Friday 3 September 2010

Two weeks past...allotment, foraging, cooking....was it worth the wait?!?!?!

Well I promised you a decent post and so I hope this will suffice.

I have to admit it is going to be mostly a picture post as I did have my camera handy quite a bit so I will show you as well as tell you what has been keeping me so busy these last couple of weeks!!

First off my Mum has a lovely mature Victoria Plum tree in her garden and i had some last year to make some jam.

This year I decided to make some plum Jelly as I much prefer this to jam and it also meant I didn't have to spend hours stoning the plums!!

I also made a whole host of crumbles in various varieties...of course for this you have to stone them...that's where I enlisted a little help!!


stoning plumsThe plums being stoned for the crumbles, we made plum, plum and cinnamon, apple and blackberry, blackberry, plum and blackberry. In all we made about 20 crumbles some went straight into the freezer!

plum jelly
In total I made6 jars of Plum jelly and it smelt delicious cooking...really must remember to clean the labels off the jars properly before I decide to sterilize them!

I also took the Kids and my Mum Blackberry picking, they are very late this year but extremely juicy and we got plenty to make crumbles and jellies as again this is my preferred option.

making bramble jelly
The blackberries bubbling away nicely in preparation for draining, then the jelly making began!!.Problem was it didn't set as you will all know from my previous post. Well I have since emptied everything back into the pan, re-sterilized the jars and re-boiled....I started with 7 pots and now have 5 cooling on the kitchen window sill...hope it does the trick...If not I think I will go with 'sharkbytes' idea of wonderful syrup and pretend that was my intention anyway!!

tomato soup
I also finally got some tomato soup made, I made up a plain one and a hot garlic one. They turned out great and very tangy, I think I could have actually added some more vegetable stock but as i took ideas from people on there and then threw in some of my own it was very much experimentation so I was quite pleased with my first batch. The bag it is stored in is great, you can pour the hot soup straight into them then when it has cooled seal and freeze them...when you want your soup you can do ti in the microwave in the bag and then use the bag again!!
I filled three bags with soup!

sweetcorn on the cob
And this is my sweetcorn...the first I have ever grown and picked..it tasted wonderful...so juicy and sweet and it went down a treat with the kids...i will definitely grow more next year!

I really thought I had taken more photo's than that but I guess not, I have also been busy down the allotment getting plenty of weeding done, taking out failed crops (all of which were brassicas!) and digging over the land and manuring it ready for the winter. I always like to do a rough dig where I am not going to plant for the winter as this lets the frosts get in and kill any nasty bugs in the land.

I have started digging my Charlotte potatoes and they have a lovely flavour and even though they are quite large they scrape well. I haven't tried my main crop spuds yet.

We had a barbecue today so I picked some more corn and wrapped it in foil with a know of butter and pout it on the barbecue...it was really nice cooked this way and the couple that didn't get eaten I have frozen for another day.

My beetroot is beginning to look like turnips but still tastes wonderful and isn't at all tough!

Tomorrow morning I am off to the market to see if I can get some plug plants for winter...I know I'm a little late doing this but with the sudden warm spell I figure I have time to get these in as it is said to hold out for a few more weeks yet.

Well that's things about up to date for now. Just want to thank you all for your help with the bramble jelly dilemma, I will try and get some pics of the plot tomorrow so you can really see how things are coming on. Hope the weather is being as kind to you as it is to me!!

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6 comments:

  1. You sure have been busy, but how nice it will be to be enjoying all that stuff during the long winter months.
    We just recently started cooking corn the same way and I think it just comes out tasting so much better.

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  2. Not too late to plant plug plants - especially if the weather stays OK to get them growing a bit. Ours aren't in the ground yet but will be next week.
    What about runny blackberry jelly on yoghurt or rice pudding? Although maybe it has set by now.

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  3. You've been busy squirreling away, Tany.

    I better start collecting jars as the plums here have started ripening.

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  4. You have been busy. I'm envious of your corn, I don't have any this year but will make sure that I do better next year.

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  5. Whats this plum jelly like then Tanya, and what do you have it with? :)

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  6. Well personally I love the plum Jelly Craig....but I have to say that being the cook...lol. I like to have it in milk puddings or on toast....sometimes the kids put it in meat sandwiches too!!

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keep it clean...keep it relevant...I look forward to reading your comments!!