Tis Pickling Season

Most of us love the flavour of Garners pickled onions, however around here for Shallots we have been paying around £3 a jar.  What's that you say PP buying pickled onions - I must admit only when we run out.  This is the time of year where I do tend to put a lot down, but bearing in mind that I did a load of pickled onions and shallots last year and they did not last too long (despite doing a couple of stone of each - I decided to do an early tranche at the weekend and I have seven jars (Sarson Tall Vinegar Jars) full.  I have still another couple of bags of picklers to come and a couple of shallots.  £3 a jar is a lot of money - I bought a net of pickling onions for £5.50 and then used  gallon of vinegar to go with- probably £3 a canister which works out a £8.50 works works out just over £1.35 or so (I am not being precise) for a very large jar full.  How much would they charge you in the shops to buy this probably nearer to £3.99  a jar.  Call me tightwad if you will but pickles are one of the easiest preserves to start with and take very little time to prepare.  However really and ideally  there is something that you need to do before you make your pickles and I will cover it in a post this evening when I get home, although don't panic if you don't manage to do this there are ways around it.  So if you want to learn to pickle catch up with me later on.  It is easy and not as complicated as you might think,

I also have quite a lot to do this evening.  I have to prepare my vegetables for picallili, (I didn't manage to get them done on Sunday which is probably a good thing as they only need leaving overnight before making up the preserve the following day).  This also will be tranche 1 on the picallili making as OH is also extremely fond of this and also goes through it pretty quickly; I have to  make some plum jam I managed to get some greengages at the weekend.  I was also gifted a large tub of rosehips yesterday evening so I have quite a tedious and time consuming job to do in cleaning the rosehips of their seeds so that I get a better preserve.  I have in mind to do some rosehip and apple jelly, rosehip syrup and also dry some rosehips during the course of the next few days,  I just need out to get some blackberries for some blackberry and apple jam.  So have quite a lot on the agenda again.

 I will catch up with you later on - promise

Have a good day

Pattypan

xx