Vegan Mofo Day 10: Plum and Anise Pleather

Okay so this might be my third recipe for fruit leather (which I like to call pleather because I'm charming) that I've posted to the blog. I'm toying with the idea of  a fourth. I really love them, they are so fun to eat and make and there is so much fructose goodness.

My inspiration for this one was what if a fruit leather met a spare rib? Not that I've had one of those in a while but I remember that plum and anise are a flavor match from heaven. I didn't want to make it all savory though. Still sweet (or lip puckeringly sour, adjust sugar to your liking) with just a hint of something lovely and grown up in those spices.

Plum And Anise Pleather 

500g Plums
2 whole star anise
1/4 teaspoon of Chinese five spice
Sugar to taste

First take the plums and the whole anise and place them in a saucepan. heat on low-medium until all the juices come out and the fruit is reduced to pulp.

Add your five spice and give it a taste. How much sugar you'll want to add at this point depends on the sweetness of the plums you started with and how you like it. Taste as you go adding a teaspoon at a time until you like it. I just used one teaspoon with mine but I warn you that it is full of lip pucker.

At this point we need to set our oven up. The pleather needs to dehydrate for about 10 hours in the oven. Preheat the oven to 60C and put some baking paper down on a couple of trays.

Back to your pulpy stuff. Press it through a sieve until you have nothing left but the bits that won't go through. You should have a fairly thick juice.

Spread your juice out on the baking parchment, thin as you can get it and pop it in the oven. It will take anywhere between 10-14 hours to dry out into a leather. It's done when it can come off the paper cleanly and is slightly tacky but not sticky on top.

Peel off and cut into shapes or roll up, Whatever you want.

Vegan Mofo day 9: Bramble Jelly

Our bramble jelly story starts on sunday with me and Stephen picking blackberries off the bushes. This idyllic countryside pursuit left me with scratches where my boots finished. We got around 500g of berries without much fuss and we took a break to sit in a tea garden.

Of course the next step in the process is to jelly it up. First I had to grab an equal amount of apples and stew it all down into a fruity lovely mush.

Then everything goes into the jelly bag and drips overnight which brings us to today. My lovely fruity liquid went into the jam pan with plenty of sugar and got boiled half to death before this happened:

 With lids and labels we're good to go. And oh my god I love autumn.

Strawberry Harvest

With the mud still on 

This year our allotment has really kicked into gear. I'm not sure why to be honest. it's as weedy as ever and I've been slacking on my propagating.Allotment/Clare relations have actually been pretty bad in general. I feel like I don't do enough on it. I feel like it needs too much doing on it. I feel like I'm just not a good gardener. Of course this means I'm less enthusiastic, feel like I have to be dragged there, don't do as much as I should and the cycle continues.

In a jar 

So I feel like these strawberries appeared despite my effort rather than because of my effort. Our first bowl, pictured in post allotment bliss, weighed 1kg and since then we've got another similar amount. The first lot I made into a lower sugar, barely set strawberry jam ready to fuel cakes and biscuits.

In the freezer

Our second harvest I froze up for pies and smoothies. It's probably not going to last me all year but it will do for a start. There is something satisfying about stocking my cupboards and freezer with home grown goodies but don't worry, it didn't stop me from sampling some on the way to the chopping board.

Making Marmalade

When marmalade season came along I was asked to blog about my marmalade making methods. I wasn't really open to posting the recipe I use because I use the one from Preserves: River Cottage Handbook No.2 but I did take a few pictures. The recipe is available here is you want to play along at home. I use the sliced fruit method.

1. juicing the fruit
2. preparing to slice the halves
3. soaking the peel
4. coming to it 24 hours later
5. adding the sugar and lemon, and heating up
6. filling the jars

Pickled Nasturtium Capers

When I first went vegetarian I was surprised to learn I could still eat capers. Don't laugh. I had read of them tasting like anchovies and they kind of look a bit like cockles. So I just sort of wrote them off as posh cockles and avoided them.

Eventually I learned the error of my ways and learned to love capers. This isn't the story of how I need a caper substitute because they aren't vegetarian (because they are) or the story of how I need to replace them because I hate them (I don't) This is a love song to nasturtiums.

Picking the pods an entire hair colour ago (or Sunday. You can call it Sunday)

Nasturtiums are the plant that keeps on giving. I can't imagine a veg garden without them. I'm currently using them as a ground cover for my raspberries. And as a sacrificial crop to dump cabbage whites on. And for their leaves. And for their flowers... To complete the cycle I need to use the pods.

