Pickles, chutney and tea
As mentioned in an earlier post, we have been making pickles and relish/chutney from our glut of lemon cucumbers (many thanks to our friends Catherine and Daniel for the plants) and we've also been drying herbs for making tea or for cooking with.
Again, next year we will be busier earlier in the garden and will be saving, freezing, drying and bottling much more produce than we have this time around.
The pickled cucumbers are easy to do - very straight forward.
Ingredients: 3/4 cup apple cider or white vinegar 2 teaspoons sea salt 3 tablespoons natural cane sugar or maple syrup or honey 1 dried bay leaf 4 whole cloves lemon cucumbers, sliced to your choice of thickness.
I think that I used about a dozen lemon cucumbers and filled 8 jars of assorted sizes as per the photo below.
Depending on how many cucumbers you have and how many jars you intend to fill, you need to adjust the amount of vinegar solution to suit.
Meantime sterilize your jars in the oven at about 120 degrees for 20 minutes.
To make the pickled cucumber, in a saucepan, combine the vinegar, salt, sugar, bay leaf, and cloves and bring to a gentle boil over medium high heat until the sugar is dissolved. Add the cucumber, stir, leave for a couple of minutes and then remove the pan from the heat.
I then used a slotted spoon to scoop out the sliced cucumber from the pan and placed it into the hot jars. Tap the jars on the counter top to help the contents to settle and then top up with the hot vinegar solution from the pan. Leave a quarter to half an inch at the top of the jar, to prevent the vinegar solution reacting with the metal lids. Screw on the lids tightly and as the contents cool, the air inside the jar will contract and make a tight seal.
The pickles can be enjoyed immediately or stored for days or weeks in a dark cupboard.
Once you open a jar, store in the fridge.
Great in sandwiches with cheese or on crackers or to top off burgers. Very yum indeed.
The Apple and Cucumber Chutney is a little more involved and again you can adjust the recipe to suit, depending on how much product you have to preserve.
Ingredients: 2 lb (1 kg) cucumber 2 lb (1 kg) cooking apples 1lb 8 oz (650 g) onions) 1 pint (600ml) malt vinegar 1 lb (500 g) demerara sugar 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Method for Cucumber and Apple Chutney:
Peel, core and chop the apples. Peel and finely chop the onions. Cut the cucumber in half lengthways and scoop out the seeds (if a ridge variety with spiky skin peel as well). Chop finely. Place the apples, onions and cucumber into a pan with the vinegar and bring to the boil and simmer until soft. Add the sugar, salt and cayenne and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Continue simmering until the chutney thickens, stirring occasionally. Pour into hot sterilized jars and seal.
Uses up some of those surplus cucumbers that you get at times when growing your own.
Allow a few weeks to a month for the chutney to mature and the flavours fully develop.
Makes about 5 lbs (2.5 kg) of chutney.
This Cucumber and Apple chutney, kept in properly sterilized and sealed jars, should keep for a year in a cool dark place.
Once opened, keep in the fridge and try to use within 4 weeks.
Herbal teas.
The gathering and drying of assorted herbs for making teas or for use in cooking is so much simpler.
(Photo above - leaves of Lemon Verbena)
Cut and dry the herbs. You can dry the herbs in a very low oven, use a dehydrator or simply hang the herbs in bunches in a warm, dry place. You can also do what we did which was to arrange the herbs on large platters or in a copper pan and leave in the sunshine in a warm dry room for a week or more (keep checking daily).
Once dry, strip the leaves from thick or woody stems, crush and store in a clean glass jar.
Lizzie is also baking our own bread - which will be featured in another post along with other cooking tips like how to make a chicken go a long way.
Please note, this is not an extension of the joke about why did the chicken cross the road.
