And treat those two imposters just the same

This is a story of hubris, preserves and living in a sitcom.

The first thing I did after breakfast on Saturday was to water the poly tunnel and harvest some of the produce. The first batch of tomatillos were ripe, there were 17 jalapeños ready, some dwarf cucumbers and courgettes ranging from acceptable to giant marrows.

After chucking the marrows to the hens (chickens love them) I laid my haul on the garden table. I called  to Mark, "behold, I have a crop of finest Green!" in a daft pompous tone. The photo went to friends and family, Facebook and Twitter; I was extremely satisfied with the fruits of my labours. Downright smug even - look at the Earth Mother growing her veg and making preserves and pickles! How very Good Life. 

I wasn't far off the mark, but not in the way I thought.

The next thing I did was tackle the overgrown raised bed to remove some of the giant courgette leaves, the borage that had collapsed in the high winds and was drooping across the path and remove the bits that were rotting or dying back.  It's a job I'd been putting off because they are extremely prickly plants. Despite long sleeves and gloves, I had the raised bumps and  rashes I always get from the many bristles poking into me. My forearms were covered in them. I hate that job.

Mark and the kids were doing errands in Zach's car (Mum's aged Polo) so I messaged him to ask he buy a big bottle of white vinegar so I could do the pickling in the afternoon. We usually buy the glass bottles with a screw top. This time he bought plastic bottles with the small hole in the stopper (like you use for putting vinegar on your chips) because he thought I might need lots and it was cheaper. This will matter later.

I was looking forward to making the salsa verde with the tomatillos. You can't buy them easily in the UK and they are delicious. We love  Mexican/Central American food in general, really - hence the jalapenos! 

The counter was *covered* in stuff because I am a slob who lives with slobs. I couldn't be bothered clearing it all properly. I knew I could clean down a working area and ignore the rest - to Mark's horror I can do this perfectly happily. For reference, here's how it looked last week when I was making a curry:

Yes, I am ashamed. Mark can't work in this chaos because he's normal but as long as I can clear and clean a small space I'm good to go. 

First, I peeled the papery cases from the tomatillos, washed their soapy residue off, halved them and roasted them skin up in a very hot oven for 10 minutes.  I'd then pop them in the blender with half a chopped onion, a big fistful of coriander, a garlic clove, 3 chillies and the juice of a lime. Whizz it up, salt to taste, and there you've got a fantastic salsa that lasts about a week in the fridge or several months in the freezer.

Spot the food blogging in the anecdote; I'm content-rich, me.

While the tomatillos were cooling, I started on the pickling liquor for the jalapeños.

My preferred recipe is 250ml water, 250ml vinegar, a teaspoon or sugar, a tablespoon of salt and a few garlic cloves simmered to boiling, to which I  add the sliced chilli peppers off the heat and leave them to infuse/gently cook for 10 minutes before putting in a jar. It's very good, I heartily recomment it.

(See - content! Two recipes already)

I tried to prise the stopper off the vinegar bottle with the edge of a spoon so I could pour out 250ml, but it wouldn't be shifted. Damn it.  I squeezed the plastic bottle into the measuring cup.

I squeezed a bit hard.

The stopper came off with a POP and vinegar poured out at force, covering everything.

Everything.

Veg, cooking equipment, papers, a book, bowls, fruit, phone, floor, me.

I found every single scratch I got pruning back all the prickly stuff this morning. Ow.

It took me 40 minutes to clear up: wash everything down, mop the floor, rinse the fruit and veg and leave them out to dry, bin the butter in the butter dish, wash the pasta jar, lay out the papers and novel to dry, change clothes, wash up the crockery I doused.

 I was knackered and sweating. 

My (freshly washed) hair and face got covered to. I sweated VINEGAR into my EYES.

I smelled like a chip shop.

I want to be an Earth Mother type, whereas I am in fact in a slapstick sitcom or a Carry On film.

It was the hubris particularly.  “Look at my amazing monochrome veg harvest. Isn’t it gorgeous! Aren’t I such a great example,  growing and preserving things?” to a Joni Mitchell Ladies Of The Canyon soundtrack. Me in my maxi dress and wellies, tending my crops and preserving my veg.