I've snacked on the pods straight from the garden. They tasted like a freshly picked apple with a hint of horseradish. You'll know if that is something you want because you'll have just gone "ewww... indeed?" It's hard to describe, you might as well try it.

Prepare to Pickle

Now I'm growing allotment nasturtiums rather than balcony ones I finally have enough to pickle. 150g, brined over night, covered with vinegar. In a couple of weeks they'll be caper like. I followed the recipe from Preserves: River Cottage Handbook

I Bought A Book: Abundance

So regular readers will know that we love Alys Fowler and if she puts out a new book we are going to buy it. And regular readers will also know we love preserving. You can probably guess that I'm pretty happy with Abundance so let's just dive in with the details.

This book is much more than traditional preserving. It's beyond just chutneys and jam. It does that too and we'll get to that later but for now we'll start at the beginning. The first chapter of this book is called 'On Growing'. This is a book on preserving that starts with advice on how to grow things worth preserving. So awesome. The list of vegetable varieties best for home growing and old fashioned storage is invaluable to me.

The book then talks you through storing your vegetables (including an amazing idea for a modern take on the clamp) before landing on drying. There is advice on drying whole fruit, vegetable crisps, tomatoes and, well, most things you can grow. I gave the fruit leather a whirl. I've made fruit leathers a bunch of times before but this time I made a thrifty batch of blackcurrant crumble from pulp leftover from cordial making.

Chive Blossom Vinager

From the pickling section I went straight for herb vinegar. I had some chive blossoms appearing on the balcony so I put them into white vinegar for a week. After a strain I bottled it up and gave it a tentative taste. Delicious. I'm also looking forward to pickling fennel and doing some Beetroot Marmalade as the season marches on.

Salamoia Bolognese

The fermenting chapter excites me. I haven't fermented before (on purpose, that is) and now I'm super excited to get some sauerkraut started and for my cucumbers to grow up enough for dill pickles. While I assemble my kit for that I picked a really simple recipe to play with. I have a Rosemary on the balcony and a sage on the allotment so I made the Dry Salted Salamoia Bolognese. I swear I swooned taking the picture of it. It smells so delicious.

The next chapter, On Sugar, has the lovely jams and jellies. It also displays the best thing about this book perfectly. There are by the numbers recipes for beginners but if you want to experiment you are totally supported. All the whys are explained in an accessible way so you can put them to good use coming up with your own interpretations. I made some blackcurrant jam using the basic jam recipe and, on the advice of the book, cut my usual level of sugar to make a much more subtle tasting jam.

Sugary Trio - Cordial, Jam, Leather

On Bottling continues with the theme of amazing advice and exciting recipes. I made some cordial from blackcurrants. If you are wondering where all those blackcurrants come from at this time of year I'll tell you. They where in my freezer. Lori from Shute Fruit suggested that if you come into a great deal of fruit in summer you can freeze it to make jam out of season. It might sound counter-intuitive but last year when I was working as a gardener and brought home 3kg of blackcurrants (and picked so, so much more) it was all I could do. I whipped them out for this trio of jam, leather and cordial.

Back to the book but on the subject of freezing, On freezing is the next chapter with helpful tips about what goes in the freezer and how long for. I'm intrigued by the broad bean Falafels. The last chapter was the most intriguing to me, and one I could definitely read a whole other book on. It talks about the top to tail eating concept and applies it to vegetables. Which is so amazing I don't even know where to start. If I didn't save my carrot tops for dyeing I'd totally try out the Carrot Top Pesto.

So my advice? Go, go buy this one now. It's amazing.

Abundance: How to Store and Preserve Your Garden Produce Growing Harvesting Drying Pickling Fermenting Bottling Freezing

Pickled Red Cabbabge

Being the vegetarian daughter of a meat loving Father it's not always easy to cook something he goes nuts over. I does happen though. My chilli is amazing like that.

Last year I had good reviews of my pickled red cabbage so I thought I'd do it again. Last year I got my cabbages for free being tiny, bug eaten, ugly monsters they where my reward for clearing the patch they sat on. It took about 5 of them to make two jars but at least they where free. This year I paid for my cabbage. 25p. It was in the seconds section. Another ugly bug but as it was a full sized cabbage I only needed half to make the two jars.

Political Pickle

The other difference about this years batch is that I've read Abundance (detailed reveiw forthcomeing but really? just buy it) where Alys Fowler talks about her aunt who names batches of jam after political injustices. Thought sounded amazing so the label was born.

Chocolate Orange Cookies

They began with the totally tangy Marmalade Muffins and a what if. What if: a little more sweet? What if: chocolate?

