Project growing

I started the giant pouf (puff) project its knitting up really thick I love it. 9 balls knitted 9 more to go!

Autumn Time and I'm Feeling Crafty

This weekend is going to be busy. I started making more crab apple jelly last night which I'll finish tonight.You need ALOT of apples to make jelly naively I thought I'd have a kitchen full of jars with my 1kg haul,more like 2 jam jars:) This time I used 3.5kg so hopefully I will end up  approx 5 jars.

 I need to get up super early on Saturday to pick more blackberries, we made an amazing blackberry chutney (I know it sounds sooooo wrong) but surprisingly it the best flavour ever especially with strong cheedar cheese.yum. I am doing a barter swap with my workmate Joe his dad makes honey so he will give me jam jars in exchange for chutney.

Besides the preserving I am starting a BIG knitting project I've decided to make a Puff. My bestie Jill sent me a link to this last year and I decided to go for it, it'll keep me busy during the Winter months.

The pattern can be found on Pickles Blog

Crab Apple Jelly

I was very excited to be handed a bag full of crab apples from a friend  in work yesterday. I decided the best recipe to try would be crab apple jelly. I ended up with 2 kg of apples after discarding the badies. Jelly has to be made in stages so I decided to boil the apples and let the juice filter over night.

Cover the apples in cold water and bring to the boil, gently cook for 30 mins until the apples are soft and mushy.

I have a jelly bag which is basically just muslin with handles, put the pulp into the bag hang it over the pan and let it drip into a saucepan over night. Never stir it or it will make the jelly cloudy.

In the morning measure the liquid that has dripped though and add sugar at a ratio or 7 to 10. 70g to every 100ml of liquid. I had 1 litre of apple juice so I added 700g of sugar. Add the juice of one lemon and I put in three cloves to add some spice.

Bring to a rolling boil, the recipe I found suggested 30-40mins of boiling but I felt this might be too long. Keep an eye on it as it can set quite quickly as there is loads of pectin in apples, which creates the set.

Chill two plates in your freezer to test for setting if you do not have a thermometer. To test put a spoonful of jelly on to the cold plate, after a minute or so touch the jelly and if it has set it will wrinkle. Turn off the heat and pour into steralised jars.

 Your done!! I love the colour its a really lovely pinkish red:)

My 1st Sewing Project

Last week on one of the blogs I follow I spotted a registration page for an online Home Ec class. It is run by lovely Leigh -Ann (LA) from Freckled Nest.I've been talking and talking and talking some more about learning to sew so I decided to just go for it!The sneak preview of the projects looked great and I've a whole sideboard full of fat squares I've picked up over the years, about time I did something with them!

So this is my first project, I decided to go for the tote shopping bag and 5 hrs later, YES I said 5 I had these bags.  This is made with two different materials.

this is my guitar rock 'n' roll tote

Now I just have to pick my next project.

July Harvest

The garden has been growing on turbo speed for the last week. We have had alot of rain at night and sunshine during the day perfect conditions for the veg and fruit.
I had a busy week so I didn't spend any time in the garden.The last time I was out there it looked like the gooseberries and black currants were near harvesting so I thought I better pop out this morning to investigate. I was expecting to pick enough gooseberries to make a gooseberry fool but certainly not jam! To my surprise there was so much fruit on the gooseberry bush that it was hitting the floor.
So this leaves me to 1kg of Gooseberries and 700g of black currants, I'm delighted:)

Now I just have to pick a worthy enough recipe for this delicious fruit.

Rose Petal Jelly

We cracked open a few bottles of elderflower champagne last week and it was surprisingly lovely:) so nice in fact I went straight out and picked more flowers to make another batch. I bottled it yesterday morning so now we are back to having 6 x 1 ltr bottles again , phew!! I plan on making a larger batch next year I didn't want to commit this year incase I didn't like it.

The elderflowers inspired me to  try using other types of flowers in recipes, so I decided to use some rose petals from our garden. We have loads this year beautiful pinks and reds.

Since making this recipe I have found loads of different ways of making rose jelly and jam online.I assumed jam and jelly to be the same but apparently not, the difference being, jelly is clear.

I plan on making more and this time I'm going to try a jam, if you use citric acid it holds the colour so if I use a combination of pink and red petals I'll hopefully end up with a beautiful dark pink jam:)

Tis The Season For Elderflowers

I went picking elderflowers last Friday, firstly I had to figure out what they looked like.When you start looking you suddenly realise there are alot of white headed wild flowers out there. After confirmation of what they look like we headed out and realised we are surrounded by them! We picked just enough for a 6 litre batch, I wanted to make sure I could actually make it first and more importantly make sure we actually like the taste:)

Its a really simple process, I used a BBC Hugh Fearnley recipe. For correct measurments google it, its easy to find online. All you need is water, sugar and lemons and 15 elderflower heads in full bloom.
 Step 1 heat water add sugar stir to dissolve add lemon rind and juice and elderflower heads, stir.

Cover in Muslin and wait for a few days.

there are mixed opinions on how long you wait before bottling it, some say straight away others say wait 6 days. I did a bit of both I waited 4 days before bottling!

Line a sieve with muslin and pour liquid

Steralise bottles and use a funnel to pour liquid in.

All I have to do now is wait for two weeks!!