Fast forward to vinegar drenched train wreck.

I did get a happy ending - see the jars below. 

This morning I resolved to have a less farcical experience. I went down the garden to sit in my new swing/hammock chair and read a novel. Swaying gently in the sunshine enjoying a favourite book I was feeling at one with the world.

Until the hook holding the chair gave way.

Cue title sequence.

P.S. No, I'm not kidding, yes, it hurt and I'm on painkillers and yes, it did look ridiculous and yes, I was flat on my back like an upturned tortoise.

Jam today

It's the very start of the strawberry season here in Yorkshire. Over the next 3 weeks there will be enough strawberries to satisfy even Miss B, our resident fraisivore. Most of the strawberries aren't quite ripe yet but those that are, are perfect for jam making.

The strawberries from my garden, Strawbopolis, are for snacking purposes only. To be brutally honest, I forgot to water my strawberry plants last year the second the fruiting season ended (I'm a bad, bad plantswoman) and lots of them died. Those that did survive look ace and are producing lots of fruit, which is more than I deserve. Oops.

To pick my strawberries, I went to Kemp's of Horsforth. My friend Jean knew the elder Kemp back in his rugby club days and says he was a dashing blade. Jean's 86, so I guess the Kemp family's farm has been a fixture of North Leeds for a long while. I like getting produce direct from the grower, and even more when it's a local family business. It's much nicer than handing the cash to a supermarket. In addition, PYO means I can be as picky as I like about the fruit; and I am very picky.

Today's haul was a bit disappointing. I was clearly rather too keen and should have left it a week because so few berries were ripe that it took me best part of an hour to pick my 3 kilos. Still, the flavour was good and it's a nice way to while away a morning.

A few ripe strawberries for snacking

Back home, I put on Lily Allen's album Sheezus and set to work hulling the strawberries. My Very Excellent Mate Rachel gave me three Lily Allen albums recently and I love them. When it's a bit of a dead time for radio they are my songs of choice. Rachel also has Cary Elwes's memoir As You Wish for me, which I am very excited about.  Hurray for VEM Rach and her thoughtfulness.

When it comes to jam making  I refer to the mighty Pam The Jam, author of the River Cottage Handbook on Preserves. Pam Corbin's recipes are clear, well explained and almost always work well for me, although I prefer slightly less sugar when I can get away with it. Between cordials, jams, jellies, curds and marmalade I have used her book until it is stiff with sugar spatter and stained with fruit juice. I raise my elderflower martini to her.

Here's my version of what Pam recommends -

Strawberry Jam

2.85kg of hulled strawberries, with any bruises trimmed (3.2kg picked weight)
600g granulated sugar
1.75kg jam sugar
5 large lemons

10-12 clean jam jars with lids

If at all possible, don't wash the strawberries. Wipe any grubby bits off but generally just leave them. Dry strawberries make better jam.
Put the clean jam jars and lids on a lined baking tray and put in the oven. Turn the oven on to 150 degrees and leave the jars in to sterilise.
Stick all the strawberries in a maslin pan or VERY large stock pot. Add the granulated sugar and simmer on a low heat for about 5 minutes until mostly soft.

At this point I let the mix cool before pushing 2/3 of the fruit through a metal sieve with a messy combination of a silicon spatula and my fists. Then I plunge my hands into the jam pan and squish up any lumps of fruit until I have a mostly smooth and partially seed-free mixture.  Pam Corbin doesn't have this step in her recipe because Pam isn't trying to feed fussy family members who don't like pips or fruit pieces in their jam. Lucky, lucky Pam.

NB - By now I look like I've been involved in a massacre. I usually have to swap to a fresh apron at this point or everywhere I lean I make strawberry prints.

Put the jam mixture back on a low heat and add all the jam sugar. This contains the pectin we'll need for the jam to set. I use more jam sugar and less granulated sugar than Pam because overall my sugar-to-fruit ratio is lower - I like a touch of tartness because it tastes more of strawberry that way - so I need the extra pectin to get a good set.
Heat the jam through gently, stirring all the time to ensure the sugar doesn't burn to the bottom of the pan. When it has dissolved completely add the juice of all 5 lemons and turn the heat up. That acidity really lifts the flavour of the strawberries.
Incidentally, cold lemons don't produce as much juice. If your lemons were in the fridge, it's worth popping them in the microwave for about 20-30 seconds before you squeeze them.

