Preserving Is A Family Affair

As our children have got older we've had to start putting more food away to last us longer. 

Luckily they all love helping and the last few weeks there's been quite a few times with  us all sat round a table prepping a harvest to preserve it. 

Dehydrating Yakon

 On my never ending quest to dehydrate everything in sight after buying my new, pink, dehydrator last month I decided to quickly dehydrate he last of my yakon before it all went bad.

a rather goofy picture of me with some yakon

Last year was my first year growing this unusual tuber, and I wondered how it would do in storage, kept in my frost free shed it kept well over the whole winter and only in the middle of April did it start to rot from the broken ends or where it joined the main stem.

Dehydrating ti was simple, I pealed it, cut it into slices and laid them out on a tray, I think I dehydrated it on the vegetable setting for around 16 hours, so they're really dry and really chewy.

They taste like a sweetened parsnip when dry, I can't say that I'm a 100% fan but I'll happily eat one or two crisps when I pop the lid. The kids, on the other hand, go absolutely mad for them, wanting them as an after school snack when they get in from pick up, the great thing is that as sweet as they are they can't digest any of the sugar they contain so it won't send them loopy!

A good way to use this harvest up and something I'll certainly be doing again next year, in fact I'm going to plant extra with this in mind. 

Dehydrating Rhubarb

Okay with my new dehydrator I've been looking for things to dry! 

I always have an abundance of rhubarb at this time of year (although I've managed to sell quiet a bit this year) and my wife isn't hugely keen on it. 

I decided to dry some and see if it's any good in my overnight oats that I've been eating. It's pointless to dry it if there's no use for it at the end. 

We picked a huge amount and set to cutting it up fairly evenly to put on the nine trays (I think I used eight as I cut the top layer a bit thick), my two assistants laid them out on the tray for me, it's funny watching them stealing bits of rhubarb and then having to spit them out - they took ages to learn that it's quite tart! 

I then set it to dry, I had no idea how long it would take so set the timer for 16 hours on the fruit temperature. I think in the end it was dry at around 13 hours. I don't mind if these go really hard as they're to be rehydrated before eating, not to be used as snacks like some dried fruit. 

It's comical how small this stuff gets after it's done - rhubarb is a lot of water! 

My eldest and me tried some in our oats yesterday morning (added in the night before) they had the texture of a currant as they weren't fully hydrated but with a sharp flavour, a really good and healthy addition to our breakfast with very little cost involved.

Have you ever dehydrated rhubarb? 

What use did you find for it?

Small Batch Preserving

First off a quick apology to say sorry about my blog silence for the last week or so. I've been trying to get a job somewhere near finished before Christmas, I've been doing some late nights and I'm looking forward to having a bit of time off over Christmas. 

Last week I met up with Kirsty for one of my last play dates as a stay-at-home-dad. 

Before I went I emptied the freezer and grabbed all the berries taking up space. We decided to have another preserving day and see what we could make with four kids running around. 

 I think we did pretty well, we made red onion chutney, black currant jam, gooseberry jam and red currant jam. In total we made 32 jars and canned some in mason jars so it will last even longer. 

Divvying up at the end I felt really proud of food we'd created that will last for a long time. I'm really getting into the whole canning thing now and I'm looking forward to canning lots next year, I think a pressure canner will have to be on the cards at some point! 

Chilli Apple Chutney & Raspberry Jam

It's been a couple of very wet days here and to make matters worse the little one has been under the weather. Nothing serious but she's been a bit clingy and not wanting to go outside as much as normal. So while she's napped I've started to do a bit more preserving of this years harvest. 

The first thing I did was to make some jam, just 7 jars but it's a start. These was using some raspberries I'd picked earlier in the year and some of the left over cooking apples from canning the other day. Jam making is so simple and we eat much more of it than we used to! In fact we were down to just one jar left! See previous posts on raspberry jam here and here.

Then the next thing I made was some chilli and apple chutney. 

Although I froze a load of chillies I still had some on the plants that I didn't know what to do with and I fancied something spicy to make cheese sandwiches a bit more interesting over the winter. 

I need to let this mature for a month before I try it, so please don't copy the recipe yet but I'm going to write it here incase it's any good and then I'll be able to copy it at a later date.

600g chopped onions
1 kg chopped apples,
300ml of malt vinegar (I think cider vinegar would be better but I had none!)
12 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon of turmeric
2 teapoons of ground ginger
275g demerara sugar
Chillies - I used a few Sotch Bonnet, half a dozen cayennes, one Aji Crystal (really hot), and about eight cherry bombs.
Rasins - You can add these if you like but I hate them in chutney so never do!

I then cooked the onions until soft, added the apples and garlic and did the same before adding everything else and cooking until I could see the bottom of the pan when I pulled the spoon through.

Pour into sterilised jars and keep for a month before eating. I made five jars.

when I tried a bit the hotness was a growing sensation! Not too hot but it builds over time. Really looking forward to trying this when it's matured!

Anyone else made any chilli preserves lately?

First Time Canning

 I've been on about trying canning for a long time and since Kirsty (from Rural Retreat Restoration)  has learnt how to do it I thought she'd be the perfect person to teach me. Yesterday was a wet and miserable afternoon, so perfect to meet up with a friend and spend it preserving fruit in good company. 

In them morning I'd picked a good amount of cooking apples out of one of the fields I rent, Howgate Wonder, and bought them round to Kirsty's house. 

We then set to work pealing, coring and chopping them up. The first batch was for apple pie filling (although more likely to be crumble for me) with an American  recipe off the internet, it was quite sweet! 

 Kirsty set to it like she'd been canning all here life and we soon had some jars canned. Unfortunately a few of my Kilner lids kinked so we had to redo a couple of them, but we had space in the pan for the next batch so it wan't the end of the world. It seems the Ball brand are slightly better quality.

The children were being brilliant and quite happy just playing with the apple. 

 We made 13 jars of the pie filling and then made a batch of apples in a light syrup, just five jars this time but I imagine it would be great ladled over custard! 

We were pleased with our afternoons work and although we maybe didn't make as much as some of the amounts I see on some American blogs, we did have four children to deal with as well! 

I think I might be addicted now and want to can more! Anyone know the best place to by the mason jars in the UK? They seem expensive everywhere I look over here and I'd like to buy a good quantity of them, as well as a pressure canner at some point as well! 

Food Drying

Last year I dried a few raspberries when we had a glut, every time I've used them in my baking they've tasted amazing so this year I've decided to dry a lot more. My little old food dryer is going flat out to try to dry these juicy berries. 

 A full punnet (about what I'm picking a day at the moment) dries down to about 3/4 of a kilner jar.

 While I was at it I also dried some bananas that had gone past their best (and a few apples on the top layer to fill up space), they make great snacks for the kids and I wouldn't have used them for much else (I didn't fancy banana cake today).

My food drier is very basic, just one setting and it's pretty noisy. I was wondering just how good are the more professional models and are they worth their big price tag?