Kitchen Capers Wednesday 3 January 2024

Preserving at the moment seems to be limited to stock making.  There is no point in having a resource such as meat carcasses and bones and not make stock out of them. Stock is expensive to buy ready made not that it is not good but not all of us have the pennies to buy it.  I am intent on making sure that I have small supplies of most things with a view to extending those supplies as I go along.  Today I have also processed the first and second batches of Beef stock to make it shelf-stable for my Pantry shelf and also the Gammon/Ham stock.  I had meant to process it last night, however, I was a little tired and so decided to process all the stock that is ready today instead.  

The Turkey Stock will be dealt with on Thursday i.e. will start and hopefully process and finish this off on Friday as I need the stock to chill in the fridge so that any fat will raise to the surface.  I can then skim and further strain this. So a lot of work but it will be useful to just grab a jar of this or that off the Pantry shelf when I need it.

I also do the same regularly with Chicken carcasses too.  A lot of effort but a lot of goodness within it too.

Also a six jars of Chick Peas so that I have an easy ready main ingredient available for homemade Hummus to hand when I need it or indeed to add to a stew or soup.

I have also checked on the ACV today to see how that is doing and it seems to be doing its stuff as it should.  Never made this before so we shall see how we get on.

Tea this evening is using up a bit more of the lovely Rib of Beef.  There was quite a bit left over.  I have therefore used some of it to turn into a homemade stir fry using noodles this time instead of rice.

We will be having a duplicate of tonight's tea tomorrow and then on Friday the Beef again, but in another alternative way as well and I will be trying something new for this meal, but also for a long term item for the Pantry shelf. Basically I am just using everything that I have inhouse at the moment without having to go to the shop.  I have a large tray of beautiful eggs to use, some of which I intend to use for making a relevant part of the Pantry item I want to have a go at.

Not doing a Pantry challenge for January and February as in the Three Rivers Farmstead Challenge as my budget or my Pantry supplies do not run to this at the present moment in time.  If I am buying it is because we need something rather than doing a proper shop.  I am having to be extremely creative with what we are eating but it seems to be working and we seem to be getting by.

I do need to make a couple of bread loaves in the next few days primarily for turning into breadcrumbs and also croutons.  I dry them plain and then you have the choice of how you use them.  For the croutons if you want herbs on them, toast the croutons in a pan with a little oil and mixed herbs in and then add as a topping to your soup.  So a few other Pantry essentials being dealt with as well as just preserves.

So just a few things to do on the preserving front tomorrow.  I do have other stuff to do before dealing with the next tranche.

Pretty pleased with how things are going.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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