Once your jam is boiling away, Pam says it will take 8-9 minutes to reach setting point. Personally, I find it takes closer to 15, but I'm probably doing something wrong.

If you have lots of frothy scum on the top of the jam, pop in a blob of butter and stir the jam until it dissipates. Then it's time to fill the jars, which have been sitting in the oven all sterile and ready to go.
I find it easiest to fill them on the baking tray. It contains any spillage and is easy to clear up.  Put a wide mouthed funnel onto a jar and pour in the jam until full. If you haven't got a jam funnel I find tipping your jam into a glass or earthenware jug with a spout will do as a way to fill the jars with minimum spillage.
Be careful, please. The jam is insanely hot, you do not want any of it splashing on you if you can help it. I got 3 tiny little dots of jam on my knuckles as I was holding the thermometer and they came up as blisters almost immediately.
Put the lids on the filled jars immediately (I use oven gloves or a tea towel) and leave to cool.

I absolutely LOVE the metallic pop the lids make as the jar cools and creates a vacuum.  I find something I "need" to do to make sure I'm in the kitchen for that. It's very satisfying.

Ten jars, two small dishes and a bit for tasting

A note about setting point - You can faff about with drops of jam in cold water or creases on cold saucers but I find my sugar thermometer far more reliable. You can get them from places like Nisbets, and they're well worth having.

Those two little dishes of jam are for my lovely neighbour Wendy, and Jean who knew the Kemps 'way back when.  Sharing a bit of jam will do when the red wine runs out.
All hail kick-ass octogenarian women!

J x

Paddington can have his sandwiches; I have other plans

Hello webby cronies!

January has a lot working against it. It's cold, dark and very rainy. Everyone is on a budget, or on a diet, or in a foul mood thanks to giving up fags, booze, wheat, joy - or all of the above. In our family it's also Miss B's birthday party on top of 2 nieces, my mum, my brother and Z's birthdays so it tends to be a busy and expensive month too.

But there are two bright shining January things that make me happy. The first one is my annual ballet jaunt to London with my Very Excellent Friend Bon, but I've already told you about that in detail.

The other nice thing is something I can share with you - Seville orange season! They are bright, aromatic and wonderful when everything else in season is an all too virtuous-looking dark green: sprouts, kale and so on.

Don't let that marvellous smell fool you, though. Sevilles are dreadfully sour and inedible when raw. They need to be cooked or otherwise processed. The obvious is marmalade, of course, and I had a pleasant afternoon making 8 jars of the stuff.

 Incidentally, I usually have to add a dash of pectin to my marmalade. I do all the recommended stuff like soaking the pips overnight and so on, so in theory I shouldn't need to. I've decided it must be that I use quite a lot less sugar than my recipes call for because Mark and my Dad - the real marmalade lovers in the family - prefer theirs quite sharp. If you are better informed than I on such matters, please to tell me in the comments section.

  Marmalade is all well and good for pleasing partners, fathers and bears visiting from Darkest Peru. What I really want to try this year is orange gin.

There are 20 or 30 recipes easily available through search engines. I went for 70ml of cheap gin, the peel but not pith of 3 to 4 seville oranges, 1 or 2 cloves and 125g caster sugar.
NB  - loads of recipes suggested anything up to 250g of sugar. I prefer my drinks less sweet but if you like sweet liquors, add more.

I have a small serrated knife - a mini bread knife with the rather ludicrous label "breakfast knife" - that I used for getting the peel from the orange whilst leaving all the white pith still on it.  A very sharp knife would do, too, but my veg knives all need sharpening. The oil that makes oranges smell so wonderful is all in that coloured peel. The pith just makes things bitter.

Tip some of the gin into a jug. Pour the sugar in the gin bottle and poke the orange peel and clove in too. Top up the bottle with the gin you put in the jug. Close the lid tightly and shake. Shake it every day or so for a couple of weeks then put it somewhere dark  like the back of a cupboard and forget about it.

