Whatchadoin?

[MissyMoo]

Spent sunday arvo blanching cauil's n beans, oven drying tomatoes, pickling onions, preserving lemons, drying herbs and wondering if I'd have enough jars left over for more chutney and cucumber relish!

What is everyone else making/bottling/preserving or generally having to deal with?

[JennieAtkinson]

Just making Earthbabe's Green Tomato Chutney (came on website to check the salt amount!) and had to make loads of broccoli (well calabrese) soup as it is going to seed already.

Frozen loads of beans, but some of my french beans have gone too far and I was wondering about storing the beans. Anyone done that? Unfortunately I've picked the beans but haven't shelled them yet.

[OverWyreGrower]

Made a huge batch of chicken & leek lasagne for the freezer yesterday...
Have made it in individual size portions and have a freezer drawer full!

Eagerly awaiting a Lakeland Limited delivery with (finally!) a jam pan thing in, so I won't have to scrape jam off the cooker top anymore!

Planning some red onion chutney/jam this week and also apple and blackberry jam over the weekend

Have also measuerd out field so we can order in green manure and grass seed for over-winter and spring

Busy... busy... busy

[pigletwillie]

We are pickling peppers and shallots, bottling chilli oil and basil oil, making the last raft of basil into pesto for the freezer and making soups and quiches for the freezer along with batches of mint mash, and herby mash from all of those tatties which wont store well (fork damage etc) but will freeze when mashed with herbs, butter, milk and cream.

[Birdie Wife]

Bottled my rhubarb schnaps! Mmmm...

[dexterdoglancashire]

Making lots of Earthbabe's Special Green Tomato Chutney! Dexterdog

[ChrisB]

Don't have an allotment yet so no produce of my own. Have scrumped some apples which have made their way into the freezer in one form or another.

Picked blackeberries to go with the apples above

Picked elderberries and made elderberry port and chutney

Bought beetroot at a car boot sale - bargain 50p for a large bundle - bought two and have bottled it

Trying to get my dad to give me the rhubarb off his allotment as he's got loads - I feel rhubarb schnappes coming on with that

Does that count

[dexterdoglancashire]

If you like whiskey Chris - try blackberry whiskey - there is a thread I started a while ago! Mine has been stewing, sorry fermenting, for a few weeks now - looking good! Can't wait till Christmas! Dexterdog

[ChrisB]

If you like whiskey Chris - try blackberry whiskey - there is a thread I started a while ago! Mine has been stewing, sorry fermenting, for a few weeks now - looking good! Can't wait till Christmas! Dexterdog

Cheers for that, I'll have a look at it hic!!

[sewer rat]

Spent Saturday with my 5 yr old daughter picking brambles (we made bramble jelly), haws (we then made haw jelly) rowan berries again (then we made some more rowan jelly) and hips - we're gonna make some rosehip syrup with that - only trouble is, with my other jam / jelly / pickling exploits, I've run out of jars and bottles !

[JennieAtkinson]

Harvested all the potatoes today and like Pigletwillie have had to make tons of casserole bases, potato soup and mash from the damaged ones. I always manage to spear more than 50%!

[MissyMoo]

Hmmm perhaps starting this thread wasn't such a good idea after all. Now I wish I had more jars and another 5 hours in the day so I could do some more!!

That Chicken & leek lasagne sounds delicious OverWyreGrower. Any chance of getting the recipe?

I know we're headed into winter but this just feels like such an exciting & productive part of the year. Well.....exciting if you are obsessed with veg I guess. I'm probably not expressing it very well but all I know is that I finished off my pickled onions last night (put them into jars) and it was the most exciting thing that I did all day!

It's a sad veg obsessed life I lead!

[JennieAtkinson]

Had another very productive day today. Lots more potato soup, the green tomato chutney, and .... dare I say it r****t burgers. I even got carried away and made a Victoria sponge, not done that for years.

The freezer is now packed full, but like you MM it feels so productive and yet its Autumn outside. Keep looking around to see what else I can make chutney from!

MM - what onions did you grow for pickled onions?

[MissyMoo]

Sadly my onions (mirmba or something by name) did not do that well. I'm sure some were the same size as when I planted them out!!

For the ones I pickled I got some shallots from the farm shop where we get our veg. I don't know if using shallots was the right thing to do but the only onions they had were so big I wouldn't have got even one in the jar!!!

Still they smell & look just like real ones (the ones you buy!!!) so must be ok.

[Waffler]

Been jam making and soup making (the latter for the freezer). Freezing beans and courgettes. Will be making EB's chutney today (although I seem to have been saying that for about a week - but discovered yesterday I didn't have enough mustard seeds!)
Need to use up my red toms, so will probably make in to pasta sauces for the freezer.
Will also be picking rose hips for rose hip and apple jelly (never made it or tried it before, but it sounded nice: apples in abundance and hips for free!) and making pesto.

Whilst I really love the summer, I'm actually feeling very positive about the shift to Autumn: we had our first big stew (& dumplings!) on Sunday to get us in the mood. That said, I'm still sockless in summer shoes, and wearing short sleeved tops!!