Natures Harvest & Sustainable Preserves

With the return of the house to a new normal, I've found myself with a little more time on my hands.  After the initial rush of tackling the clutter post Christmas - and rushing to get homemade birthday presents finished for friends - the lull in activity did come.

In large part it was welcome - a little rest is good for the soul after all.  But since my accident, I do struggle with a need to be 'productive'- especially once the chores are done and the children are at school, it sometimes feels as if my role as stay at home mum is defunct.  To combat this I set myself tasks to do which support the family and our more frugal way of life.  One of those things is to make jams, jellies and chutney from the fruit that was harvested from our apple trees... and berry picking which happened this past autumn. 


























I did add some jars of chutney I'd made already to the homemade hampers I gave as Christmas gifts to family.  I also froze some fruit I didn't have time to use in the autumn and last week made more chutney to enjoy over the coming months with cold meats and cheese using recipes I'd not tried before.  They'll mature in around 3 months and hopefully taste lovely then!

Another way to satisfy this need in me is to grow a little produce in our veg patch - it comprises a small raised bed and over the past years we've had good success with courgettes and dwarf French beans.  These are ideal for chutneys and work wonderfully as additional vegetables in homemade meals (while fresh).  2013 was no exception with 27 courgettes being collected from a very small space.  I would love to have an allotment but my physical health just doesn't allow this although I enjoy selecting what we will try to grow each spring in our little space.

My parents were my tutors in this way of life.  I'm the only person I know that preserves in my 'real / non blog' world - so many of my friends say they enjoy the results but don't have the time.  My Father had a truly inspiring garden.  As a family of 5, we lived off it throughout the spring, summer and autumn.  Colanders of strawberries, raspberries, loganberries, gooseberries, blackcurrants, rows of potatoes, runner beans, swede, onions - simple, sustainable vegetables and fruit - plus chickens for eggs.

Some of my most vivid childhood memories are of my late father leaning on his fork tending his crops after work.  It would have been his birthday yesterday and it left me reflective on all the things that he imparted that still live on in me and my family.

Plus vivid memories of my mother stirring her huge preserving pan filled with jam or hanging a pillow case from a nail in an out-house to strain bramble fruit through to make jelly preserves.  She still does this now and is an amazing preserve maker - her preserving pan is older than I am and has had much use!

As a child in my home village, we'd also get more fruit from neighbours who didn't want to waste their 'glut' or didn't like the look of their windfalls.  Windfalls are great for jamming - it just takes time to peel and cut out the bruises.  With the Harvest Festival at the local chapel, there was the following harvest auction, where we'd buy boxes of home grown produce for pennies to go towards the chapel roof or some other community project.  Now that produce gets used by Food Banks and it's no longer possible to capitalise on - but they are such happy memories.  So much opportunity for chutney, jams and jellies plus a whole number of pudding and baking opportunities!

The cycle continues as my children enjoy foraging for blackberries and picking apples from the trees during late Autumn.  We go blackberry picking around the fields of two of my friend's farms and usually have a good haul - enough for jamming and lots for apple and blackberry crumble!!

If I can provide an element of such inspiration, understanding of sustainable living and simple joy to my children I feel sure that I will be doing something worthwhile...  There is something immensely rewarding to yield a crop from something that has minimal negative impacts on the environment and is essentially Free.  And during this period in time where cost-effective home making is beginning to be more valued again by more families, I wholeheartedly choose this simple path. 

It is sustainable for our body, mind and soul.  I shall be proud to pass this on to my children and create new memories based on this way of life.  Memories of picking apples on daddy's shoulders and mummy stirring her preserving pot.

The natural rhythm of these Simple Things and the cycle of it all is a real JoY.

Thanks for reading and welcome to all my new followers.  Remember there is still time to enter my giveaway here - just drop me a comment on that post before the 13th!

Enjoy your week whatever you're doing, J9 x

Tasty Tuesday

Goodness.  It's been too long.  I'm still adjusting to being home alone and the pain from my disability has left me avoiding communication with the world!  I'm currently trialling different pills for pain relief and it always has a bit of a knock on on the things that I can get up to - hopefully it'll be worth it in the long run. 

Having said that though, I have been busy on the 'Pretty Filter' front.  I will endeavour to show you my crochet ta dah's and updates on my 'Pretty Filter' during May.  Promise.

Today, I wanted to share with you an idea that's been brewing for a while.  As a stay at home mum, one of the regular parts of my daily routine is cooking the evening meal.  I've become bored with the routine meals I've been cooking.  R has quite a sensitive palette and likes more traditional plainer food, which does restrict us a little.  I cook from scratch most nights but the regular favourites (spaghetti bolognese, risotto, jacket potatoes, roast chicken, fish pie etc) have become both boring to eat AND boring to cook!

I'd began to dread cooking.  And that's just not me.  I LoVE to cook -I like to bake even more. I  love the fact I can put healthy, nutritious meals together for our family to eat - and all on a tight budget.  But that feeling has been getting jaded.  Tired even.

So, I've set myself a challenge.  On Tuesdays each week I will commit to cook a 'new' meal and bring it to our family tea time.  This will include a main and a pudding (oooh naughty) and hopefully over time I shall increase the range of things R will eat and the range of meals I can add to our rotating repertoire!

So I've decided to launch this idea with Cornish Pasties (as a Cornish girl, I'm sure I can call them Cornish pasties even though I've made them in Somerset!!). 

I made a cheese, potato and onion one for R and the traditional pork, potato, swede (which Cornish people call turnips - yet the rest of the country calls each vegetable the opposite) onion, a small knob of butter to help make nice juicy gravy and a few twists of ground pepper.

 

Once you've added the ingredients you crimp the edges together.  This originated in Cornwall down the mines and was a regular part of the miners' meals.  Often stewed apple would fill up the bottom half of the pasty and the miner would throw away the generous pastry crimpings as they often had dirty or arsenic laden residue on their hands. 

 

 

You do have to add some fork holes for the steam to escape and then they don't usually laugh (split open) although you can use egg wash if needed to patch holes or bind the pastry edges together.

 

 

I haven't made pasties in a good few years so I was very pleased with how these turned out.  It was definately a positive start to adding homemade variety to our mealtime. 

 

For afters I've made a pineapple upside down cake.  I didn't look at a recipe - just made up a basic sponge mixture and put cut up fresh pineapple in the bottom of a pyrex dish.

Once I'd added a decent layer of the fresh pineapple I poured over the sponge mixture and baked.  We had it with custard and was lovely while warm.  I can tell you it definately tasted better than it looked!!

Tea time is a really lovely time in our family and I hope to add a bit more excitement to our Tuesday nights!  We've discussed it as a family and we're all 'on board' with the plan.  Hopefully Tasty Tuesdays will bring a bit of variety to our tea time and at the very least will get me reading through some recipe books that sit forever on the shelves in our kitchen.

Here's to planning our new meal for next week's Tasty Tuesday!!

Pop back later this week and I'll share little lady's bedroom Ta Dah!  Thanks for reading,
J9 x

Today I'm partying with these fabulous blogs:

Inspire Me Tuesday

Coastal Charm