By Christmas you will have a lovely orange gin.  I expect it is nice by summer, to be honest, but tradition dictates it steep for the year. Even after a week it looks beautiful, having taken a golden glow from the peel already.

Having made the gin, I had a bunch of pith-covered oranges sitting on my counter. What could I do with then? I can't juice then nor eat them.... Curd! I could make Seville orange curd! It would use up the juice, and as the hens are back in lay I had heaps of fresh eggs to use.

200ml lemon or Seville orange juice
zest of 2 lemons or normal oranges
125g butter
450g sugar
4 large or 5 medium eggs

Making lemon (or orange) curd is a doddle. First you juice your fruit. You need 200ml, so I topped up with the juice of 1 of the normal oranges I was using for the zest as well.
Break all your eggs into a jug and beat them well. Have a sieve to hand.

Put the juice, zest, butter and sugar in a large heatproof bowl. Sit the bowl on a pan of simmering water and stir until the butter has melted and the whole thing looks glossy and smooth. Keep the heat quite low, because if it's too hot the next stage will result in sweet citrus-y scrambled egg. Gently, Bentley, and it's easy as pie.
Pour the beaten egg into the bowl through the sieve - there are little stringy buts that hold the yolk in place and they can go a bit weird in things like curds. Beat the mixture well to combine. Keep stirring over that gentle heat until it is a think and creamy curd. It takes anything from 7 to 15 minutes in my experience. Basically stop once it looks like lemon curd!

Pour it into sterilised jars, seal, and fight with your children about who gets to lick the bowl. (Hint - you do. If they want to lick it, they can do the washing up.)

Supposedly you need to eat it within a month, and store opened jars in the fridge.  Ours never lasts that long.

Ta da! One bag of lovely aromatic oranges turned into 8 jars of marmalade, 2 1/2 bottles of gin and 3 jars of orange curd. Maybe January isn't so bad after all.

J x

Entente Cordial

Hello webby world!

Sometimes a bit of seasonal goodness can fix pretty much anything. Like this:
Are you well?
 No? Oh, poor thing, you sound full of a cold. Have a spoon of elderberry cordial to help your cough.
Yes? Marvellous! Join me in a cocktail. I've made Hedgerow Kir Royale: elderberry cordial and prosecco.

Droopy, juicy elderberries

If you need neither soothing nor plying with exciting purple cocktails (is that possible?), how about having some on greek yogurt or stirred through your porridge. It's full of vitamin C and is supposed to be good for colds and flu.
I don't actually care about that if I'm truthful. I only care that it is utterly delicious.
And seasonal, which is oh so virtuous and fashionable these days.
And mostly free, making it ideal for these frugal and glum times. (Except when you add prosecco to it.)
And I get to make it myself, continuing my transformation from lazy bookworm to the Ambridge matriarch.*

*A side note: My mum and I have been emailing back and forth with competing baking and preserve making triumphs over the last week. I sign mine Jill Archer Wannabe, Mum signs hers Suzy Homemaker. Suzy overtook Jill when she made 90 billion jars of damson jam (well, 34. but that's pretty much a billion ) over the past two days. However, I'm not writing Jill off yet - I have more types of jam, jelly, crumble and cordials. Plus I'm hoping the 220 shortbread biscuits I made today will help pull Jill into the lead.

In case you too would like to make the miracle of scrumptiousness that is elderberry cordial, here's how I did it.

First, pick your elderberries. Assuming you aren't in a totally concrete environment, you'll find heaps of them around just now. We drove to the hedgerows a few miles from our house, near Harewood, because there are absolutely MASSES there. I prefer to use a little pair of scissors to pick the berries to just pulling them because fewer berries fall to the ground. Only pick the droopy, heavy berry clusters - they are the most ripe and juicy.

When you've filled your carrier bag, head home for the exciting task of removing the berries from the stalks. This is important because the plant and unripe berries contain a form of cyanide. (Don't get too worried, so do loads of fruit we eat. It's mild) The ripe ones are good for you once they've been cooked, which breaks down the alkaloids that cause the problems. Well, the BBC Food website says that and if you can't trust the BBC who can you trust?

Anyway, removing the berries by hand is a long and finger-staining job. I use a fork to whip them off the stalks much more quickly. It still took me an hour but I had the radio to keep me company.

