More Fun With Food in Jars

One thing that attracts me to preserving food in jars is that no fridge is required, and I don't have a fridge.  There wasn't a fridge in my flat when I moved in, so I decided to just do without one.  It's easier than you imagine it might be.  Try it if you get the chance.  Doing without things you tend to assume you "need" but in fact may not, is healthy.

But another thing that attracts me to preserving food in jars is that it's yummy.  Not always, I must admit, irresistibly yummy, but yummy enough.  More than enough.  For instance, apparently I enjoy making jam more than I actually enjoy eating it.  I'd all but forgotten about the stockpile of blackberry jam I accumulated at the end of last summer, leaving it to...mature (?) on the top shelf of my kitchen cupboard.  Now that summer's here again and I'm finding new and interesting ways of preserving food, I'd assumed naively that last year's jam would have gone mouldy by now.  An experiment nobody ever got to eat.  But, not so.

Last year's jam. 

I've already given away several jars of jam to friends and colleagues, some of which have the 2018 vintage, and everyone has been complimentary.  Nobody has died: or if they have, they're very politely not telling me about it.  I've cracked open a jar of year old jam myself, and it's good as fresh.  All that sugar, and sterilising jars, you see.  It was worth it.

And now summer's here again. My blackcurrant bush, which for reasons known only to itself, didn't fruit last year at all, has been bursting with little fruity balls.

Balls. 

Meanwhile, strawberries are ripening in the wilderness bed, and hanging from the shed.

Along with some raspberries overflowing from a neighbour's plot (she doesn't mind me nicking them, she told me) I've put together a good few jars of "summer fruit jam", which you can read all about here.

But all this is only a prelude to my true, new love: fermenting vegetables.  After trying my hand at wild garlic, and reading up a little on the subject, I've branched out in every direction I can reach: peas and their pods, courgettes, carrots, celery, broccoli stalks, kale.  I've amassed quite a collection.  Yes, I am feeling pleased with myself.

No deal Brexit probiotic stockpile

Lacto-fermenting is just preserving things in salt water, which makes it almost impossible to get wrong.  Rather like making jam; if you do it wrong, you'll know.  Even if you do get in a bit wrong, you'll still have something that's (probably) edible.  So it's fun to experiment.

Asparagus.  I already ate these.

Remember when I theorised a bottomless pickle jar?  That was one thing; here's another thing.  A better thing.  A bottomless jar of ferments.  You probably know about re-growing spring onions in water.  I've used that "trick" (or dare I say, "hack"?) to my advantage a number of times.  It occurred to me I could put these two ideas together; and so it was that I invented the bottomless ferment jar.  I've three jars of spring onions on top of my cooker, and it's a warm time of year, so they're growing back fast.  Every couple of inches, I trim them off, add them to a jar of brine, weigh down to keep all the veg under the liquid, and screw the lid back on nice and tight.  I've been doing this for a week or so now, and this is what I have:

There does seem to be a limit to how many times you can re-grow a spring onion, but they're pretty resilient if you keep them in fresh water.  Each time I chop them, I empty the water into one of my lucky plants, and top back up.  I wonder if you could have an indoor system of spring onions into ferments, using the water from growing the onions to water the new ones you've got growing in soil for when the ones in jars shrivel up.  Not quite a closed loop, but closer.

And finally, pickles.  Most of my allotment onions this year bolted, leaving small and otherwise disappointingly sized bulbs.  But they're perfect for pickling.  You can't tell me this isn't a thing of beauty:

You never see red pickled onions, do you?  I don't know why.  Now you can.  Meanwhile, piccalilli!

You've got to be more careful with the hygiene when you're pickling: properly sterilised jars, immersed in just boiled water from the kettle and dried off in the oven (about 150 degrees centrigrade for 10 minutes is enough, and don't forget the lids) is the thing here.  My Granddad occasionally made piccalilli.  He was a patient man, more patient than me.  Most piccalilli recipes advised leaving your jars for 4 - 6 weeks to mature.  The little jar pictured here is something I scoffed the other night, only about 3 weeks after sealing.  It was yummy enough, and crunchy, but didn't taste ready yet.  The recipes are right, and so was my Granddad.  Patience rewards.  Plants continue to teach us patience, even in their afterlife.

Yesterday's allotment video:

Related posts

Fruits of the Forage
Bread and Jam and Circuses
Spontaneous Summer Fruit Jam
Wild Garlic Experiments
Eating from the Bottomless Pickle Jar
A Soup Made of Scraps
Another Soup Made of Scraps
Home Grown Green Breakfast Stir Fry


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A Weekend Visiting One Planet Developments in Wales

This is Irene.  It may not be immediately obvious from my shoddy camera work and the microphone distortion from the summer breeze, but Irene is one of the happiest people in the world.

Irene is talking here about how she takes 2 - 3 hours to plant one tree.  She takes her time, because trees take their time too.  Irene is wise.

Irene is one of several families whose sites I visited with a few friends last weekend, building a "One Planet Development", land based projects supported by the Welsh Government under the conditions that they: 

• Have a light touch on the environment – positively enhancing the environment where ever possible through activities on the site.
• Be land based – the development must provide for the minimum needs of residents in terms of food, income, energy and waste assimilation in no more than five years.
• Have a low ecological footprint – the development must have an initial ecological footprint of 2.4 global hectares per person or less with a clear potential to move to 1.88 global hectares per person over time – these are the Ecological Footprint Analysis benchmarks for all One Planet Development. 
• Have very low carbon buildings – these are stringent requirements, requiring that buildings are low in carbon in both construction and use. 
• Be defined and controlled by a binding management plan which is reviewed and updated every five years. 
• Be bound by a clear statement that the development will be the sole residence for the proposed occupants. 

- Practice Guidance: One Planet Development Technical Advice Note Number 6 [pdf] 

The nitty-gritty of setting something like this up (finance, planning permission, building regulations, general bureaucracy) is the sort of information I find almost impossible to concentrate on, let alone understand; but the spirit and motivation behind it all is as clear as day.  Live simply, happily, and in peaceful co-existence with nature.  Work out a way to do that, in Wales, and the Welsh government will support you.  If only the English government would do the same.

Irene and her partner have already built a beautiful barn...

...and a pond...

...and rows and rows of abundant beds where happy go pecky chickens roam free...

This was down in Pembrokeshire.  Meanwhile, elsewhere in Wales, other happy people are working out their one planet livings in log cabins, straw bale houses, composting toilets, roundhouses and polytunnels:

These pictures are from the site we visited on Saturday, where three families have a plot of land together they have divided into three, each building their one planet development in a loose kind of "community with a small 'c'", as one resident described it.  Some disagreements exist between them as to whether they should become a community with a big 'C' although in day-to-terms, this didn't seem to matter.

As part of the commitment to a sizeable percentage of their income (35 - 65%) directly from their land, mini businesses and economic relationships and formed between the "one planeters" and the locals, selling their produce and skills.  (One resident is a qualified builder of musical instruments, using wood grown and harvested from the site).

The practicalities of all this, as I send tend to go in one ear and out the other, which is unfortunate because this is exactly the sort of life I would like to live back here in England.  Fortunately, other people who understand this stuff are beginning to emerge, and plans, still vague - but exciting - are beginning to form.

Related posts

A Weekend at Earthship Brighton
A Day at LILAC
A Smaller World (Part One)
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Please consider disabling your adblockers when reading this site.  I make every effort to ensure no inappropriate, rubbish or offensive advertising appears here, and nothing that is contrary to the spirit of this blog.  So it's really nothing to be afraid of.  Cheers.