Chocolate Chips are always great but if you use a marmalade with 'bits' (like our home made stuff) you get a fabulous burst of orange. There is tang enough to keep you happy but these are a much more mellow beast.

What? This makes a perfectly balanced breakfast. 

Chocolate Orange Cookies
(makes around 12)

110g Margarine (we love the Vitalite!)
65g sugar
90g Marmalade
250g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
50g chocolate chips

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C and prepare a baking tray

Cream together margarine, sugar and marmalade

Mix in the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt

Mix together to form a dough (go on, get your hands dirty!)

With wet hands form a tablespoons worth (ish, eyeball) of the dough into a ball. Flatten against the baking tray

Repeat until you have a tray full and cook for 10 minutes

Allow to cool on the baking tray for five and transfer them to a cooling rack.

Eat!

Marmalade Muffins

A jar of marmalade was open in my fridge. That's all the reason I needed to bake these muffins. They are sweet, deliciously sweet, for about five seconds. Then they explode. Deliciously tart. Mouthwatering, moreish. Who knows what's in the next bite? You know it's going to be spectacular.

See that orange hiding there? It's going to get you.

Marmalade Muffins
(makes about 12, depends on your cases though)


250ml soy milk,
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
150g marmalade (I used home made because I have some kicking about, use whatever you like)
100ml vegetable oil
100g caster sugar
250g plain flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
Demerara sugar for dusting (optional)


Pre-heat the oven to 200c

Whisk together the soy milk and vinegar, leave for a few minutes to curdle

Once the soy milk has curdled whisk in the marmalade, vegetable oil and sugar

Sift in flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda

Mix together adding the salt and ginger

When all the ingredients are well incorporated and only a few lumps remain spoon into muffin cases, filling three quarters of the way to the top

If using Demerara sugar sprinkle on top, approximately 1/2 teaspoon per muffin

Bake for 23-25 minutes

Eat them when they have cooled off some.

Preserves Course Love

I can't really remember what a weekend is, my last two have been packed with fabulous, tiring and incredibly rewarding volunteering. This Sunday I helped at the preserves course over at Occombe farm. This was my second year (last years blog is here) helping at the preserves course and I absolutely love it. My thoughts are over on the Occombe Blog if you want to check it out.

Free Friday: Nasturtium Jellies (Again)

I only grown red nasturtiums but last year I made jelly with mixed colours from Occombe farm and the jelly turned out a little lighter. After writing up the recipe last week I decided to try and get my hands on nasturtiums in three different colours to see how the finished jelly was different.

Not quite the rainbow I was looking for

Turns out not as different as I was expecting. I started with a pile of yellow, a pile of orange and a pile of red flowers. I worked on the yellow ones first as I was expecting more of a difference. And as the colour seeped into the water it was quite different. As I strained the petals it was still different. But what I wasn't expecting at all is the effect the rice vinegar has. Excitingly it makes the mixture red. The yellow evened out into orange, the orange into a orange-red and the red, well the red stayed red. They all look stunning though.

Food Friends: Preserving the Love

The reason that I prefer the 35oz jars is that they are small. One benefit is that in a two person household it means less spoilage, the other is that it allows us to put little 'sample packs' of the preserves we've been working on all autumn together as Christmas gifts. I usually don't post about them until I've packed them up and sent them off but this one is going out a little earlier.

One of my Brownie leaders is a big fan of chillies. I had intended to grow a few plants this summer and share my harvest with her by making some kick ass chilli jelly. That didn't happen. I got two chillies. But thanks to apple day I had the ingredients for this jelly hanging around the flat. I thought about string chopped chilli in but instead I went for suspending a single, tiny chilli in each jar. It's lovely and fiery but hopefully not hot enough to scare the people on my Christmas list.

Grow To Eat: Nasturtiums

There are fun aspects to eating flowers. Especially if you do it in front of kids who find it fascinating. Or 'those ladies' who Cara and I were talking about in the comments the other day, they are fun to tease. My favourite flowers to eat are nasturtiums. They have a lovely peppery taste. The leaves go great in salads. I've picked nasturtium leaves to sit on Michelin star plates and ate them from my plain ones. They also make a lovely salsa. The pods can be pickled although I've never done it.

Nasturtiums, on a cold Mofo morning

They are incredibly easy to grow and both the leaves and the flowers look great. They come in a multitude of colours, including vivid red. They are a fabulous companion plant. What's not for the edible gardener to like? My growing advice is this: acquire seeds, sow when frost danger has passed... that's it. I find mine grow steadily over the summer with a spurt in September. they die off with frost. Last year at Occombe we pulled the remaining Nasturtiums out of cold November ground with shards of ice hiding in the foliage and I still came home with flowers.

