Using excess French Beans I made a delicious relish.
Basically: slice some beans and boil for 5 mins in salted water. Cook some onions in a bottle of vinegar until soft, add the beans chopped small, a little more vinegar, and 500g sugar or thereabouts, let it cook a bit longer. Taste and if not sweet enough for you add a little more sugar.
Mix a tablespoon each of cornflour, turmeric and mustard powder with a little vinegar, to make a thin paste. Lift some of the bean/onion into a separate bowl and gradually stir in the floury mix, adding more bean/onion mix a little at a time, keep stirring. If you do it the other way round (ie add the floury mix to the hot stuff) you get lumps.
Pot into heated jars, top with a waxed disc and put the lid on straight away. I always put a cellophane circle on the jar before putting the lid on in so the vinegaryness will not rot the lid.
I used a similar weight of beans and onions, about a kilo of each, but I wasn't precise. The result is delicious. You could add some curry spices to the cornflower/turmeric/mustard mix for an extra kick, but we rather like the sweetness without the punch.
I love making jams and jellies and pickles and relish and stocking up on bread flour and so on. I think in a previous life I might have been a squirrel!!
Come the harsh winter when we get snowed in we can live well on home-made bread and preserved/stored produce. And there will be a few leaves and cabbages in the garden to make soup. Yeah, bring on the snow!
Let the preserving commence!
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Hedgerow Jelly:
Last autumn I made hedgerow jelly from anything I could pick locally - elderberries, sloes, haws, rosehips, a few blackberries. Extracted the juices (I used a steamer but you could add water and boil it up in a preserving pan and push through a sieve) and added 1lb sugar to each pint of juice, boiled until setting point. Bottled, sealed.
Proportions are not important - whatever I picked, it all went in.
A very interesting flavour, quite delicious and unlike anything you can buy in the shops. Because there is so much flavour you don't need to use much so if you are dieting and cutting down on sugary stuff you can afford to have a thin scraping of this jelly and it won't load the calories onto your (thin) slice of (unbuttered) bread.
Last autumn I made hedgerow jelly from anything I could pick locally - elderberries, sloes, haws, rosehips, a few blackberries. Extracted the juices (I used a steamer but you could add water and boil it up in a preserving pan and push through a sieve) and added 1lb sugar to each pint of juice, boiled until setting point. Bottled, sealed.
Proportions are not important - whatever I picked, it all went in.
A very interesting flavour, quite delicious and unlike anything you can buy in the shops. Because there is so much flavour you don't need to use much so if you are dieting and cutting down on sugary stuff you can afford to have a thin scraping of this jelly and it won't load the calories onto your (thin) slice of (unbuttered) bread.
Angie
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Motherwoman
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Hi Daveswife,
I do exactly the same! Whatever is going goes in, damsons from one section of my hedgerow are good, elderberry, blackberry and a good selection of crab apples to give a good set. The beauty of it is that they just get a wash and go in one pan to cook, crab apples get chopped a couple of times, and then all the skins, pips and seeds come out in the sieving. My elderly father loves it as there's no bits! He was the main reason I tried it. And the flavour is very rich and luscious.
MW
I do exactly the same! Whatever is going goes in, damsons from one section of my hedgerow are good, elderberry, blackberry and a good selection of crab apples to give a good set. The beauty of it is that they just get a wash and go in one pan to cook, crab apples get chopped a couple of times, and then all the skins, pips and seeds come out in the sieving. My elderly father loves it as there's no bits! He was the main reason I tried it. And the flavour is very rich and luscious.
MW
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Ricard with an H
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A relish with French beans ? Very innovative of you Angie, also the "Hedgerow jelly".
We only get bramble berries in our hedgerows though to be honest I didn't look that closely and the brambles are so thick you wouldn't get to any other goodies.
My negative comments on pots are to do with volume and root needs, I grew spring onions in large plastic boxes and salads in those fabric bags that Marshalls sell. It's convenient to be able to grow stuff where it's convenient and sheltered. This will be the third year I almost destroyed lavender plants and this year grown in large clay pots.
