Homemade Sweet Mincemeat

I really like making my own mincemeat if I get a chance, actually, I like homemade anything if I get a chance. I found a new recipe online.

I chopped all the fruit and added it to a large pan with the butter and sugar.

Put heat under the pan until the sugar and butter have melted. I actually put mine in a food processer to chop it smaller as I thought my first lot of chopping was too big.

Then add the considerable amount of alcohol! Mix well.

Then I put it in my sterilised jars and sealed them up. (it did taste good when I licked the spoon afterwards 😉

Notes:

I replaced the cranberries will other fruits because you shouldn’t give them to people who take warfarin and a family member of mine does.
This recipe contains nuts so you can replace them with other fruit.
You can replace the alcohol with juice if you wish.
To sterilise Jars, wash thoroughly in hot soapy water, then rinse and put them on a baking tray in a low oven while making up the mincemeat mixture. I always sterilise one more jar than I think I need, just in case.
I’m sure you can replace the butter with sunflower spread to make it vegan.

Advertisement

Sweet Picked Beetroot

I’ve found this an odd semi-Covid year, I’ve also had shingles and it’s taken a long time to get my energy back. I’ve been inspired recently to get doing things again and I have some projects I’ve done that I want to show you. But first on today’s menu, pickled beetroot. I bought a 1kg bag of beetroot from a local shop that had been reduced to 50p and that’s motivation enough to make me think ‘pickled beetroot’ and today I made some.

I found a recipe in an old recipe book.

I made my spiced vinegar with 1 litre of distilled malt vinegar, 1 cinnamon stick, 1tsp black peppercorns, 1/2 tsp whole cloves, 1 tsp yellow mustard seeds, 1 tsp whole all spice 3 bay leaves and 3 tbsp caster sugar. I am going to bottle up the excess vinegar to use for something else along with the leftover spices.

He are my finished jars all ready for Christmas (or sooner) 🙂 I have re-used mayo jars and sterilised them in the oven.

Tomatoes

Despite the neglect, my tomatoes a doing surprisingly well 🙂 They are showing signs of irregular watering but still taste delicious!  
The same goes for my peppers and chillies.

I’m planning to roast and preserve the peppers in olive oil

and dry and freeze the chillies 🙂

New Years Marmalade

It’s the time of the year for marmalade, the Seville oranges have been in the shops and thoughts are directed to making a years supply of marmalade. The reason for this sudden desire to slice 6 pounds of oranges is two fold. It tastes better and it’s cheaper!

For several years now I’ve put the oranges in a food processor to chop them, but this year I decided to slice by hand. Oh my word, I was so surprised how pleasant it was to sit and slice the oranges by hand (with a nice serrated steak knife) in the quiet. A very simple life thing to do, and it was easier to extract the pips too!

Once the sliced oranges have soaked over night they are meant to be simmered to reduce the liquid by a third. When I had heated the the water in the pan and added the sugar I realised I hadn’t done that!!!

I managed to rescue it by taking some liquid out, adding more sugar and a bottle of liquid pectin. Here on my pantry shelf are twenty jars of marmalade. I now feel like Moomin Mama and I have a very happy husband!

It tastes exceptionally good too 🙂

Blood Orange Marmalade

When I saw the blood oranges were in season on the market stall I like to use (nice un-packaged fruit and veg) I thought I would try making some marmalade with them to see what it was like. I should have worked out the costings so I could share with you how little you can pay, but I forgot to record it so I might add it later.

They are not very attractive are they? 
..but look how pretty they are inside!
I chop my oranges in my food processor for quickness. ..
….then the marmalade is all pulpy and nice.
I did have some trouble with the recipe I found, so had to do some adaptation from my normal Seville orange marmalade recipe to get it right. Trust me, if you have a go at preserving and it doesn’t work out, it could be the recipe and not you!

Here it is, yum! It’s very perfumed compared to other marmlade I’ve made. I collect and re-use jars, keeping the pretty jars for me, they look nice in the pantry, and fill some plainer jars so I have some to give away 🙂

Seville Orange Marmalade

Woohoo – I actually made my marmalade last week 🙂 Luckily Seville oranges do last quite a while if kept in a cool place. My husband  feels much happier now that the pantry is stocked with marmalade!

I’ve posted the recipe before, so if you want it, just look in my tags. 🙂

Chutney

I Love preserving and I hate waste.

Everyone knows who grows them, that courgettes are prone to be very prolific and grow very big very quickly. Chutney is one of the answers to not wasting them (another is chickens, they are happy to eat what you can’t manage!) This recipe is inspired by Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall’s ‘River Cottage Glutney’. Basicly you can through most things in and it comes out great! 🙂 Here’s Hugh’s recipe with my pictures! 🙂

1kg courgettes, unpeeled if small, peeled if huge, cut into 1cm dice (or use pumpkin later in the season)
1kg red or green tomatoes, scalded, skinned and roughly chopped (or 1kg plums, stoned and chopped)
1kg cooking or eating apples, peeled and diced
500g onions, peeled and diced
500g sultanas or raisins
500g light brown sugar
750ml white-wine or cider vinegar, made up to 1 litre with water
1-3 tsp dried chilli flakes
1 tsp salt
For the spice bag
1 thumb-sized nugget of fresh or dried ginger, roughly chopped
12 cloves
12 black peppercorns
1 (generous) tsp coriander seeds
A few blades of mace

Put the vegetables and fruit in a large, heavy-based pan with the sultanas or raisins, sugar, vinegar and water, chilli flakes and salt.

Make up the spice bag by tying all the spices in a square of muslin or cotton. Add the spice bag to the pan, pushing it into the middle.

Heat the mixture gently, stirring occasionally to dissolve the sugar, and bring slowly to the boil. Simmer for 2-3 hours, uncovered, stirring regularly to ensure it does not burn on the bottom of the pan. 

The chutney is ready when it is rich, thick and reduced, and parts to reveal the base of the pan when a wooden spoon is dragged through it. If it starts to dry out before this stage is reached, add a little boiling water.

Pot up the chutney while still warm (but not boiling hot) in sterilised jars with plastic-coated screw-top lids (essential to stop the vinegar interacting with the metal). Leave to mature for at least two weeks – ideally two months – before serving. ·

Warning: Don’t mistake tea spoons for table spoons for the chilli flakes like I did!!! Mind you a nice hot and spicy chutney is nice 🙂

Greengage Jam

For want of repeating myself on regular intervals, I’ve made my regular greengage jam. Not so many greengages this year, but enough to make a good quantity of jam.

Eating them fresh is like eating little balls of nectar
and eating the jam,  it’s extremely sweet and something very special!

Can’t wait till it cools:-)

Rhubarb Wine

Remember this, the stringy old rhubarb only fit for the compost heap!.
Well it’s now ready for the compost heap….
after a soaking in water with a spoon of  pectolaise to release the lovely juice.
With added sugar and yeast it is heading for the airing cupboard to be forgotten about for a few months until it’s ready to bottle.

I’ve never made rhubarb wine before so we’ll have to see how it comes out! 🙂

 

Dandelion Wine

My dandelion wine has been sitting in the airing cupboard for a while, looking lovely, waiting to be bottled. Today was the day – and a bit of taste testing while processing has made me think it’s going to be a good year 🙂

Now I know what to do with the stringy old rhubarb that’s left over  in the garden. Yes you’ve guessed it, more wine!

I’ll let you know what happens next 🙂