What are you making with your Edible Harvests ?

No i haven't but i freeze them, just as good.

 

Used a few of the little bags of fruit in the freezer to make a compost crumble. It is a Nigel slater recipe which uses left overs or things slightly past their best but it was pretty tasty.

I've got an apple chutney soda bread to try later, it smells nice but we shall see.

 

I didn't know it was possible to have lemon balm growing in such small amounts you had to search for it!

 

How do you prepare them for freezing please? Chop or ?

Many thanks
Lori

 

I just finished crushing loads of super hot chillies and freezing them. I meant experiment with drying some in my sun oven but forgot and chopped them all.

I do have more that will be ready to pick soon. I'll try to remember then.

 

You just chop them into the size that you want and your welcome.

 

I'm a bit thick on this one, so you just cut them up and put them in a bag and freeze. I thought they would all stick together and be hard to portion. I shall give it a shot.

 

I've pickled hot chillies, chop them in half and put in vinegar, they keep for a long time. I've made chilli vinegar just by putting a few chillies into a small jar of vinegar and leave for a few weeks then strain and put the vinegar into a vinegar bottle designed for sprinkling on foods.

 

No they should be ok after freezing to separate if stuck together.

 

lol my lemon balm is stuck under the massive ramble rose, hardly gets any light so is very small..hubby couldnt find it even when he prune the rose today..must have all died back..

 

Bottled 5 jars of spiced beurre hardy pears. Need to buy some more white wine vinegar to do more but watching the pears falling off the tree in the wind will make some wine from them tomorrow.

 

Perry is easy as far as alcohol goes if you can juice them well.

My quince vinegar is going well but the fermenty smell is attracting fruit flies. they cant get into it but they are annoying anyway.

we picked another few kg of walnuts and sweet chestnuts from the feral/abandoned trees around odiham, plenty for us and a few others. the chestnuts are really tasty grilled but annoying to peel. I saw a few recipes saying to cut then soak the chestnuts in water but my family thinks this is heresy and they should just be roasted without soaking. What do other people do?

 

When I was looking for a nutcracker on Amazon (my hazel tree produced more than the squirrels could manage this year) I noticed there were lots of special tools for chestnuts, you might want to take a look.
I found my nutcracker in Morrisons in the end and my hazels are now all shelled. I plan to toast them and use them as a topping for my porridge.

I know some good chestnutting areas around me, but my experience is that I'll collect far too many, and then they'll either go mouldy or if I remember soon enough I'll stick them in the freezer and then have no room for anything else. I only have an under-counter freezer. Earlier this year I thawed out several bags of frozen chestnuts and fed them to the badgers.

 

I collected some Bramleys from a box a resident had left at their gate, and made a large crumble. Not made it for ages as it's too easy to eat! Daughter and myself had it last night. Yummmm.

My chives stay green all year round, although they get a bit raggedy @CanadianLori - do yours die back too much to use? I've never needed to freeze them due to that, but I expect if you just chop up enough for an average portion, and put them in bags in the freezer, they should be fine. It depends how you would also use them though. If it's for a salad or similar cold dish, they'd need to defrost well. Might be a bit soggy.

 

No gardening or cooking for me today. plus weatherman says 'gusty winds and rain today'..and l think he's right for once.. Took cloche off cabbages, l dont have anything to anchor them down so best not have them flying over to the 'manor house' veg plot next door. It's not really a manor house, but it looks like one. He has a massive house and garden, like a manor, and hires 2 gardeners who has a passion to keep lighting bonfires !! We took a peak this summer to see what they were growing and all they had was rows and rows of runnerbeans. As far as l know there as only 2 living there. l guess he sells them. Im jealous as my runner beans were terrible this year :( Still got my sore throat :( so off to check my old folklore books for remedies lol. as long as no frogs involved ll try anything lol.
Checked my greenhouse, loads of my winter seeds l sowed only a few days ago are up..cant see what they are, hope l labeled them lol. As couldnt do much all day yesterday, spent time making my nk year seed list out Only need a few for summer crops but intend to order some more for this year,,loads of Asian ones that can be sown October. l save my cashback money for my seed orders..limits what l can spend as l get carried away with seed orders. Iv only got £30 to spend so far ..but wont get much for that as seeds l want are approx"4.99 a pk :(