Passata

My mother's tomato plants are now cropping fast and furiously so she's giving a lot away. Unfortunately, they tend to be watery with very tough skins, so when she suggested I made chutney with them, I thought I wouldn't. Instead they've been boiled up and sieved for passata. A lot of tomatoes didn't appear to fill many bottles when I'd finished but it tastes wonderful - I checked the dribbles - and is one thing that doesn't have to fit in the freezer!

Jam again!

Yes, jam making time again! This time with mainly fruit from the freezer. I happened to go in there looking for something and realised just how much previous years' soft fruit I have hoarded. So, I pulled out a couple of bags of raspberries and some redcurrants, and Hubby suggested I add the blackberries he'd just brought back from the allotment.... and... da dah!..... lovely fruity mess boiling in the pot! It was actually a better colour than this - a deep vibrant plum which I haven't been able to capture on the camera. Still, the jam tastes good which is what counts.

Weird Jam

I'm suffering from a surplus of courgettes at the moment - some have escaped picking and grown too large and marrowlike. I was wondering about making pickle or chutney with them but have quite a lot of chutneys in the store cupboard so wondered whether it was possible to make some sort of jam or marmalade.

Hunting through the recipe books I came across two in Farmhouse Fare, a compilation of recipes sent in to Farmers' Weekly.
The first was marrow, lemon and ginger - the second, marrow and pineapple.
I often make lemon or orange flavoured jams/marmalades with fairly dull bulky veg - pumpkins or rhubarb - so I thought I'd try the pineapple recipe.

The courgette is diced and layered with sugar overnight, then tinned pineapple added and everything boiled up.

It looks more like marmalade but tastes like jam - not very pineappley though!

Gooseberries!

The cupboard where I keep jams and chutneys has been beginning to look a little bare
BUT
the soft fruit is starting to ripen - sometimes a little too much of it at once.

We have lots of raspberries and redcurrants of our own, which are being picked and frozen to be dealt with later, but my parents asked us to help clear their fruit bushes as well so we came home at weekend with more raspberries AND about 6lbs gooseberries.

Time to get out the jam pan!



A few hours of slaving over a hot stove and I have 2 jars of gooseberry chutney and 4 of gooseberry and lemon marmalade.

A little treat for my knitting

I've been looking for a while for a new, larger bag to keep my 'in progress' knitting in and was delighted to find this - with a print from artist/illustrator Jackie Morris entitled Little Bo-ho Hippy Peep and her Sheep

In the panniers, the Sheep is carrying balls of wool and knitting needles - so just perfect for a new knitting bag.

Elderflower time

flowers, sugar, lemons and water preparing for Elderflower fizz
I can't wait long enough for it to turn alcoholic but drink it as soon as there's any fizz to it.
mainly using old lemonade/coke 2 litre bottles this year instead of having to track down corks for wine bottles.

another renovation

Yet another of my daughter's jumpers that she no longer likes!
It's not really been worn much and I quite like the big snowflake pattern so decided to make it over rather than send it to the charity shop.

It's a very snug fit but the main problem was its length. There was some left over yarn - a 100g ball of the red and some bits of white - not enough for a plain add on section but I wanted to leave the pocket patterns in instead of having to re-knit most of the front.

I unpicked the pockets and swiss darned the gap, undid the whole ribbed section, picked up there and knitted down to the bottom.
I've left the sleeves alone for now - they're tight and only three quarter length on me but it seems a lot of fuss to change them. As it's knitted in Aran weight pure wool, it's rather warm to wear it now, so I'll see how I feel about the sleeves in Autumn.