I pick out any green, unripe berries by hand. I also have to keep an eye out for unwitting passengers. This week's score was:

          Earwigs:   1

         Ladybirds: 4

         Spiders: 17

Despite using a fork mostly, I still ended up with fairly stained hands, but it washed off far more easily than the stains from the plum jam.

Note the very short nails. Between baking, gardening and jam making I think the shorter my nails are the better. 

Anyway, I ended up with two and a half kilos of elderberries. Most I simmered with apples to make elderberry jelly but some were for the cordial.

I add about 400 or 500ml of water per kilo of elderberries and simmer them for around 25 minutes. I bash them about with a potato masher towards the end of the cooking period to release as much juice as possible. It goes an astonishingly rich dark purple colour.  Then it is ready to be strained.

Straining it needs a jelly bag, a fine tea towel or some muslin suspended above a bowl. I use a jelly bag tied to the legs of an upturned kitchen chair that I sit on a counter out of the way, with a LARGE bowl underneath the bag to catch the liquid. You need to let gravity do its work, slowly trickling and dripping all the juice out. If you squeeze the bag or press the berry pulp to speed things along your cordial (or jelly) will be cloudy.My advice it to go see a movie at this point. Or take a nap. Naps are lovely.

When I was ready to crack on (i.e. woke up) I popped some clean bottles in a low oven to sterilise. Lakeland and other places do nice bottles with swing tops that are really good for this sort of thing if you want to give the cordial as a present. 

I added 400g of sugar per litre of elderberry liquid and heated it in a saucepan. Once the sugar had dissolved I tasted it for sweetness and added any more I felt necessary (not much on this occasion.)  I poured the cordial into the warm sterilised bottles and sealed them. All done.

Recipe - Hedgerow Kir Royale

Add one tablespoon of elderberry cordial to each wine glass and top up carefully with Cava, Prosecco or whatever sparkling wine you like. It froths hugely, so go easy.

Share with your very best pals.

Cheers!

Iechyd Da!

Jam-alam-a-ding-dong

Hello webby mates!

Fancy a a slice of toastand jam? I have lots to share.

My Victoria plum tree is bent almost to the ground under the weight of its fruit this year. I knew it was likely - plum trees lave a good year/bad year cycle as far as I can work out. Last year it managed about 10 plums. This year I removed over half the fruit in July to protect the branches from snapping and my little tree still gave me 4 kilos of gloriously sweet plums yesterday. Twice as many are still on the tree to ripen.

Don't they look good?

 My plum season is very short. Everything ripens within a 2 or 3 week window. There is no way we could eat them all fresh (without being ill) and I do love being able to have plums from my tree many months after they appeared. The easiest way to do that is to make them into jam.

I'm still fairly inexperienced at making jam. I refer to the wonderful River Cottage Preserves book written by Pam Corbin - aka Pam the Jam - for the essentials and even then I do make a hash of it sometimes. Rather spectacularly on several occasions.  However, the lure of a line of jars filled with golden jam in a kitchen scented with rich sweet fruit brings me back to have another go every time.

The recipe is this:
1.5kg of plums
400ml water
1.25kg granulated sugar
I doubled it because I have heaps and heaps of plums.

As you will have noticed if you've read my other blog posts, I like Thinking Things Through and I like an easy option if there is one. There are lots of approaches to jam making and this is the one that works well for me.

Sterilising the jars - If I've room in the dishwasher I stick all my jars and lids in, run a hot wash cycle as I start the jam and leave the dishy door shut until I'm ready to fill the jars. If I haven't the room I just wash them as hand hot as i can stand and pop them on the middle shelf of the oven, and turn the oven on low. Boiling them seems a right flipping pain.

Setting point - I second, third and forth guess myself on setting point. To that end, I take a belt-and-braces approach. I stick 3 or 4 saucers in the freezer as I get ready to start and I use my digital thermometer as well. The great Pam says setting point of jam is 104 degrees C.

Pam also says you should only wash the fruit if absolutely necessary and if you do you must dry it thoroughly. My fruit are from my trees, unsprayed with anything, so I just keep a very slightly damp cloth to hand if i need to wipe any bits off. Or wipe it on my apron (scruffy but true.)

