Pattypan's Pantry Diary Update Week Ending Sunday 16 October 2022

Well, I seem to have lost track of where I was on the Pantry front and what I have been doing.  I have therefore decided to start it again from last Sunday going forward and also giving a general round up of what have actually made or added to the Pantry shelf, including ingredients added to the stock pantry, during the intervening period.  This post is photo heavy. A lot has happened since I last posted on Pantry progress!  

I take the view that when I am "gathering" items together whether that be wild fruits or boughten items, that I am "foraging", just in a slightly different style to what is normally expected.  I have always done things my way, but the end result is that I usually have a well-stocked pantry - well as far as the pennies permit in these difficult times. In all honesty, due to recent events, I am not as stocked up as much as I would like to be.  It is what it is though. Something is always better than nothing.  Part of my strategy is that I would rather make a lot of the things we actually use, which at least provides food security long-term.  It has been part of my way of life ever since I first became a housewife, and it has evolved over that time.  

Not only am I aiming to provide for my family, I also intend to make a few items which can be used for Christmas presents to give away to family and friends especially in the run up to Christmas, and I also want to make sure that we have a variety of things made and ready for Christmas for us to eat or to complement those things that we will be eating. 

Once these projects are out of the way with, along with everything else, it potentially frees up more time for those projects I do need to concentrate on. Doing a bit here and there will also help to ease my pocket and also make the most of the time that I have available to me.

Last Monday I went foraging and came home with crab apples, rosehips, sloes, nettles.

Three gallons of nettle wine has been made with the nettles.

Does not look appetising at the moment, but nettle wine is traditionally a lovely light sweet wine with a tang of ginger.  It does not remain this colour but does clear down.

The wine is starting to Fizz which I am pleased about.  Always an anxious time, but once it starts everything is usually okay.  The house I live in is not particularly hot and so getting them started is the main thing. I shall decant the Nettle wine into the Demijohns on Monday evening.

 

I intend to gather a few more tops of nettles for some other projects I have in mind i.e., some homemade pasta, to go into a green powder, some for tea and some nettle cordial and perhaps some beer. 

Updated:  

Will be looking tomorrow weather permitting.

One batch of the Rosehips I collected is being turned into a thick Raw Rosehip syrup to be used in lots of ways.  I have chosen to try this recipe due to the fact that because there is no heat involved, the syrup should not have lost any of its vitamin C content and the syrup is a lot thicker than normal ones.  I intend to make up another jar of this after I have sourced some more rosehips.

Crab apples are going to be turned into several preserves.  Starting with Crab Apple jelly and Spiced Crab Apple jelly.  Beautiful used as a sauce with roast pork and also lovely used as a glaze, in gravies, on crumpets and toast. Therefore, in my estimation a pretty universal preserve to put away on the Pantry shelf.  Particularly good with a warm roast pork (or cold) sarnie slathered on top of the meat between two slices of bread.  Scrummy.

There will also be Crab apple and Sloe jelly.  I think the colour will be lovely by the time this is finished.

This is the colour after soaking overnight.  I did not have many Sloes, so I am not sure about the flavour, but it has given a glorious colour to the jelly.  There is always plenty of flavour in Crab apples in any event.  So, it will be what it will be. Whatever happens at least I am making the most of that which comes my way.

Crab apple, Sloe and Sloe Gin jelly.  I have some Sloe Gin that needs using up and I am thinking that it will be a good way to incorporate this and thus not waste it by popping it into a jelly. I was given a wine Christmas cake by a grateful client many years ago.  She was of French extraction and told me that it was a family tradition to feed a rich fruit cake, not necessarily a Christmas cake with wine, as part of their Christmas traditions.  She also made them for friends and family as presents. I am considering making a fruit cake with some of the Gin in, probably soaking some of the fruit and feeding it with some of the Gin. However, I will have to keep Sloes in Gin until November as I have some ideas for using the Alcoholic Sloes up and I do not want to waste them either.  You can pop them into chocolate and make a wild plum chocolate for the Christmas table and indeed you can add them to Cider to make Slider. Can also use them as part and parcel of sweet treats and puddings. Have not tried the Slider yet, that is why it is on the list.

