and apple chutney. 

Although I froze a load of chillies I still had some on the plants that I didn't know what to do with and I fancied something spicy to make cheese sandwiches a bit more interesting over the winter. 

I need to let this mature for a month before I try it, so please don't copy the recipe yet but I'm going to write it here incase it's any good and then I'll be able to copy it at a later date.

600g chopped onions
1 kg chopped apples,
300ml of malt vinegar (I think cider vinegar would be better but I had none!)
12 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon of turmeric
2 teapoons of ground ginger
275g demerara sugar
Chillies - I used a few Sotch Bonnet, half a dozen cayennes, one Aji Crystal (really hot), and about eight cherry bombs.
Rasins - You can add these if you like but I hate them in chutney so never do!

I then cooked the onions until soft, added the apples and garlic and did the same before adding everything else and cooking until I could see the bottom of the pan when I pulled the spoon through.

Pour into sterilised jars and keep for a month before eating. I made five jars.

when I tried a bit the hotness was a growing sensation! Not too hot but it builds over time. Really looking forward to trying this when it's matured!

Anyone else made any chilli preserves lately?

Sweet Pickling Peppers

One of the goals I set myself this year was to try to grow some chilli peppers and preserve them in a way similar to my favourite band of pickled peppers, who will remain nameless. I could eat a jar of those peppers a week!

 So this year I went for broke and grew some chillies I had been told were quite similar, Cherry Bomb. They've grown well and each plant has loads of shiny red peppers on, they're not as hot as I would have liked, you can pop a whole one in your month and not feel it too much, but they certainly look the part.

Trawling through the Internet back in June I came across Dani and her amazing blog Eco Footprints - South Africa as she had a recipe for making what I was after.

 The recipe is really simple and can be found on her blog here. The pickling liquid is a mix of vinegar and sugar so it should preserve them for a long time!

Left to soak in salt water over night before the pickling!

Four jars full, they look a little too good - I can't see them lasting long!

I can't wait to try these out! they look just as good as the ones you buy in a shop. My only disapointment is how many peppers you need to fill a jar. To get enough for me to have them every day I'd need hundreds of plants. These four jars are ripe chillies off ten plants! 

Anyone else ever used a really sweet pickle?

Preserving Runner Bean - Salting

More experiments with preserving due to a too full freezer. This time it's the runner beans that are having a go.

Mum always says never to bother salting runner beans as they taste bloody horrible. Well never one to be scared away from an idea I thought I might as well give it a go as they were going to go to waste otherwise. 

It's fairly simple to do according to the books. Just cut your beans up and fill a jar with them. Every couple of inches of beans (50mm) add half an inch of salt (12mm) pressing them down as you go. 

They then produce they're own brine that they sit in and the level of beans in the jar seems to go down after a few hours as the moisture gets drawn out of them. When the level had dropped I then added more beans to top it up.

We will try these in a few months time. I've been told not to leave them to soak for too long when we're trying to get the slat off as it will make them tough. I'm sure it will take a few attempts to get it right - I'll keep you posted on how we get on with it!

Anyone else preserve veg by salting it?