Free Food is Fantastic

This is the picture of a the park where I have played and played and played ever since I was a very small child...

It is just down the path from my grandparent's house...

 Notice anything?

That's right a very established crab apple tree. One of two on the park. You may notice that there is a pool of fermenting apples already littering the floor. Why should so much FOOD go to waste? People walk past these FREE APPLES every day. Surely there is no need to waste ALL of them....

So after picking half  of a plastic carrier bag full of these crab apples, about 2kg, this is what the kitchen sink looked like...

I wanted to making something nice and tasty from these apples. Crab apples are known for being sour and pretty unapealing when raw. But when cooked and with the addition of a little sugar, the juice is lovely. But is wasn't juice I was making today (well not primarily). I was going to take my first plunge in to the world of jelly making....

With a very nice looking, clear, perfectly set and most importantly delicious jelly, I was very pleased!

I've made endless amounts of jam before but I've never endeavoured to commit to a jelly. I think it's the fact that you have to strain it over night, do this and do that. Oh well. I looked at buying a jelly strainer and could not believe how expensive they were for such a simple and flimsy object, but with a little bit of searching and imagination I made my own. I got an old, clean bathroom towel and using some elastic bands attached it to a microwave stand. It worked a treat, I just wish I took a picture to show you how it worked.I put all of the boiled pulp in to the towel stand to drain the juice from, then I left it for 8 hours to drain. It said in the recipe to leave it over night, but I started it off early morning so made the jelly in the early evening.

Once you had the juice, it was a very similar method to jam making which I am familiar with.

The jelly is very sweet so I would proably use less sugar next time, but it is still very tasty.

Making the most of free food which is available in public places, the side of a road or anywhere else for that matter is a brilliant thing to do. Not only are you pleased with the fact that you are eating delicious, homemade food, but you are also happy it cost you no more than a bag of sugar.

Have a good day!

Martin

P.S I will definately be making jelly again, such fun and highly reccomended. Off to bake some more bread now!!

Hedgerow Heaven

Well. My grandma and grandad have lived in their current home for almost twenty years, and yesterday I saw something for the first time that I had previously failed to notice.

Across the road, is a hedgerow with a mixture of different bushes, and in the middle were...

Raspberries!

What a delightful find. I am used to helping myself to plentiful blackberries and elderflowers but I have never come across Raspberries like this before. I am always keen to make the most of free food wherever I can.

Why not?

We are going to tuck in to these ones tonight, we also had one off our measly raspberry bushes/canes.

Talking of elderflowers I picked over 20 heads, to make some elderflower cordial. It's quite late in to the elderflower season, in fact I struggled to find 20 good quality, healthy heads. But I did. I've made elderflower cordial before and it was absolutely delicious. I read on the River Cottage forum that the best way to store it is in plastic water bottles (we have plenty of these lying around) and then you should keep 1 in the fridge for current use, and then pop the rest in the freezer until they are required, then you don't have any odd tasting stuff in a couple of weeks. We bought some cordial at Gardener's World/ The Good Food Show, if it tastes anything like it then I will be very, very pleased.

I'll update you with how it went as soon as possible. I know I still haven't posted about the candles we made, but be sure to find it here in the next couple of days.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

Martin