All posts tagged peaches

Jammin’

Having bottled fruit until I was sick of the sight of it, I decided to progress on to some different preserves. We don’t eat huge amounts of jam Chez Snail, but I like to have some around to use to fill Victoria sponge cakes, or occasionally on a piece of toast or in a jam roly-poly. So I set to and made two types: peach and apricot, neither of which I have made before. There were also some left-over peaches, so I made a couple of jars of barbeque sauce to use them up.

I’ve followed (sort of) recipes by Marisa McClellan, which seem to include much less sugar (still lots, though) than traditional British jam, but which require hot water bath treatment (as per the picture above). A few years ago, one of you lovely readers (I can’t remember who) recommended these books and I have been really enjoying some of the recipes. ‘Food in Jars’ has some interesting things in it that aren’t preserves in the conventional sense, like granola and beer bread mix, which I plan to explore a bit more. Mr Snail was dubious about the idea of peach barbeque sauce, but I thought we’d give it a go anyway… I will report back.

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really liking these books

So, that’s it for the current round of preserving – there will be more later in the season. I’m hoping for pineapples in the next month or two!

20 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on July 5, 2018  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on July 5, 2018

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2018/07/05/jammin/

Gotta lotta bottle

It’s that time of year again, when I miss an early morning swim in order to do an early morning shop. Some people rush out for the Boxing Day sales or for Black Friday, but not me. All I’m interested in is fruit season, when I can fill the car with boxes of produce and spend the following few days preserving it for the long winter months.

So, last Friday saw me off to Newcastle Emlyn at 7am to see what was available. It’s always hard knowing what to buy. You can’t plan ahead, because if you do I can guarantee that they won’t have the thing you want, but I was on the lookout for tomatoes, peaches, pineapples and peppers. What I came home with was tomatoes, peaches (two types) and apricots, as well as some potatoes and other vegetables for ‘normal’ cooking. And as a result, my kitchen looked like this on Friday:

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just waiting

So far, I have processed all of the tomatoes into oven-roasted passata (half-litre and quarter-litre jars)

and I’m making good progress with the apricots and peaches, plus we’ve eaten lots of them fresh and I’ve rotated my stock in Tim’s cupboard, so there’s a shelf ready to fill

I won’t share a picture of the slightly frazzled chef!

-oOo-

I love cooking with homemade passata; roasting the tomatoes adds a depth of flavour that you simply don’t get with tinned tomatoes, or even fresh ones. However, I also spend time doing this every year in order to avoid waste. As you can see from the pictures, the tomatoes come in cardboard boxes (which we burn or compost, depending on our current needs) and the jars are reused year after year, with the central disc of the lids being replaced when they stop sealing efficiently (they last several uses, although the manufacturers tell you to use them only once). This means that we minimise packaging and also avoid any potential problems with BPA leaching from the plastic coating inside tin cans (yes, metal cans also contain plastic)*.

Anyway, so far, so successful… I wonder what my next early morning shopping trip will yield.

-oOo-

*If you want to know a bit more about the issues associated with cans contaminating tomatoes, this seems to be a balanced article on the subject.

 

34 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on June 26, 2018  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on June 26, 2018

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2018/06/26/gotta-lotta-bottle/

Relishing a fruity bargain

Every summer I make a trip or two to buy some exotic fruit and hunt for edible bargains. Early on Friday mornings, throughout the year, a fruit and veg supplier sets up his stall in Newcastle Emlyn and, amongst the standard green grocer’s fare, there are many bargains to be had. You can’t guarantee what he will be selling off cheaply and the best bargains need to be cooked or eaten quickly, but it’s always worth a visit. In the past I’ve bought very cheap nectarines, tomatoes, mushrooms, mangoes… and I’ve brought them home for bottling.

So yesterday, rather than my early morning swim, I had an early morning shopping trip. The best bargain I found was organic pineapples – two for £1. The tops were looking somewhat worse for wear, but the fruits themselves seemed generally sound, and I bought four. I also managed to get some peaches, although they didn’t have any big boxes and I will be returning in the hope of finding some more later in the summer.

Earlier in the year we were served pineapple and chilli relish at a restaurant and I had managed to recreate this at home with tinned pineapple (which, until then, I hadn’t bought for years). The fresh ones, along with the current abundance of home-grown chillies meant that it was the perfect time to make a larger batch of this relish. I simply chopped the pineapple, added a little sugar (to help with the preservation) and water, and cooked it up with chillies. First I added a Hungarian black, then a Romanian yellow and finally two lemon drops before I reached the desired heat. The addition of three chopped red chillies that have no heat (a disappointment from 2015 and stored in the freezer) added a little colour and also a visual signal of the contents (lest we should accidentally mistake it for something to eat for dessert). Into hot 0.25l Kilner jars and twenty minutes in a hot water bath, and the relish was ready for storage. Very easy.

