Every Bit Counts Challenge Day Five 5 August 2022 - Another Gathering Day

Today has been spent trying to retrieve my kitchen after a week of #Everybitcountschallenge; it has been a busy week!  My  kitchen was starting to look like a disaster zone.  I have therefore had to sacrifice my passion i.e. preserving for cleaning.  I think I am  missing a trick here somewhere along the line but needs must!

I am getting things back where they belong and restoring order to everything and household jobs are running apace i.e. the laundry.

I have also sorted out my remaining fruit so that I know what I have to play with and so that I can decide on what I am going to make next.

I have a load of apples yet to use up, a couple of baskets of oranges, a load of lemons left and some peaches which are going to be turned into something tomorrow or at least the start of something that will take a while to mature.  I will check out the reduced barrow outside the Veg shop again during the week as would like more oranges, lemons and apples amongst any other goodies they might have.

I have also bought a couple of bottles of cyder vinegar and there are plans to make a preserve that I have not made before.  I just have one more ingredient to get before I can start this particular one.  I have found a bag of Preserving sugar which I can use in this little project as well.  More will be revealed in due course.

I also have another similar project.  I have garlic and onions to hand, but will need either some white wine vinegar or cyder vinegar.

We walked the dog this afternoon; weather lovely and warm so I decided to take my colander out with me to see if there were anymore Blackberries (Black Gold).  I have managed to pick another 4 1/2lb of them.  I am not sure what am going to do.  If I can find enough standard sized canning jars, I will bottle just Blackberries, but we will see what happens.

I still have more foraging to accomplish, but that will take place later in the week.  Different items that I am on the look out far but that means me going with my shopping trolley on the look out for bits and bobs.  Some of that includes twigs, cones, acorn shells, leaves for use in C preparations.

I have been attacked by the briars on the Blackberry bushes and so have taken the precaution of washing all my cuts and grazes (I get stuck in and get into the bushes as far as I can as the best berries are always up high and deeper in the bush).  I have used Dettol on the grazes and cuts, as the little thorns can trigger a nasty reaction.  I have enough issues as it is, so always do this just to "hedge my bets" as it were.  It seems to work for me.

I also bought some more eggs, as I want to pickle some, and I also have some more Lemon curd to make.

I have also snaffled two reduced punnets of mushrooms which are going into the dehydrator and will either be powdered once done or left whole to add to soups and stews during the winter months.  I need to do something on the dehydrating front as I am behind however, I need to re-site my main Excalibur dehydrator to make it easier to use.  However have to move something else first before I can do this. I really need to get a wriggle on with this as there are a lot of things I need to re-stock on.  Next time I go to the caravan may well take my small dehydrator with me so that I can continue to dry material for use in my winter kitchen.  I am thinking hedgerow items predominantly.

So today has been a "gathering day" more than anything else as I have been accumulating items to make sure that some different kind of preserves can be found on my Pantry shelf this winter.

I did get my Lemon cleaning vinegar on the go.  However, I notice that I have despite having quite a stock of white vinegar, that stock is now depleted so I am going to have to replenish that. I use it a lot in washing as well as in preserving.  There are three bottles in this container but have left a gap to add in more peels which is likely to happen in the next few days.  Not wasting anything if I can help it.

One job I do have tomorrow is to recover some of my canning jars from the shed and get them cleaned and back into shape for future canning.  Not a job I relish, but if I want to get more stuff canned a necessary evil.

Sorry it has been a quieter day here on the challenge, but that is how the cooking crumbles.  It is about preparing a bit, and if you do not have the space to accomplish that, you are still managing to put up items that otherwise perhaps you wouldn't.

Right am off to potter.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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