Roast pork and crab apple jelly

With the weather being atrocious this weekend we needed a roast dinner. We decided to have pork which we got from Puddledub at the Farmers Market. We had it with roast potatoes, mashed swede, carrots, cabbage and Yorkshire puddings. I have to say that the Yorkshire puddings rose really well. This is thanks to Andrew's mum giving me a great and easy to remember 2 cups of eggs, 2 cups of flour and 2 cups of milk. With this meal we had a lovely perry from Oliver's

With the Pork we had crab apple jelly as an apple sauce substitute. How we came about the crab apples is due to Andrew. He had gone to university to submit his thesis and noticed that the trees around the university were laden with crab apples. When he came back and he put his bag down it made a suspicious rustling. He had picked about 5 kilos of crab apples. We used the recipe found in the River Cottage Preserves Book. It was so easy to make and gave a jelly with a fantastic colour.


Crab apple jelly

• 2 kg Crab apples
• 2 Cinnamon sticks
• 3 Cloves
• Granulated sugar

Chop apples and simmer them and spices with 1.2 litres of water until soft

Strain in jelly bag overnight

Measure the juice and heat. When the juice is about to come to the boil, add sugar (450 g for every 600 ml of juice).

Boil rapidly for 10 mins until setting point is reached.

Pot in warm sterilised jars and seal.

So what did we do with all that fruit? Part 3 - raspberry vinegar

Once I had made the raspberry jam and vodka, I had a few hundred grams leftover. I remember seeing in my River Cottage Preserves Book a recipe for raspberry vinegar. I have seen these in delis but are they are quite expensive. So we gave it a go. For the first part soak the raspberries (slightly crushed) in cider vinegar for 4-5 days. For every 1 kg of raspberries you use 600 ml of vinegar.

I then deviated from this recipe, as I had been told by Andrew's when they made their raspberry vinegar it was very sweet. I then followed Maguerite Patten's recipe which uses less sugar. To 600 ml of juice you add 225 g of sugar. This is dissolved by heating and then tipped into a sterilised bottle.

So far we have only used it to dress green salads as part of our meals. It does make a great alternative to the usual balsamic or wine vinegars. But I am currently searching for some specific recipes.

So what did we do with all that fruit? Part 1 - Jams and Jelly

As I said in an earlier post we had been to a PYO and returned with loads of fruit. With my birthday money I bought a jam pan and was waiting for the soft fruit season to put it to good use. I have learnt that jams are quite easy to make, contrary to what some manufacturers would have you believe. We have been finding it great fun too. I think its the geeky scientists in us that like to watch it set. We understand the science, yet it still seems like magic. How sad?!

We staggered the jam making over two days. We started with the raspberry jam as they were likely to go mouldy first.

We then entered new territory, jelly making. Redcurrant jelly is great to stir into gravy. The first thing to do is extract the juice which means simmering the redcurrants in water. You then strain the juice overnight using a jelly bag. You can buy jelly bag stands but we used Andrew's mum chair technique with the help of some climbing gear.

After the juice is strained, you just have to boil it with sugar until it reaches the setting point. We made another batch of strawberry jam. The last jam we made was blackcurrant. There were loads of blackcurrants on the bushes at the PYO and we were the only ones picking them!

This jam turned out to be the best value jam to make. It produced 6.5 lb. The ingredients for 1lb cost just 73p.

In total we made:

• 7 jars of blackcurrant jam (6.5lb)
• 4 jars of strawberry jam (4lb)
• 6 jars of raspberry jam (6lb)
• 1lb of redcurrant jelly

We used recipes from the River Cottage Handbook and Women's Institute.

A mountain of chutney

An unspeakable thing happened a few weeks ago, we ran out of chutney. I made one and a half batches of our favourite spicy apple and walnut chutney. I thought that would be more than enough to see use through. Although I did give some way. Ever since we have had to buy jars from the deli. I recently made some rhubarb chutney but you have to wait 6-8 weeks for them to mature. When we were at the farmers market last week I noticed that the tomato stand had some green tomatoes for chutney making. Unfortunately I hadn't thought about before I left for the market so I didn't know how much I needed. So I went for 2 kilos! When got back I consulted with my WI preserve book and found out that I only needed 1.3 kilo for 6 lbs of chutney, oops!


The recipe was easy to follow, you salt the tomatoes, apples and onions and leave overnight. Unfortunately by the time we got round to making it on Thursday some of the tomatoes had started to redden!

My preserving pan is definitely being well used at the moment. As you can see from the photo this made A LOT of chutney. I think I might be able to give a few jars away too.

This chutney also needs to mature for 6-8 weeks. I really need to calculate the cost of making the chutney. I was shocked when I bought a jar of plum chutney for £3.50. I have no doubt that if we worked out how much it cost to make the equivalent amount of the green tomato chutney it would be much cheaper.

The box arrived on Wednesday. This week we got:

• Courgettes
• Tomatoes
• Lettuce
• Cabbage
• Cauliflower
• Broccoli
• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Onions
  

A new book and jam making

Andrew and I both have book collections, Andrew's is full of climbing guides and mine is full cookery books. As you can see from the photo my cookery books fill more than 2 shelves. Whereas Andrew's books only take up one. My collection has had a recent addition: River Cottage Handbook no. 2 - Preserves. Its a really great book and goes beyond jams and chutneys, though of course it does cover these too. When we had our first glances through the book there were a lot of 'oh I want to make that' or 'that looks great'.



