Sunday 29 August 2010

In the pantry

What better to do with a sunday afternoon than take stock of the pantry (ok, probably a lot, but it was cold outside and I was tired!). As a result of my preserving fetish we have (all made from home grown produce except the peach, apple & apricot, which were local)
  • 40 jars of marmalade (Sweet orange and whisky, Lime, Lime and ginger)
  • 20 jars of jam/jelly (Damson, Brambleberry, Redcurrant and loganberry, Mixed berry, Plum, Cherry & Redcurrant, Raspberry)
  • 86 (!!) jars of chutney (Bengali green tomato, Green tomato, Spicy green tomato, Green tomato and ginger, Marrakesh green tomato, Chilli apple, Rhubarb, Apricot, Apricot and ginger, Courgette, River cottage 'gluttony', Cherry chutney)
  • 17 bottles of sauce (Plum, Green tomato, Chilli BBQ, Chilli green tomato)
  • 4 bottles of raspberry vinegar
  • 5 small bottles of rosehip syrup
  • 4 jars of jelly for savoury items (Redcurrant, Apple and mint)
  • 3 jars of apple cheese (for use with savoury meats)
  • 4 jars of preserved lemons
  • 5 jars of pickled garlic
  • 1 lg jar pickled chillies
  • 9 (!!) jars of pickled cucumbers
At this point I gave up as the pantry room is quite cold on a late winter's afternoon, but there's also a stack of bottled fruit and tomatoes. The marmalade tally will go up again in the next few weeks as the lemon tree is groaning with fruit, and there are still more limes to be picked - although I might try doing some preserved limes this year as well.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

OK I'm going to start by saying: gosh that's a lot. Especially the 86 jars of relish. So can I say that if you make puff pastry pizzas, put the relish on the bottom instead of pasta sauce OR make a savoury scone loaf and mix the relish into that too.

That must have taken hours and hours, and I'm guessing your pantry is rather large too. I love reading your posts - hopefully one day I'll be on a property like yours too!

Anonymous said...

Please post a photo of all your preserves!!!

Jaime Schmidt said...

That is fabulous. What a collection. I only have home made bottled olives so far. I think I have 10 bottles. I don't really eat a lot of olives so this will be more than a years supply.

I wonder as I go down this good life route that I need to change how I eat to include the foods we grow and preserve.

I started making my own yogurt this week. Just started with an easy yo packet but am going to progress next week and make one using soy milk instead.

Chris Brock (under the Chestnut tree) said...

That is a formidable batch of preserves. Do you actually get through all that stuff in a year - or is it also currency to swap with people etc.? I find that our jams tend to build up - and often things get hidden away and we forget about them. i need lits of visual cues when cooking! If you have limes you must try my lime pickle - my second to last post under the Mulbeery tree.

Margo said...

@Jaime - good luck with the yoghurt making. We started with easiyo and then moved on to live culture yoghurt using cultures we bought from green living http://www.greenlivingaustralia.com.au/ . You will find as you get more into growing and preserving that you do change the way you eat - by the end of summer I'm SO SICK of tomatoes, but now I'm starting to think longingly of next years crop (we rarely if at all buy tomatoes)

@Chris - In that stash there were 3 jars from 2008, the rest were late 09 or this year. We would easily get through a jar of chutney aw week, sometimes more if there is a lot of curry on the menu. We use it instead of butter on sandwiches. Plus we never go anywhere without taking a jar of something, and we do sometimes trade so it all gets used up. Great idea re the Lime pickle - I'll grab that recipe from your site and give it a whirl

@ Vivienne - oooh savoury scone load with relish swirl. I LIKE the sound of that! You can see the pantry here
http://margoandjerry.blogspot.com/search/label/pantry
jerry lost most of his wardrobe to make room for it LOL

greenfumb said...

No danger of you getting scurvy that's for sure :-) I am going to try your marmalade recipe next weekend with the last of the ubiquitous oranges.

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