This morning I bottled some of the peaches. The flesh is pale, but the syrup is a beautiful pink colour:

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bottled peaches

And finally I’ve making a few jars of peach, lime and red currant jam. We are not big jam-eaters, but it is nice in a Victoria sponge. We’ve got loads of red currants this year and still haven’t used up all last year’s crop, plus I found some lime halves in the freezer with their zests removed (having been used in a lime drizzle cake a while ago),  so I thought I’d do something creative. Peach jam does not set without the addition of pectin, so I am hoping that the currants and lime will be sufficient.

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peach, red currant and lime jam

I love food preservation – opening one of these jars in winter will be like bringing summer into the house.

21 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on July 22, 2017  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on July 22, 2017

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2017/07/22/relishing-a-fruity-bargain/

Sticky Sunday…

… and Saturday as well.

Over the past two days I have mainly spent my time in the kitchen. I started Saturday by making the custard base for some vanilla ice cream*… because we had lots of eggs and some cream that needed using up (well, that’s my excuse anyway). Then I processed the tomatoes I had roasted on Friday and bottled up 25 jars of passata.

I put the roasted tomatoes through the passata mill three times to extract all the pulp and the small amount of skin and seeds left goes on the compost heap. I then reheat the passata and bottle it using the hot water bath method, having checked the pH is below 4.6 and therefore safe to preserve. I’ll do another batch later in the season and then we won’t need to buy tinned tomatoes for a whole year and we will have avoided a whole load of cans that would have had to be recycled (the jars are reusable).

Then I set the now cool custard to churn to turn into ice cream and then returned it to the freezer before starting to make nectarine nectar (just a fancy way of describing purée), which I bottled this morning (Sunday), and which I have just realised will be perfect for Nectarine Bellinis:

And finally, I bottled peaches and nectarines in light syrup combined with the left-over nectar (just one picture because of the stickiness):

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bottled summer

And then I noticed that Mr Snail had dressed appropriately:

Now, I just have a lemon cake to make with the egg whites left-over from the ice cream and then I will be having a lie-down!

-oOo-

*I can’t eat ‘normal’ ice cream because of my lactose intolerance, but if I pre-treat the milk and cream with lactase enzyme, I can make my own that I can eat.

13 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on August 7, 2016  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on August 7, 2016

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2016/08/07/sticky-sunday/

Preservation, preservation, preservation

It’s that time of the year again when produce is abundant – both in the garden and on the market – and so my mind turns to preserving it for those future lean times.

As a result I had two main jobs this morning: first a visit to the Friday fruit and veg market and then cleaning the family preserving pan. The shopping trip can only be done on a Friday, so I had to miss going swimming. They set up in Newcastle Emlyn early, so I left home at 7am in order to make sure I got there before what I wanted had sold out. I arrived before 7:30 and started selecting my bulk purchases. I returned home through the early-morning mist with two large trays of tomatoes, two trays of nectarines and a bag of 20 peaches. I will return for more produce in a week or two (when, hopefully they will have plum tomatoes like last year and trays of peaches), but what I bought will keep me busy for a little while.

And so to the next task. All this preserving – passata, bottled peaches, nectarine purée – will be greatly facilitated by my second preserving pan. However, having spent several years in my mother’s barn, it needed a little cleaning. A quick internet search suggested that brass could be cleaned quite easily using a mixture of white vinegar (half a cup), salt (one teaspoon) and flour (enough to make it into a paste). All you do is dissolve the salt in the vinegar, add enough flour to get a spreadable consistency, smear the paste on your brass, leave for 10 minutes and then wipe/rinse off and dry. And I’m pleased to say, it worked. I did the inside of the pan twice and the outside once… and if it was for decoration I might do it again, but for my purposes, it looks good and was very easy – no elbow grease required!

before
during
after

So now, there are tomatoes roasting in the oven and for the rest of the weekend I will be getting sticky with peaches, nectarines and sugar syrup.

13 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on August 5, 2016  •  Permalink
Posted in food and cooking, reducing consumption
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on August 5, 2016

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2016/08/05/preservation-preservation-preservation/

On the bottle

Three and a half days and almost all the preservation is done….

