Jars

[marshmeister]

Can anyone recommend the cheapest place to buy a bulk load of jam/preserve jars please?

Have become addicted to putting things into jars and have now used every jar in sight!!!!

Many thanks in advance

m x

[andrewo]

http://www.ascott.biz/
Check the preserve section, you can get alot for £19. There use to be the Bristol Bottle Company but they went into receivership and someone recommended these to me but I haven't used them yet. Ikea is also a good place to get jars too.

[andrewo]

Googled it and found www.ebottles.co.uk

[marshmeister]

Ta very much Andrewo will take a look now!!!

[andrewo]

Hope it is of use, let me know if they're any good, as I will use them too!

[Lesley Jay]

I get all mine from Ascott. I can recommend the company. Excellent service.

[andrewo]

Will definately use now, they seem good for the money and I want to preserve quite a bit this year in olive oil (especially herbs).

[Lesley Jay]

Andrewo have a read up first about the botulism that can occur when preserving in olive oil.

[andrewo]

Thanks Lesley, will do.

[nick the grief]

another reason to hate olives

[eskymo]

I preserve herbs in olive oil and that's fine - it's garlic you need to be careful of as I heard that can be dodgy and can lead to botulism.

I make herb oils by putting the herb leaves into a pan of oil and heating gently for 5 minutes - this infuses the oil with the flavour of that herb. Don't allow the herbs to burn as then you'll just have to start again as the oil with just taste burnt - so keep over a very low heat.

You then allow this to cool and pour into your bottle or jar and use as often as you need and should keep for quite a while - I've given bottles away as gifts. You can either leaves the cooked herbs in at at the bottling stage or strain them out and replace with a few fresh leaves, but if you add fresh leaves, this means you need to use the oil within a week or so.

I make a fresh batch of oils every week in the summer to use on pasta and salad, especially when you can get cheap olive oil at Lidl or Aldi. It is so quick to do.

hope that helps.

[andrewo]

That's interesting, I normally just stick the herbs in the jar for 3-4 weeks and then take out, but this sounds like a faster and more hygienic way. How much is olive oil at Lidl and Aldi?

[eskymo]

You can get good extra virgin olive oil for about £2 - it's a 750ml bottle as far as I can remember. We buy it in bulk as it's cheaper than tesco's, so I can't honestly remember as we bought it ages ago.

[bramble]

The olive oil in Aldi is really good Andrew. I use it all the time and its cheaper than any of the other supermarket chains.

[eskymo]

there you go - I didn't know that - might buy from them in the future.