General Chat

Milly
I hope you do not mind me shortening your name.

The runner bean pickle sounds good but is it essential to use so much sugar.....?
I will make some of this when I return home after my visit to the UK.

I hope to get some new Recipies from my DIL whilst she is here, arriving today.

:-)

Will post carrot chutney at weekend...so hang on everyone

Jan

Carrot Chutney

Using a coarse grater grate 4lbs carrots, put in a large bowl with 2tsps ground ginger,8 dried chillies,chopped small,leaving seeds in, pour over 1 litre of cider vinegar, and 2 oz sea salt. mix and leave for 24 hours.

Next day peel 3 heads of garlic, if large cloves, cut in half. Put into large pan with carrots. bring to boil and simmer for 10mins then add 3lb granulated sugar and stir well...Bring back to the boil for at least 45 mins, stir occasionally, until thick and jammy. Then leave off heat for 3 mins and ladle into hot jars.

If you do not want a kick then halve the chillies or leave out.

Everyone will love it, good with cold meats or cheese, but when you have grated that amount of carrots, and tasted it you will not want to part with a jar.!!!!

To everyone.

I am away for about three weeks so please keep this thread alive.

Thank you

:-)

Where is everybody ? Hope someone does the carrot chutney, you will not regret it...yummy

As the old man is bringing in blackberries by the cartload I am always having to think of innovative things to do with them. Today it was blackberry blancmange.

I stewed the blackberries with sweetener and put them through a sieve.(Can you imagine blancmange with pips in?)

Made the pulp up to 2pints with milk and used 150g cornflour to make it.

It is setting at the moment but tomorrow we will know if it was a success.

Hello from Bridget who is still in the UK. It looks as if I am going to be here for a little longer. I had a problem with one of my eyes a few weeks ago but it started to feel better. Went for an eye check and have new classes and discovered that my painful eye is in fact rather worrying. Went to the doctor today and have an emergency appointment some time tomorrow at the hospital. I hope it is not as bad as the doctor has suggested.

Other than that all is well.

Sorry not to write any thing longer but eye is telling me to stop writing.

:-) :-)

Oh Bridget, hope you get on alright

Jan

Thank you Jam.
I am in my friends house waiting for the phone to ring as have been informed that I will learn today when and where i have to go.
Just had a message to say that I have to attend the hospital on Thursday at 09.45hrs, now I consider that is good news.


Bridget

And with christmas just around the corner, I have started my festive booze collection.

Half a kilner jar of your favourite fruit, ( blueberries, blackberries etc)
cover with sugar and fill the remaining half with a nice tipple either vodka, brandy or whisky.
Add more sugar if you like depends on taste.
filter off just before christmas into sterilized bottles, and the fruit is also nice as a boozy desert.

Another nice one is papaya with white rum. Same recipe but less sugar. ;-)

Jdubz

I will enjoy making this as soon as I get home.
B

Hope you get on alright on Thursday,that was a quick result

Bridget, good luck tomorrow, hope it is not as serious as they think.

Jubz, you could get tipsy reading the recipe :-D

Good luck Bridget. Hope all goes well for you.

Thank you all for your comments re my eye. I saw the consultant and learnt that this is not an uncommon condition but there is no cure! I have to learn to live with it and ensure that I use the drops three or four times a day. It is also likely that it will affect the other eye as well!

When I am back home about the end of next week I will tell you how I am progressing. Today for example I do not have any pain at all.

Meanwhile I hope that you are all well and add some new Recipies.

Bridget :-)

What sort of recipes do people want ?

Glad you are OK Bridget

Now there is a question? What sort of recipes do we want?

My thoughts were
1. Something not to expensive
2. Some that could be cooked as a single dish or which could be made in bulk and frozen.
3. With winter heading in my part of the world something wholesome.
4. Something I could quickly put together for those good friends who turn up unexpectedly.
5. Christmas food which is just that bit different??
6. Christmas food with a surprise being "outside the usual " but still special.

Slow cookers. As many Recipies as possible, please.


Now I feel hungry!!

Well. this is none of the above but, having had blackberry blancmange last week, I am in the process of making blackberry ice-cream today and being rather pleased the blackberry season is coming to an end!

We don't have an ice-cream maker but I have found a recipe in a Jocasta Innes book for making vanilla ice-cream in which you make an egg custard and fold in lightly whipped cream which you freeze,taking it out and beating it every half hour for three times.

I have made the egg-custard by making up thirty fluid ounces of liquid with milk and the pulp of blackberries I have stewed and put through a sieve. Scald it and tip on to four eggs plus four yolks that have been beaten into the amount of sugar or sweetener that tastes about right.

You are suppose to strain it into a bowl but I couldn't be arsed,I just tipped it in, over a pan of hot water to make the custard where you stir it until it thickens up.

The water under the pan boils.Last time I did it I thought I should not let it gt too hot and spent a couple of hours stirring until I finally tried turning it up! Der!

Anyway,today I put 15 floz of double cream in and do the beatings.

Then I tell them they won't like it and eat it all myself.

Yummyyyyy

I may try this when I am at home. Do you have any special marmalade recipes? There will be an abundance of them in my garden when I get bak home.

This year the figs were delicious and I kept picking them and just eating them...maybe next year I will try to preserve them if we have not moved back to the UK. Sales are going lowere and lower so could do with comfort food which is not too rich in calories.

I will ask my friends whose house we are in for a few of their Recipies, the hudband is an excellent cook!!!

For marmalade,first you need my dad. It was one of the things I made him do when he came home after his stroke.

I would cut a couple of pounds of sevilles in half.He would juice them on the food processor and then I would change to the slicing attachment and he would put the orange halves through there.

I would tip it all into the preserving pan with a bit of water so it was just about covered and hang any pips from the juicing attachment in one of those bags that come with washing tablets.

When the peel was soft I would tip a couple of pounds of sugar in and he would stir it until it melted. Then I would boil it up until there was a ring of jelly round the pan just above the preserve.That is when it seems set to me because I have never mastered testing set.

It would stand on the stove top overnight.That way I could really be sure it had set.

We would wash the jars and put them in the top oven to do the potting after I had come back from wherever I was going.

I would come home from wherever I had been to find some marmalade in jars,some in the sink,some on the floor and plenty on my dad.