My kitchen table on Friday morning

My kitchen table on Friday morning

My kitchen table now

My kitchen table now

And in the interim, all this has happened:

Washing and slicing
Roasting
Checking the pH
Great! Below the 4.6 threshold for safe bottling
Through the passata mill
Not much waste
Reheating before putting in the jars
Small portions for freezing
All bottled up

And  this:

Peeled and chopped peaches
Bottled and in a water bath
Some done, some not
Scraps for vinegar
Peach vinegar to come

In fact, I got so involved with the process, I didn’t photograph all the stages. The tomatoes were all made into roast tomato passata, some for the freezer and some bottled (canned). The bottled ones were processed in a hot water bath, which is safe as long as they are acidic enough, otherwise they need to be pressure canned (the threshold is 4.6 and mine were well below at 3.9). I’ve retained some of the passata to make into ketchup, but I need some more jars to store it and those should arrive later in the week, so for now I will freeze it so there is no chance of it going off. As for the peaches, those were peeled (they were so ripe the peel came off without immersion in boiling water) and the stones removed, before being poached in a light syrup and bottled. Again, they were processed in a hot water bath. The left over peel and stones are now fermenting naturally to make vinegar. So, the two processes produce hardly any waste and what is left over goes into the compost.

It’s hard work, but well worth the effort – such a joy over the winter, plus the knowledge that I know exactly what has gone into the food that I’m eating and a reduction in packaging compared to buying tinned goods.

21 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on August 9, 2015  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on August 9, 2015

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2015/08/09/on-the-bottle/

The early bird

Although produce from the garden is limited at the moment, I still wanted to make sure that we have access to the abundance of summer when the winter comes around. Next year I hope to have a good tomato harvest, but I expect this year’s to be small, late and only enough for immediate use.

I had heard about a seller of fruit and veg who visits a nearby town once a week and who has good quality produce to buy in bulk, so this morning at 7:15 I set off to investigate. I had been warned to get there early – ideally between 7:30 and 8 – and the advice was good. Even just after 7:30, when the sun was struggling to be seen through the morning mist, the place was busy. Other stall-holders were just setting up, but the fruit and veg man (and half a dozen staff) were doing a good trade.

The sun was doing its best
Stacks of fruit and veg
Such diversity

I had gone specifically to buy peaches and tomatoes for bottling, having been so successful with both these in the past. And, much to my delight, there were trays of flat peaches and of plum tomatoes – I was even given a peach to taste and, my word, it was fabulous. So I bit the bullet (like the peach) and bought four trays of each.

A full car…
Trying to reduce packaging

I was back home by 8:30, and had even had time to take a picture or two on the way, although by that time the mist was clearing:

Homeward bound

Homeward bound

Now, I have some work to do in the kitchen…

26 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on August 7, 2015  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on August 7, 2015

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2015/08/07/the-early-bird/

Lazy Sunday

My bottled peaches and waffles made using an egg from Aliss

My bottled peaches and waffles made using an egg from Aliss

Yesterday was a busy day – volunteering at Denmark Farm (moving piles of bracken onto the compost heaps, clearing out culverts and subduing a rampant silvanberry) as a well as a couple of blog posts, plus celebrating the 50th birthday of Doctor Who in the evening. Today, therefore, has to be much more relaxed. We started the morning with homemade waffles and some peaches from the batch that I bottled in the summer… what a delicious treat, it really was like having a little bit of stored sunshine, as I had hoped. This was followed by some virtual house hunting… my sister is planning to move house (much nearer to us – hurrah!) and so we spent a long time on the phone and online looking at possible houses.

Work in progress.. fingerless mitten in 6-ply Opal Polarlichter Shade 5207

Work in progress.. fingerless mitten in 6-ply Opal Polarlichter Shade 5207. plus pattern notes

The rest of the day will be spent on creativity… Mr Snail-of-happiness has been coveting my fingerless mittens for a while now (they are brilliant to wear if using the computer when the house is a bit chilly) so I offerred to make him some (and thus to delay starting an amigurumi dragon that I spotted on  The Guy Who Crochets blog). The only pattern I have for fingerless mittens fits me, so I’m writing a man-sized version as I go along. Right now the first one is done all except weaving in the ends and I hope to make the second today… so it won’t really be a lazy Sunday after all, just a relaxing one!

14 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on November 24, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in food and cooking, health and wellbeing
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on November 24, 2013

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2013/11/24/lazy-sunday/

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