Weighing as I go

I set up all my stuff first - massive pan sitting on my digital scales, sack of fruit and cutting board in front of me, bowl for the plum stones and any manky bits to my right.

First job - cut the plums in half and remove the stone. The easiest way is to cut along that line on the plum - I think of it as the plum's Greenwich Meridian or butt crack, depending on my mood - and up again the other side, then twist the two plum halves apart. Cut any manky bits off and pop the plum halves in the pan.

Incidentally, Pam tells us to use a nutcracker to open some plum stones to remove the kernels and simmer them with the plums for a lovely hint of almond. I don't own a nutcracker and can't be bothered anyway. I love plum jam as it is.

The other advice Pam offers is to use slightly under ripe fruit for jam making.
Two years ago we had to give our middle child a 4 plum rule. They are so soft, plump and delicious, just hanging there at easy picking height for a child and the temptation was too much for him. As he played in the garden one day he helped himself to loads of them and had one hell of a stomach ache as a result. He stuck to the 4 plum limit after that.  I was struggling to stick to that rule myself as I picked out the plums from the harvest that were too ripe for jam making. It turns out they are just exactly ripe enough for scoffing.

Is it a bit late to mention that you shouldn't make plum jam when you have a fancy event to go to that night? Picking all those plum stones out tends to stain your fingers a delightful nicotine yellow which can undermine your wholesome homestead-y vibe and kill any glamour thing off too.  Unless you are a chain smoker, I guess. Then it wouldn't make much difference.

What 3kg of plums looks like

Anyway, back to business. I weighed out 3kg of stoned fruit, added some water and put it on the stove to boil. This time (unlike the previous year) I remembered not to add the sugar until the plums were well cooked. It took about 25 minutes of simmering. Jam making wisdom decrees that if you add the sugar at the start the fruit skins won't soften. I haven't found it bothers me particularly, but what the heck.

By the way, you don't have to remove the skins of the plums unless they really bother you. Pam doesn't and I no longer do. It makes the whole thing much easier. Also, just skimming along with a slotted spoon as the skins rise to the surface can get rid of lots of them if you aren't too fastidious about the odd skin.
I actually kind of like them. They are just part of the texture of the jam, and aren't tough or chewy in the slightest.

Once the fruit is totally cooked I added the sugar. Victoria plums are pretty sweet, so I don't match the fruit weight quite equally. I added 2.5kg of granulated sugar to the pan.

Yes, you read that correctly. Two and a half kilos. Of sugar. Five and a half pounds. What sort of insane foodstuff needs that much sugar?

Well, jam, obviously. Because it is the high sugar content that preserves the fruit so I can have this September's plums on my toast next spring. Logically I know that but it still feels an insane amount to weigh out. It filled 2 of my big pasta bowls.

Heaps of sugar

 I stirred it well and kept it on a low boil for a while to let the sugar dissolve completely. Then, with a last stir for luck, I took it up to a rolling boil in pursuit of the elusive Setting Point.

Books and online recipes usually tell me my jam will reach setting point in 10 to 12 minutes. I don't think it has ever happened in less than 20. I don't stir it (it cools the jam slightly and delays setting) and I *think* I do everything they suggest, but it still takes longer than they tell me. Possibly it's because I have MASSES of plums and scale up the recipes.

Anyway, once my jam is boiling like billy-o and gets a little darker in colour I pop my sugar thermometer in. It usually romps up to 102 degrees and then sits there for ages. I try again every few minutes. By around 103 degrees I grab one of those saucers I put in the freezer and plop a tiny bit of jam on it. after a couple of minutes I push it with my finger to see if the jam wrinkles up ahead of my finger or not. If not (and the first few goes are always a 'not' in my experience) I get to scoff the yummy sloppy jam bit and try again with another cold saucer in a few minutes.

Once I was fairly happy the jam had reached setting point I turned off the heat. I took the still-warm jars and lids from the dishwasher and put them on the counter ready to be filled.  I don't have a jam funnel which would make filling the jars nice and easy. And I only remember this when I am in full jam-making flow. Dolt.