And their bright red jelly

When I get a few flowers I love to make this jelly. I can't remember where I scrawled the original recipe from but I spent last summer making it, tinkering with it and making it more British. It's a super easy jelly to make, you can do it in just over an hour start to finish and you don't need a jelly bag. The colour depends on the colour of your nasturtiums, I like to grow vibrant reds.

Elderberry Cordial and The Fun Of The Forage

After gaining some extra foraging confidence from The Thrifty Forager it was time to go out and do something I've been meaning to do for a while now. Make. Elderberry. Cordial. Aside from having fabulous flowers that get made into cordial in my kitchen every spring (take a look at this spring's), they have wonderfully purple autumn berries. Just don't eat them raw, the cyanide might make you feel a bit ill.

I've always wanted to pick them but I always forget or don't walk past the trees at the right time. And why did I want to pick them? Well you can make a cordial out of them too and I've always wanted to try it. I picked the berries about ten meters away from the office where Stephen was sat working. I'm mentioning this partly to excuse not having a cute picking picture and also to show that foraging can happen in a town centre. I did get a few looks but curious 'she's mad' way, not in a threatening 'throw things because she is mad way' so I didn't really mind.

Very goth...

Coming home I made the cordial following the instructions Grow Your Own Drugs: A Year With James Wong and, as some didn't fit in the bottle, I had a small sample. I can't say I really made my mind up about it. One mouthful was present, the next a little astringent. One mouthful too strong, the next fell a little flat. Possibly it's a taste I'm going to have to get used to. My brain is like that sometimes, if a taste isn't what it's expecting it freaks out on me and revives all my old food issues. I'll have to try it again with Stephen around...

Food Issues: Tomatoes and Slavery

When I started out writing about this topic I knew I was in over my head. Like way over my head. I wondered if I could do justice to the subject. I'm still not sure. But I don't just want to sit on the idea of perhaps one day writing this post. So I'm going to recommend you read this.

It's the old story happening again and again around the world. Gangmasters supply workers, who are often indebted to them and/or sigh up under false pretences, to farmers. And every one up the supply chain has no idea (honestly) what the people bellow them are doing. From the conditions the workers are forced to work in

"he expects to spend between ten and twelve hours a day in the exposed tomato fields, picking by hand; bending, plucking and carrying the filled crates. The work is arduous, repetitive and hot. The temperature can reach 40C degrees."

Preserving the Floral Forage

This spring we didn't get much opportunity to forage but we did manage to get a decent harvest of flowers and as the elder flower is still out in force I'm sure it will continue. I tried my hand at preserving some of the flowers in a dandelion jelly (supposed to be a marmalade but I'm four years old and hate bits), a rose petal jelly and, elderflower cordial.

For the cupboard

Festive Preserves

I spent the last week distributing the last of the Christmas presents and camping out in the cold (but I got a badge!) So it's time to show off these little jewels. This is what my family got for Christmas. More preserves then I could shake a stick at. We've got onion marmalade, apple and mango jam, apple jelly, rose hip and apple jelly and windfall chutney. We did get a lot of apples this year.

Rose hip Jelly

We collected these rose hips on a cheery autumn picnic but cheery autumn rose hips aren't at their best. They need bletting which is a fancy term for starting to go a bit yucky. We put them in the freezer to mimic the deep frosts and as soon as I remembered them it was time to go.

Washing Up At The Preserves Class

I spend some Saturdays helping out with the kids cookery club at Occombe Farm. It's where I spend yesterday but the day ended with a big clean up so I asked 'what's in here tomorrow'. It was the preserves course taught by the lovely Lori of Shute Fruit. The course I wanted to go on, taught by the woman who keeps my family in jam only I'd forgot to sign up. But they needed a hand. A volunteer. Someone to help with lunch an d the washing up. And even though it would mean spending all weekend there would I mind helping out.

Well, come on, when do I not jump at the chance to spend the weekend at Occombe. I was up bright and early to help set up. Which meant playing around with all the equipment before everyone got there. Fun! The 22 ladies of the class were going to make Three Fruit Marmalade, Apple and Tomato Chutney, and Apple and Blackberry jam. And we also managed to sneak in some apple jelly and Lori demonstrated making a curd (which I'll casually gloss over).

Apple Adventures

Spoiler alert for those who might be around us at Christmas: you will get something with apples in it.

Stephen is lucky enough to work in the best office ever which lead to us being given a big bag full of apples. We don't know quite what they are but they are good to cook. As they arrived in the crazy mixed up days between our Cornwall trip and County Camp we haven't had much time to play around but the things we have made have been delicious.