New year - new projects

 Part of my list of New Year's resolutions was to cut down on all the clutter I have around the house. A lot of it is the pile of old clothes and off-cuts of material that I hang on to 'just in case'. Well, I'm starting off the year by turning at least one small piece of the stash into something useful.
My old peg-bag, made from a tablecloth off-cut, had seen better days - in fact at points the material was almost worn through. Time for a new one!

Hunting through the many piles of material I've hoarded, I came across this quite sturdy IKEA fabric leftover from covering cushions a few years ago. It's probably a better weight than the tablecloth material I used last time and its slightly odd shape encouraged me to try a different design.

There were two matching pieces with a big, cushion-shaped, curve taken out so I joined them together (you can just see the central seam on the finished pic below) and bound with bias strips to make an opening through which to grab the pegs - it maybe would have been better with elastic threaded through as it looks a bit gaping, and I don't want to lose pegs all over the garden. Other than that it was basically a case of joining bits together to make the right-sized square, with a hole for the hanger at the top. The project was finished in an afternoon, and a little bit of material stash used up - both of which have to be good!

Back to jam-making ..... and blogging

 I recently realised I'd let this blog run down rather, though to be honest I haven't been doing much in the way of crafty or culinary things - well, not interesting things. Last week though I was somewhat forced into them after clearing one of the garden apple trees of fruit. Most of it was damaged in some way - wasps or birds nibbling mainly - and, as I can never bear to let things go to waste, it had to be used straight away.

 You can see the pecked at bits, or marks where insects have burrowed inside, but though it doesn't look like very attractive fruit most of it was only partly damaged and most of each apple save-able.
 Anyway, I peeled and chopped and had about 2 1/2lbs which I boiled up, then added the same weight of blackberries from the freezer (some of which were last years!) to make a lovely dark jam.

 Having made a start, maybe I'll be back in the swing of things - and back blogging about it!

Bread and butter pickle - with courgettes

 Last year I tried making bread and butter pickle for the first time - the proper way with cucumber. Now though I'm faced with a glut of courgettes. I don't really like to freeze them as no matter what I do with them afterwards they turn out soggy and tasteless, so.... thinking they're not very different to cucumbers I'm trying to pickle them in the same way.

Basically, slice them and an onion.




Sprinkle with salt and leave for an hour

Pour over the hot vinegar with sugar and turmeric added ......and wait a few days before tasting.

Now just crossing my fingers and hoping the experiment's worked!

Jam time

5 lbs of rhubarb from the allotment means it's time to get out the jam pan and jars, and make marmalade. As always I had plenty of leftover bits of lemons in the freezer, so I went for a batch of rhubarb and lemon marmalade - which is also lovely with greek yogurt

Using things up in the kitchen ....

 It's been a busy week of trying to use old veg that's been hanging round the kitchen and in the freezer since autumn.
 Last year's pumpkins are no longer keeping well, but starting to rot. Last week I made pumpkin marmalade, this week some chutney.

 Then I moved on to using some rather soft apples up and clearing some of the blackberries out of the freezer - seven jars of lovely 'black' jam.

Then, having picked some lovely early salad leaves from the garden, I decided I really should use up the stored blue radish.






This is a lot larger than little round red radish from the shop, but tastes more or less the same - a little hotter yet, having been stored since December, not as crisp. It's lovely to be able to start and put together a 'free lunch' again though :)

Panic stations!

 I was shocked at the weekend to discover most of the pumpkins and squashes stored from last year were starting to rot - some just a little, some past hope of salvaging!

I then decided I ought to use up some of the remaining good bits - quickly!

So, time for some marmalade making.

 It's possibly simpler than traditional marmalade - cube the pumpkin/squash, add some chopped up lemons (all from the freezer where I keep the bits leftover after squeezing for juice or grating the rind) simmer till cooked and squashy. Add sugar and stand over night. Then boil till set.

Lovely orange-coloured, lemon-flavoured marmalade.

New lease of life

Just after Christmas I set out to alter an old jumper that I no longer wore. I wanted to shorten the arms, lengthen the body and remove the ribbing from the neck. So here it is all finished. no more throttling neck-line, no more sleeves getting in the way, and no more gaping bits between jumper and trousers! And all a lot quicker than starting from scratch - the hardest part was unpicking the old seams, after that everything went easily.