Anyway, I put my jars on sheets of the reusable baking parchment I use for lining cake tins and baking trays. It makes clearing up my jam spillage much easier. Had my kitchen not been very warm - and consequently my counter top - I would have put folded tea towels under the parchment. hot jam jars and cold stone counters can result in the glass breaking. Not good.

I filled the jars to very near the absolute top and put the lids on. As the jam cools and contracts it will create a vacuum seal. You can tell that it's worked by looking at the little dimple on the jar lid. If it is concave the seal is fine. If you can push that dimple down and it pops up convex again, the jar isn't sealed. You can just keep that jar in the fridge and use it up quickly or you can heat the jam up again, sterilise the jar again and have another go.

I got 13 jars of jam from my 3kg (stoned weight) of plums. I expect about 5 or 6 will get given away. The rest will go on the top shelf of my cupboard, waiting to bring late summer happiness to months ahead.

Jay xx

PS - When I was a kid I had a hell of a time remembering which was concave and which was convex. The only way I kept it straight was this -  concave is caved in. Convex is vexed, and is sticking its tongue out at you. I'm educational gold, me. You're welcome.

Dealing with August's overabundance

At the start of April my garden looked like this -

This is not normal for Yorkshire. Not normal AT ALL. There had been a brief warm spell in March that got my hopes up but then cold, wet, horrid weather stopped anything growing for months. By the end of April I'd done all the prep work for my vegetable garden but nothing had started growing. My seeds remained resolutely unsprouty. It started to look like it was going to be another duff year for growing food.

I should have had more faith.  Once the ground warmed up everything took off like a rocket. This is what my garden looks like today:

That is different washing on the line, by the way. In case you were thinking I left stuff out for 4 months at a time. I may be slack, but I'm not quite that slack. 

The veg have all gone a little mental. I have so many green beans eating them was starting to feel like homework. The Italian kale has more leaves than we - and the caterpillars - can possible eat. The lettuce are becoming small shrubs, the nasturtiums are threatening to cover the lawn and the courgette and squash plants have colonised two paths and are making a bid for the strawberry patch. It's ace but it's also a bit too much.

I am a big fan of seasonality up to the point that the glut of produce is making me feel guilty. I don't want to waste any of the lovely fresh veg but I also don't want to force feed the family on greens to the point of a revolt.  So I thought about preparing and freezing some of the harvest.

I started with French beans. To keep them in the best possible condition for future use I needed to freeze them. However, the enzymes in veg that cause rot and decay remain active when frozen unless they've been killed off by blanching the vegetables, so you can't just wash them and bung them in freezer bags. Blanching means briefly boiling them then plunging then into ice cold water to stop the residual heat from cooking the veg further. It's as easy as that.

I had no ice as I'd used it all making iced coffee last week, so I stuck a huge bowl of water in my chest freezer while I went to pick the beans.

Then I took a colander out with me and picked as many as I could fit in it. I threw the manky and dried-out -looking beans to the chickens to fight over and kept all the nice ones. I washed them thoroughly in a sink of salty water to remove any small beasties as well as traces of dirt and leaves.

We like our beans pretty long, so after I'd trimmed the ends I just cut the most oversized ones in half and left the rest. If you prefer your beans cut into short pieces, now's the time.

I brought a massive stock pot of water to the boil, tipped the beans in and put the lid on. They were there for 3 minutes. A side benefit of blanching is that it makes the colours all lovely and intense. That's why the beans in photos below have a much deeper green than the ones above.

Then I drained them and plopped them in that big bowl of water I'd had sitting in the freezer. The rule of thumb is to leave them in the cold water for as long as you've had them in the hot.

I dried them on a clean tea towel and spread them on a tray to freeze. 

After an hour, I tipped the partly frozen beans into a ziplock bag. I couldn't resist weighing my beans - look, nearly a kilo! 

To prevent freezer burn it's best to get as much air out as you can, so I sealed the bag up except for enough space for a straw, and I sucked out all the air I could. Then I sealed that last corner quickly and popped the bag back in the freezer. 

 Ta da! Lots of lovely green beans ready for us whenever we fancy. The time between picking them and freezing them was about 20 minutes, so they keep all the lovely fresh vitamins and sweetness. And no kids throwing strops about having French beans for the third night in a row. Well, not until next week, when the next lot of beans are ready for picking.