Root-bound? Drying out ? They were never too wet.
I have two large sacks full of red onion and still haven't got down the red onion relish I made last year.
I need to eat more.
Erm, perhaps not. It's taken me years to get back to my fighting weight of 70 kilos and I do like a drop of the good oils in the evening with my food.
We only get bramble berries in our hedgerows though to be honest I didn't look that closely and the brambles are so thick you wouldn't get to any other goodies.
My negative comments on pots are to do with volume and root needs, I grew spring onions in large plastic boxes and salads in those fabric bags that Marshalls sell. It's convenient to be able to grow stuff where it's convenient and sheltered. This will be the third year I almost destroyed lavender plants and this year grown in large clay pots.
Root-bound? Drying out ? They were never too wet.
I have two large sacks full of red onion and still haven't got down the red onion relish I made last year.
I need to eat more.
Erm, perhaps not. It's taken me years to get back to my fighting weight of 70 kilos and I do like a drop of the good oils in the evening with my food.
How are you supposed to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle if it completely removes a wine lover’s reason to live?
Richard.
Richard.
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Ricard with an H
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I'm not altogether sure I should be encouraged though thank you for the positive image I now have of myself. 
Whilst on the subject of preserving I'm keen to leave stuff in the ground this year, at least until I need it. Carrots out of the freezer don't work for me, I may as well buy store carrots so I'll leave them in the ground just to see what happens. In the case of beetroot I stored it in the recommended way by cutting the tops and leaving a few inches then storing them in dry compost, six weeks later they tasted like dry compost so I'll leave them in the ground until I can find a preserving solution that doesn't send my oesophagus into spasm.
Surely one of you must have an idea, I bet some middle aged Polish or German neighbours would know. They don't use malt vinegar.
Whilst on the subject of preserving I'm keen to leave stuff in the ground this year, at least until I need it. Carrots out of the freezer don't work for me, I may as well buy store carrots so I'll leave them in the ground just to see what happens. In the case of beetroot I stored it in the recommended way by cutting the tops and leaving a few inches then storing them in dry compost, six weeks later they tasted like dry compost so I'll leave them in the ground until I can find a preserving solution that doesn't send my oesophagus into spasm.
Surely one of you must have an idea, I bet some middle aged Polish or German neighbours would know. They don't use malt vinegar.
How are you supposed to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle if it completely removes a wine lover’s reason to live?
Richard.
Richard.
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retropants
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Today, being monsoon day, I am making the most of being a house prisoner, and getting on with processing apples, tomatoes, gherkins, cucumbers and anything else that needs doing. I have 6 tubs of hot apples, ready for the freezer, once they have cooled down. Next up is gherkins, slicing them and soaking in brine overnight. Hopefully I'll have time to juice the cucumbers too,
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retropants
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Oh, I forgot, making basil pesto and roast tomato and vegetable passata
Last edited by retropants on Mon Aug 25, 2014 3:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Primrose
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Retropants, some of my earlier gherkins I pickled without first soaking brine overnight. How do you think they will fare and taste? No need to be police !! I am anxious to know whether they will be wasted and inedible.
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retropants
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Not sure you need the police primrose, but I have no idea how they will be, sorry!
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Ricard with an H
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My favourite, can I bring a New Zealand Chardonnay ?
How are you supposed to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle if it completely removes a wine lover’s reason to live?
Richard.
Richard.
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retropants
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Sounds lovely!
I have popped 6 pots of pesto in the freezer, passata is next on the list. Just going to chop and roast all the tomatoes and peppers, courgettes, aubergines, chilies, garlic and onions. Then it all goes through the passata machine when it has cooled a bit. I then pop into jars and oven for about 30 mins at 100 deg C.
I have popped 6 pots of pesto in the freezer, passata is next on the list. Just going to chop and roast all the tomatoes and peppers, courgettes, aubergines, chilies, garlic and onions. Then it all goes through the passata machine when it has cooled a bit. I then pop into jars and oven for about 30 mins at 100 deg C.