Examples of recipes that are on the hitlist are:

• Cider apple butter
• Spiced pickled pears
• St Clement's squash
  
• Souper mix ( which is a puree of veg to be used in the place of stock cubes)
• Blackberry and apple leather

The recipes are easy to follow and there are a lot of suggestions for variations. Like all the River Cottage books its easy to read and very inspiring. I would definitely recommend this book.

After we got this book we really want to try it and decided to make a classic, strawberry jam. We went to Craigie's Farm for PYO. This also meant I got to use my jam pan which has not really been used. The recipe takes some of the strawberries and mashes them with some of the sugar, then you add the rest of the strawberries.

We can't wait to move to our new flat as the jam making in our small kitchen was really hot.

We managed to fill five jars with our first jam of the season. I have only ever made jam once before at school, which was quite a while ago. So this is a new first for our household.

Now we have tested one of the recipes from the book, we want to try some more. I have two other preserve books and although they won't be made redundant by the new arrival. I will definitely consult the River Cottage book first, before the others. I am sure it won't be long before we are driving back to Craigie's to pick some more fruit destined for jars.

Ketchup

When I went to the Farmer's Market, the weekend before last, I bought 2 kilos of soup tomatoes to make tomato ketchup with. They had been sat in our kitchen for a week before I had to chance to make the ketchup.

I decided to use Jamie Oliver's recipe from Jamie at Home. The first stage is to cook the aromatics in olive oil, these included fennel, red onions, coriander seeds, 1 red chilli, 4 cloves and ginger.


I then added the 2 kilos of tomatoes, which I had chopped, to the pan.


I also added some water. This was brought to the boil and left to simmer until it had reduced by half.

I then pureed this with my stick blender and passed it through a sieve twice. Red wine vinegar and sugar was added and it was then reduced it until it looked like ketchup. This was then poured into sterilised jars.

We will let it mellow for a while and then we will be eating our own ketchup. Andrew wants to try and make Hugh's ketchup. So he might be making some rival ketchup. Watch this space . . .

By the skin of my teeth . . .

I have been meaning to do my submission of Pixie's Putting Up event for ages but the thesis keeps getting in the way! So anyway here it is, onion and chilli marmalade. A while ago I made Jamie's pepper and chilli chutney from Jamie at Home which was wonderful. So I decided to make an onion marmalade with a bit a kick.

(Based on a Rachel Allen recipe)

Ingredients:

• 25 g butter
• 675 g onions
• 150 g caster sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 100 ml balsamic vinegar
• 250 ml red wine
• 6 red chillis

Melt the butter in a saucepan, add onions, sugar, salt and pepper. Stir, then cover and cook for 30 mins over a gentle heat stirring from time to time to prevent it sticking.


Char the chillies ( I do this on my gas hob). Then put them in a bowl and cover them with clingfilm. Scrap off most of the charred skin. Remove the seeds and slice the chillies.



Remove lid, add vinegar, wine and chillies and cook uncovered for 30 mins. Stirring every now and then. Pour into sterilised jars and cover while hot.



I used the marmalade for a fancy cheese on toast for lunch after a frustrating morning of thesis writing.


I just spread the onion marmalade on the toast and then covered with cheese and grilled. Yum yum.


I would say that there was probably just a tad too much chilli for me. Next time I will put just four in. My mum would love it. Maybe she might get the other jar. I am sure that she will thank Pixie for that. For my birthday, in March, I got a lovely chutney pan and I look forward to using it for the next event.

Pickling vinegar

At Christmas Andrew's mum gave us a huge jar of pickle onions to take back with us. This jar has lasted us well and is still going, but I know that I should get a head start on making some more. I copied the recipe down from Andrew's Mum's book. So tonight I start the first step in making my first batch of pickle onions.

First of all here is the recipe:

• 24 black peppercorns
• 24 cloves
• 2 tbsp mustard seeds
• 2 tbsp allspice (I used berries not ground)
• 2 2tbsp dried chillies (I used flaked)

You put all the spices in a glass bowl and add two pints of vinegar. You then put the bowl over a saucepan which has some water in. Cover the bowl with a plate. Then bring the water to boil, take off the heat and let it steep for 2 hours.


Then strain out the spices and bottle the vinegar. You can add the spices to cold vinegar and steep for 6 weeks but our supply is running out!!!

I now need to go and buy some onions/shallots before the next stage, watch this space . . .

Keep on swimming . . .

Yet again, I sat in front of my laptop trying to get on with my thesis. At the moment I feel like Dory from Finding Nemo. Keep on swimming, keep on swimming. I have to finish this thesis in 6 months otherwise I don't get, sounds simple!

Anyway, the veg box arrived. This week we had:

• Celeriac
• Onions
• Carrots
• Potatoes
• Parsnips
• Cauliflower (don't tell Andrew!)
• Spring cabbage
• Leeks

Tonight we had a risotto, I haven't had one for ages. So I raided the freezer and found some chicken. So we had a risotto with leek, chicken, sweetcorn and cabbage.

I also pickled some beetroots which was left over from the box. I got the recipe from yet another blog, Fresh as a daisy. I made 3 jars, I will try and leave them to mature for about a week. Not sure that I can wait that long but I will try.