Preserving & Using your Harvest

 

 

At this time of year we look back on our growing season and I presume you , like me, wouldn’t bother with all the work, wet days & cold days in  the garden unless there was a reward at the end of it – the Harvest , not in the traditional meaning but none the less a crop to use. So that’s what I thought I’d concentrate on here – ways to use & preserve our fruit & veg.

 

Tomatoes:

The biggest crop we had was the tomatoes which was not surprising really because we grew quite a few varieties in a number of different ways, mainly as trials. We were still producing them late into the season when salads had long since finished to get rid of them in any great numbers. Friends & neighbours were also beginning to duck when they saw me coming with baskets of my gifts! So we turned to preserving them or preparing them for other uses.

·       Freezing them - lots of recipes require a 400g tin of chopped tomatoes, not anymore! I’ve chopped and frozen red, yellow & mixed bags of around 500g to easily use in cooking over the next few months.

·       Soups – Slow roast tomato with chorizo chips, Tomato & roast fennel, and Tomato & roast pepper are a few we’ve tried. They freeze well too, so make a large batch and keep some for a quick meal later.

·       Chutney – Green Tomato Chutney was a life saver for using up those stubborn green tomatoes that just wouldn’t ripen, or the spicier Roasted Red Pepper & Tomato Chutney used up plenty of our red & yellow tomatoes too.

·       Sauces – with bolognese, curries and lasagne ever popular sauces are great at using up your tomatoes.

Recipes to follow for all of the above – watch this space.

Beans:

We had a good crop of both Broad beans and Runner beans. After using those all summer when in season I’ve turned to other means of using these crops.

·       Chutney – Runner Bean Chutney - great with curries!

·       Freezing – your own fresh frozen veg (you know what I mean!)

·       Seed – why not save seed from pods that have gone past their best for picking. Near the end of the season, I left pods ripen on the plant. Let them dry as long as you can, but just before they open and drop their seed. Use them next season to start again.

Fruit:

Hard to get to the stage of having too many strawberries but we did put some by for keeping. Apples too can be tricky to store – no bruised fruit, no touching and cool dry storage and your part of the way. We tried a few well use methods for our fruit and a new one to us

·       Freezing – Apples I sliced and placed in freezer bags, strawberries are best frozen on trays, well-spaced out and then bagged & stored. This way they are easier to separate and use a few, rather than having to defrost and use the entire bag.

·       Tarts – Apple Tarts freeze well too, so it’s an alternative to just freezing the fruit.

·       Hodgkin – Although I’ve heard of this, never tried it. My son Jonathan came up with the idea of using this to “preserve” fruit - the idea of the Alcohol never interested him. His way of selling us on the idea was we got two end products, fruit flavoured brandy and brandy flavoured fruit for Christmas Day!

 

 

Here’s our first recipe –

1.       Depending on the size of the jar you will need about 200g of each fruit. Wash everything well before adding to jar. Half or even quarter larger fruit to about Raspberry/cherry size. Hull and stone as appropriate. Fruit suitable includes: Strawberries, Raspberries, Cherries, Peaches, Apricots, Redcurrants, Blackberries, Plums, Apples (slice) & Pears.

2.       Make sure jar is sterilised – even when preserving in alcohol.

3.       Put in a layer of one of your chosen fruits, sprinkle with two tablespoons of white granulated sugar and then cover with brandy, doesn’t have to be the dear stuff!

4.       You don’t have to fill the jar in one go, just remember to seal lid well and place in  cool dark place until you put in another layer of fruit ,sugar & brandy.

5.       After last layer put in at least 2-3cm of brandy above fruit.

This is easy to do but slow to mature, you need to start in early summer when first fruits are ready and end in autumn when last fruits are used. I’m assured it will be ready for Christmas.

 

Hope your inspired enough to try some of our methods of saving & using our garden produce.

Until next time – Happy Gardening.