This is next on the list to be made.  As I have said, I have a queue on the jelly front!

Some of the Crab apples are also going to be used for Crab apple and Chilli jam.  They are having to wait their turn though as there are a spate of jellies in progress at the moment.  We have a bit of a queue, and I am running out of kitchen space!

I have also been assembling my vegetables together to make a batch of Souper mix (Pam Corbin's recipe from the River Cottage Preserves Book).  I usually make this every year without fail.

During the last week I have also gathered my vegetables of choice together for making Pam Corbin's Souper Mix.  I have chosen Fennel, Leek, Carrot, Garlic cloves, Parsley, Bay, Shallots, Swede, Peppers, celery and some Sun-Dried Tomatoes. I already have plenty of salt in the Pantry.  Hopefully this should be made in the early part of this week. It has been put off a couple of times because of other things going on.  I am therefore itching to get this done and out of the way with.  Now that the fridge is all sorted out, I can see where stuff is and so this will just be a matter of prepping the veggies and then adding to the Food Processor and blitzed to a paste, before bottling in sterilised bottles.  Will be a good one to get out of the way.

I have also gathered together the ingredients for making some Piccalilli for himself.  Hopefully that will be started this evening.  If not it will go over to tomorrow.  All the veggies are fridged in any event. This is the recipe that I am using:

Spiced Piccalilli

Also on the foraging front, I will be after more Rosehips, Haws, Crab apples and Sloes if I can find some. I will look tomorrow. I am after making some Hedgerow Jelly and some Haw Sin sauce.  I will be following Pam Corbin's Hedgerow jelly recipe and the River Cottage Haw Sin recipe.  I would also like to get hold of some more Rosehips for drying to use as a vitamin C powder and also for making wine.  Rosehips go a reasonably long way.

I have also made a jar of homemade Peanut Butter from shop-bought salted roasted peanuts, which is a short-term fridge preserve, and which I intend to use in breakfast oats and smoothies for breakfast amongst other things.  Very good in baking!

Previously, I have also made Lemon Sugar, Orange Sugar and Lime Sugar.

I have also previously dried apple slices, lemon slices

And must not forget the Fermented Lemon slices in Honey

The wines are still fermenting.  I have Orange, Blackberry, Elderflower and Nettle on the go.  Nettle is still in its fermentation bin but tomorrow evening is designated as the evening to pop into their respective Demijohns.

I also have Beetroot to cook and pickle. I shall pressure cook these in the Foodi.  It will save some pennies. It will then go into a spiced vinegar. A small start but a welcome one. Beetroot is an integral part of the preserves I put up for use over Christmas.  When I grow my own Beetroot, I prepare this in a couple of ways.  Small beetroots go into baby beetroots, larger ones get chunked, there are the slices as well.  Gives you options for presenting and using the preserves slightly differently in the way that they are prepared.  If you also grow the mixed colour ones and the yellow ones, you can also add in a little variation there.

I have never tried the Roasted Beetroot chutney so may get some more beetroot soon to make a batch of this. The Beetroot were £1.50 a kilo.

I have more Pickled Eggs, Pickled Red Cabbage, Chillies and Chutneys to make in the run up to Christmas.  Pickled Red Cabbage layered over mixed salad leaves at Christmas looks rather fetching and colourful.

I also bought 3 kilos of the Howgate Wonder apples that put in an appearance at the Veg shop yesterday. These are fresh off the tree and although expensive £3 a kilo a considered expense which will make a useful preserve for the Pantry shelf. I have mentioned these apples before.  I believe that they are known as the Diabetic apple due to the fact that you do not need to use much sugar to preserve them as they are naturally sweet.  They are whoppers in size and one apple can weigh quite a bit.  Some pure apple sauce for these lovely apples for use in puddings, I think.  You can never have too many apples or too much apple sauce.

