Easy marrow and ginger jam recipe

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 31 August 2010 in cooking, preserving, recipes | 10 comments

After writing up the wild plum jam recipe the last week, I realised that I hadn’t written about the super easy marrow and ginger jam I made a few weeks ago.

We’ve had a lot of marrows this year – more by accident than design — too many courgette plants to keep up with. I used the early ones to make my marrow cake and misc cheesy marrow bake, and I gave some of them away – but we’ve still got maybe half a dozen to use up – so I’m jamming and chutneying like there is no tomorrow.

This jam recipe is very sweet but very easy. If you’re not a fan of sweet stuff, you might prefer to use less sugar and certainly not add the crystallised ginger.

The fun and the unfun

Posted by louisa on Friday 27 August 2010 in admin | 0 comments

I had a couple of days off this week – to do some fun stuff and some less than fun stuff.

First off, one with a picture illustration (even if it is just a quick phone camera snap), I added a quick-and-easy new perch to the chicken run and Blue took to it immediately.

I had my second day of smoking on Wednesday! More details soon but in the smoker this time was more cheese but more excitingly, eggs and chillis!

While that was brewing away, we carried about 1.5tonnes of wood chips down to replenish the chicken run. We carried it a dustbin full at a time, down 3.5 flights of steps – an exhausting 90mins! It was already breaking down so surprisingly warm and fragrant – the chickens were most perturbed by all the activity but seem to like it now (the pic above is before adding the woodchip, the ground is now covered to about the second rung of the ramp). That was one of the unfun things; the other unfun thing was spending all Thursday decorating our old house in our ongoing attempts to sell it. Unfun because I’d rather spend my decorating energy on our new house and I know that when someone does buy it, they’ll probably immediately paint over all our handiwork anyway. I did find an old signature under the wallpaper though – I think it says “P Joyce 1st November 1966” – pretty cool!

We finally went blackberrying on Tuesday evening – got 2.7kg before having to return home for dinner. I definitely need to make a foraging bag – even if it’s just the genius idea of a modified milk bottle on a belt. Two handed foraging would be far faster.

Said blackberries were supposed to become a jam on Tuesday evening but something came up and I can’t remember what. Then they were supposed to become a jam on Wednesday evening but I was too tired after the woodchipathon, and a friend came around for dinner anyway. So the blackberries are now in the freezer. I’ll have a jam/chutney day next week.

The next batch of blackberries we collect, probably this weekend, will be for a wine. John’s plum wine is bubbling away nicely.

Finally, not particularly a frugal thing but we had some of our double glazed windows replaced earlier today. Most of the units in the kitchen, study and bathroom had misted up over the years and generally made the place look scruffier than it was. At first I wasn’t bothered about having them replaced – since they still functioned as double-glazing for insulation if not actually as windows – but it’s only now we’ve had them replaced that we’ve realised quite how obscured they’d become and how much light they were blocking — they’re freakishly clear now! The guys that did it were great – and no nonsense. At the quote stage, I gave them the opportunity to upsell and they refused to take the bait, dismissing the more expensive glass as a gimmick. They were also nearly 50% cheaper than the first company’s initial quote. Anyway, I’m mentioning this because 1) just in case people don’t know it’s CONSIDERABLY cheaper and less wasteful to get just the glass units replaced rather than than the full (uPVC) frames etc and 2) I asked to keep all the smaller old units. They’re mostly misted up but will still be good for one project or another!

Wild plum/cherry plum jam recipe

Posted by louisa on Monday 23 August 2010 in cooking, growing, preserving, recipes, wild food | 9 comments

So last week, we went fishing for fruit on the mystery fruit tree outside our kitchen window. We collected 5.5kg of the plum-ish fruit, probably sacrificed as much the floor gods, and there is still a fair bit up there (albeit not terribly accessible). We’re not sure if they’re wild plum or cherry plum as everyone seems to have different opinions on what constitutes one or the other. Whatever they’re called, they’re very tart but also very sweet.

John wanted to try making plum wine (more on that another time) so I only commandeered 2kg of the harvest for our first batch of plum jam. (I’ll do another smaller jamming once he’s decided how much wine he is making tonight.)

The recipe calls for preserving sugar but granulated sugar would work just as well – preserving sugar is more expensive but the bigger crystals result in a clearer jelly. You don’t need jam sugar (sugar with added pectin) as there should already be enough pectin in the fruit.

UPDATE: Just a quick note to say that in 2011, I added a few drops of vanilla essence to the jam and it added a lovely round flavour. I can’t remember exactly how much or when (I think it was after the sugar so it wouldn’t be cooking too long, but wanted to mention it anyway, because it was delicious :)

Fixing runny/solid jam and reusing marrow & squash leaves

Posted by louisa on Friday 20 August 2010 in green | 0 comments

Just a quick heads up that over on Recycle This, we’ve had a few relevant posts this week.

Yesterday, I asked how to fix jam that was too runny or too solid – and lots of other jam related reuse/recycle questions.

And today I’m asking about reuses for marrow & squash leaves, other than just heave-hoing them into the compost. They’re so giant and tough that they seem like they might have other uses… we’ll see what people suggest.

If you’ve got any answers to either question, head over to Recycle This and tell us all about it :)

A few days off

Posted by louisa on Monday 16 August 2010 in cooking, frugal, growing, wild food | 1 comment

I’ve just had a few days offline to clear my head a bit – I spent a lot of time reading, resting & DSing so it wasn’t as productive as four days off work usually is, but there are a few things to report:

Massive egg update
The supersized chicken egg we got on Monday has been repeated on a few days this week – not a scientific test but definitely more likely to happen after they’ve had a good portion of green treats the day before. We’ve had a couple of them and they’ve been double yolkers – which is a worry as it hints that there is something wrong with the fine lady’s reproductive system (even though they’re still young, I think they’re a bit too old for it to be a “really young and still learning” quirk). Will keep an eye on the situation.

Foraging & fruiting
Took Lily-dog for a long walk around Otley Chevin on Saturday – found the most wild mushrooms I’ve seen in one place but unfortunately didn’t have our identification books with us, doh! Took lots of pictures for post-hoc identification – means we can’t forage them but the identification part is the more important bit at this stage in our learning really.

We also found the dregs of some wild raspberries – so ripe it was hard to pick them because they’d fall off as soon as we went nearly them.

Speaking of which, the bramble bushes in the woods next to our house are just about ready to give up their first glut – John had some as a pre-breakfast snack while dogwalking this morning and declared them delicious. Have to go picking soon.