Kitchen Garden Forum

Hannabusses - I've posted an artichoke recipe in the Recipe section.

There's also a good selection on www.about.com
Follow the links to the Food and Drink section, then Italian, then artichokes.

ahh super thankyou thats awsome

I've put another one on there too that I found on an American site.

How about storing apples? My first harvest of granny smiths yielded 24 beautiful large fruit. I have no idea how long they will store wrapped in newspaper in a box in a corner of the bedroom (coolest room in the house!), so would be glad of advice. I can't freeze them - freezers already full of beans, raspberries etc., and since I will be having surgery on my left hand this coming Monday I hope that they will store for a couple of months - at least. The same goes for pears. 14 lovely Williams Chretien fruit, currently in a bowl in the fridge to prevent them ripening any further. This is my first year harvesting my own fruit and I would hate to have them all go rotten on me, so any advice please?

Squash are so much easier - last year I just hung them on a line in the shed and used as required through to May this year. But wouldn't you know it? hardly any squash ripening this year - apart from half a dozen Rolet Little Gems and one Sweet Dumpling.

When I acquire surplus apples & pears I store them in an untied plastic bag in our rather large fridge and they literally keep for weeks. However,do you have one of those large plastic insulated picnic boxes you could lay on its side, open, in a protected corner of your garden? or alternatively, a large string bag or open mesh onion sack which can be hung up in a cool airy place? I know traditionally fruit is stored in trays but in the past I've hung apples & pears up like this in our garage & they've kept well, but they do need to be checked regularly. But I've found that once they start to ripen, pears deteriorate far quickly than apples. Hope the surgery on your hand goes OK and that you're not left handed !

Thanks Primrose. My fridge is too small and the shed right now is too warm, so the fruit will have to make do with a corner of my bedroom for the time being. I don't know if the apple or pear varieties are good storers - time will tell.

I'm partially left-handed (probably rapped over the knuckles if caught trying to write left-handed all those years ago when I was small , my son is left-handed). So it will be a problem for a while! But I'll survive .

i make chilly jam
sweet chili sauce
roast tomato sauce which has herbs onions and garlic when the sauce is to our liking we freeze it one portion per plastic bag.
roast pepper sauce as above
mixed black and red currant jam
blueberries are frozen we put them on our porridge in the morning
pumpkin soup again we put one serving per plastic bag then it is frozen
mixed berry jam
apple chutney made with sour apples
green tomato chutney
peas,beans and all fruit is frozen except apple
apples are stored in an old fish box each apple is wrapped in news paper

can you post your recipe for sweet chilli sauce nemo - I tried to make it last year and made a right mess of it - a bit gung ho on the cayenne chilli ouch and then cooked it too long until i burnt the sugar - really disgusting

Hi Nemo You are a busy B, I gather that you grow all the fruit and veg. for your jams and chutneys ect. I was in the south of Ireland in July on holiday Waterford/Cork area and not once did I see a field of veg.or potatoes growing except on our way to Lismore Castle I saw maize/sweetcorn . When I asked a lady about the lack of potatoes/veg growing she said it was cheaper to buy them at the super market.
Prehaps Kerry people are better at tilling the land. come to think of it
I didn't see any corn growing either.Maybe thats why there's no veg. shows in Ireland
Bren

hello Bren
its a dieing art growing food to feed your family.growing vegetables is a necessity for us so nothing is wasted and making good veg stock from all the peelings except potato peelings. all the fruit jams we make are made from our own fruit bar the blackberry's .the so called credit crunch might open peoples eyes and pallat to growing vegetables. we also dry chillies over our peat burning range

Yep, I agree that growing your own had become a dying past-time - but with the recent credit crunch period, a lot of folks started to turn back to the old ways - thank goodness I had an old nan that taught me how to respect the garden & use it productively!

I had a massive crop of carrots last year, and stored them in a box in sand.
They've been great.... until I go into the old cottage yesterday to get some for dinner & find a LOT of chomped carrots on top of the sand!
Today's job is to get the box out & sort through to try & rescue the remainder of them - it looks like the orange carrots have been the victims, while the yellow carrots have been left alone - maybe mice don't like yellow?

Anyway, if I sort them on the grass, the chooks & ducks can have the nibbled bits & extra grit provided by the sand - which is safe as it was a reduced bag of kids play sand

Alcohol is a good preserver too, chilli in a dry sherry gives a good kick to a casserole, and chilli vodka will pep up a drink. Also fruit with some sugar if needed and topped up with alcohol in a rumtoph jar or any similar that excludes light, makes a great dessert topping. Cherries or apricots in brandy
or sloes in gin.

WE HAVE DAMSONS IN VODKA,CHILLI PASTE CHILLI SAUCE AND CHILLI JAM,BLACKCURRANT ,STRAWBERRY,RHUBARB JAMS.RED CURRANT AND DAMSON JELLY.PEAS IN THE FREEZER.DRIED CHILLI.DRIED PUFFBALL. CONTAINERS FULL OF TOMATO SAUCE IN THE FREEZER AND FRESH VEG 12 MONTHS OF THE YEAR.THE PROBLEM IS FINDING A NEW VEGETABLE EACH YEAR TO ADD SOMETHING NEW TO THE DINNER PLATE. THIS YEAR IS SALSIFY (PROBABLE SPELT WRONG)

Ow, no need to SHOUT!

Sounds like good haul Nemo

Sounds like you have been busy Nemo, I have some tomatillo seeds you can have, if you haven't tried them yet, they make a nice mexican salsa. I like them fried for breakfast too. Have you tried cape gooseberries have seeds of those too.