I was going to get a sack of potatoes as we are nearly out.  However, I am not paying £12 a sack at the moment.  Will wait to see if the price goes down a bit which it could.  I know where they get the potatoes from, so if needs might go and see the farmer.  It is just easier to do it this way for now.  The variety I did not know but it is not a particularly good variety for chips, so that is a no-no, not that we have massive amounts of chips, but I do not buy in chips as we don't like them.

Friday evening, I dried two packets of Spinach leaves in the Dehydrator. I had hoped to buy Kale too, they did not have Kale at the shop yesterday.  I have since been back and they had it today.  I have therefore bought two more bags of Spinach leaves and two bags of Kale leaves.  Either of them are good if left whole leaved used in Lasagna as is and also powdered down.  

Here are the two bags of leaves, which hardly fill my scale pan.

As at the moment I am concentrating on green powders for adding to gravies, stocks, stews, soups, etc, the first batch of leaves have been whizzed in the Food Processor and decanted into a jar.  Hard to believe that this little amount equates to two bags of Spinach.

I will be popping a lot more of this up in due course.  Anywhere I can add anything in I will do.  I have another two bags of dried Spinach to add to the jar today and I still do not think that the jar will be full!

This is the jar with all four packets of Spinach in!

I shall be growing Spinach next year and harvesting and drying as I go along to ensure that I have a good supply of "greens" for the Pantry shelf.  I think I will also be growing Kale.  It is a vegetable that my family have used for years.  There used to be quite a snobbery about it once upon a time as it was considered only fit for feeding to animals. However, to me a green vegetable that is full of goodness is worth its weight in gold. I feel that way about Sprouting White Broccoli or Srprouting Purple Broccoli.  They are a real seasonal delight. A good way of getting vitamins and goodness into children by adding green powders to your cooking.

The Kale is now dry.  I have left this in leaflets as I use it when assembling homemade Lasagna as a vegetable layer.  I just add it in dry and it adds a lot of flavour to the dish.  I will dry more in due course, and powder that, but for this batch as it was a nice batch of Kale have chosen to keep it "whole".  I also use in soups, stocks, casseroles and stews.

When going through the list of the items that I have managed to make and put up over the last few weeks, there have been quite a few.  Some of them are not quite finished yet, and I have edited them out of this post so will be added to next week's list which should bring things more up to date.  I also have some other projects on the decorating side that I want to gather bits and bobs for and have a play with.  If it works out, I will be sharing what I have done in a general post on the blog.  Sometimes it is not about the eating it is about making things look visually pleasing as well.  After all we eat with our eyes first.

So quite a lot going on, sometimes it is two steps forward one step back or I end up having to wait on something else to be done before I can finish something else up.  However, by next Sunday evening I should be more up to date in more ways than one.

What are you squirrelling away in your Pantry and food storage, or have you finished for the year.  I find for myself that I am preserving different things all year long or making mixes up or plotting this and that.  I was always doing stuff for the freezers as well but am without those and do not know when will be able to replace them as nowhere to store.  With the freezers if I ran out of time I just use to freeze stuff and then when I was time rich would set about processing.  I do not rely on just growing my own although this year we did not grow anything due to us knowing we would be away for sometime.  Next year is going to be a little different though.  I use the bargains wherever I find them.

Right am off to get some tea.  We have Roast Pork with all the trimmings for tea this evening.  There appears to be a nice amount of crackling, and I have also managed to get three jars of Pork dripping (purely for the roasties) without any bits in, into the fridge as well.  I usually cook a Roast piece of Pork at the beginning of December then I have Pork dripping ready for the Christmas dinner.

We have roast potatoes, roast sweet potato, roast parsnip, roasted chipolatas, mashed potato, carrots, asparagus, peas, broccoli and cauliflower with lashings of gravy.

The bonus was Pork dripping for roasties in the next few weeks.  It will be stored in the fridge until needed.

And tea, it was absolutely delicious.  All served up with my homemade apple sauce as well.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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