Monday 6 September 2010

Weekend Harvest


Sunflowers in the field behind our house

It has been a beautiful weekend here and the perfect time to harvest our fruit and veg.
Here are just some of the things we collected this weekend
6kgs Apples
8 kgs yellow plums
15kgs tomatoes
8 squashes - for the pigs
potatoes - too many to weigh, now bagged up and in the garage

These are the first fruits off this plum tree .

I used some to make a crumble, some I froze for a crumble in the winter and the rest I used in a Hot Spiced plum chutney from the Cottage Smallholder

http://www.cottagesmallholder.com/hot-spiced-plum-chutney-recipe-6959

It made 3 Kilner Jars and half a jar, which are now in my store cupboard mouldering for a couple of months

With the apples I made Spiced Apple jelly and Mint Apple Jelly
http://www.cottagesmallholder.com/hot-apple-and-chilli-jelly-recipe-6372

As I did not have a jelly bag, I improvised, taking the advice of the Cottage Smallholder


I used an old pillow case, washed and sterilised by ironing, tied onto a broom handle, hung between 2 chairs over a colander into the pan - well you can see that for yourself anyway!
The recipe gave me 1 litre of liquid which when the sugar was added and boiled, gave me three and a half jars of beautiful peach coloured jelly with a massive kick to it!!
The Mint apple jelly was my own adaption but does not tast very minty, maybe will try again and add more mint, not sure yet.

Some of the apples I used in cupcakes. I cooked 3 apples, chopped into small bits, with some vanilla sugar until they were soft. Then I made a normal cupcake or fairy cake recipe with 200g of everything. I put muffin cases in the muffin tin, then put 1 large teaspoon of the cake mixture, a spoonful of apples then finished off with a spoonful of the cake mixture to cover the apples. However I ran out of mixture for the last three cakes, so I crumbled up some left over cranberry cake and put this on top. Into the oven 180° for a good 20 minutes.
They were delicious.

As you can see we had a busy weekend!!











2 comments:

Diane said...

Wow you have!!! Loved your last few posts. My baby is off to Uni in a couple of weeks - I'm scared, she's giddy!! I am a HUGE fan of Martin Lewis's website - it revolutionised my life when I discovered it. Being in the UK means we blag a lot of the freebies on the site - we are off to the cinema tonight - and Thursday night to see movies that are not yet released - FOR FREE!!! Let us know how you go on with the budgeting. xxx

Living the frugal life in France said...

Thanks for your comment. I hope you get on Ok when your daughter goes to uni. Is she the last one left or do you have other children still at home. I am Ok about it all now - he has gone, We've done all we can, it's up to him now. he has to do the work now.*
You are lucky to get all the freebies. here in France there is nothing like that at all.No websites to help budget, nothing.