Dinky's Blue Cheese Sauce This is lovely but i warn ya its strong O 2 lvl tbsp cornflower 284ml/ 1/2pt skimmed milk 113/4oz stilton cheese, grated 142g/5oz very low fat natural fromage frais Salt fresh ground pepper 1) Blend the corn flower with a little milk to form a paste, pour the remaining milk into a pan, bring to the boil, then add the cornflower mixture, stirring all the time, and cook for 1-2mins, until thick. Add the stilton, reduce the heat, and simmer , stirring often, until melted. 2) Remove from the heat and then gradually beat in the Fromage Frais, season well, but if you do freeze this, remember to heat it slowly because if you heat it too fast and let it bubble the fromage will curdle, Great for freezing by the way.. Great to eat with everything, my fav is cauliflower, with a steak mmmmmmm 72Wilma's Mincemeat with a difference We found ourselves in Ludlow market last weekend and we bought some quinces (not as many as we should of), so I made this 1kg quince 2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted 250g sultanas 250g raisins 250g dried apricots, chopped 250g light muscovado sugar 250g shredded veg suet (or the evil meaty kind) 75g glace cherries, undyed 75g blanched almonds, fairly finely chopped 1sp ground cinnamon 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg 100g brandy or sherry 100g real crystalised peel, chopped Preheat the oven to 150 [sup]o[/sup]C/GM 2 Peel and quarter the quince, cut them into wedges and drop them in water (with a bit of lemon juice to stop them browning) straight away. Toss them in melted butter and put them in a shallow tin and put into the oven to roast gently, foe about 40 minutes or so, until tender. The smell was amazing. Remove and leave to cool, then chop or grate, put in a large bowl, along with any cooking juices. When completely cold, stir in all the remaining ingredients and put into clean jars. 72wilma's Black Jam This is black jam, you'll never find it in the shops but it is the most delicious jam/jelly in the world. The only way to get it is to forage, barter or bribe! There's another batch simmering as I type and the smell is heavenly. It's worth picking the elderberies and blackberries and if you haven't got enough, freeze them until you can get out and get some more! You'll need; 2 and a half lb elderberries 2 lb blackberries 1 pint water 3lbs sugar (or less) juice of 1 lemon Strip the elderberries off their stalks with a fork. Wash the berries and put into a large pan with the water. Simmer until the fruit is soft.Don't boil. At this point you'll need to sieve the fruit, you can use muslin in a collander over a bowl/pan or a pair of (clean!) tights suspended over a bowl (we used to hang a cloth bag over the knob of a door and drip the juice into a bowl but after a year or so we gave up and bought a jelly bag and frame. Leave the fruit to strain at least overnight and you'll get a fair amount of juice. Discard the pulp and measure the juice, you'll need 1 pint of juice to 1lb of sugar Wash your jam jars in soapy water, rinse and put into the oven at it's lowest setting. Put a few saucers or small bowls in the freezer. Weigh the sugar to match the juice and warm the sugar through (I used the microwave at medium because the ovens were full) and add to the juice in a heavy bottomed huge pan. You always need a pan far bigger than you think to make jam. Add the lemon juice and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Boil the mixture until the jam beginning to form large bubbles over the surface for at least 10 minutes. Test the jam (1 spoonful is enough) on a very cold saucer and leave to rest for a minute, if the surface ripples when you push it - it done! If it doesn't boil some more a and keep testing. Take the jam off the heat while you test, if it carries on cooking it can go like rubber! Or use a sugar thermometer to the 'jam' setting point for about 10 mins. Pour into the now warmed and sterilised bottles. You can get jam sets with waxed disks and cellophane seals but to be honest this jam is never around long enough to even try to go off, but if you want to feel very 'home goddess' like go ahead!
Wilma's marmalade What's the point in paying almost £2 a ja when it's this easy? I've not made marmalade for years but when I saw some Seville jaffas ... I remember the faff that my mum used to do, juicing, separating the pips, boiling the peel, it took forever :- I found a Nigella recipe and I made it over a day, pootling about and doing other stuff. 800g or thereabouts of Seville jaffas Put in a jam pan and add water until the jaffas float, bring to the boil, then simmer for 2 hours or until the jaffas are soft to the touch - the whole flay smelled amazing! When the jaffas are soft, take them out one at a time, halve, scoop out the flesh, put the gunk into a bowl and shred the peel, add this to the bowl, fish out as many pips as you can and put them into a small pan. When all the jaffas are prepared, drain the jaffa water into a jug. Put all the jaffa pulp, shredded peel and 1kg of preserving sugar into the jam pan. If you want a darker 'Oxford' type of marmalade, substitute half of the sugar with light muscavado. I didn't have any light muscavado but had some dark, so I substituted a quarter. Add the juice of 2 lemons. Bring to a slow boil to make sure that the sugars dissolve slowly. In the small pan (with the pips) add some of the reserved jaffa water and boil for 5 minutes. This will extract some more bitterness and help the jelling process. When the pips have boiled, strain and add the water to the sugars, jaffa pulp and peel (I added the lemon shells too) When the marmalade is at boiling point, slightly lower the heat and cook for about 15 minutes until the setting point is reached (either using a sugar thermometer or after 15 mins, put a spoonful on a vey cold saucer and if the surface of the marmalade ripples it's done). Pour into sterilised jars and leave to cool before putting the lids on. There's more on the go now, but I think it'll be a special one for Spring Camp!
Volkswombat's TOMATO CHUTNEY Heres a good easy recipe for a tasty tomato chutney. We made it with a load of toms left over from our crop in the garden this year for extra smugness Ingredients 1 Tsp pickling spice 8 oz finely chopped onion Half pint malt vinegar 8 oz peeled/cored/chopped cooking apple 2 lb tomatoes 1 Tsp mustard powder Half Tsp ginger Half Tsp salt pinch pepper 8 oz sultanas 8 oz sugar Chuck everything in a big pan, bring to the boil giving it a good stir, then let simmer stirring occassionally for roughly 30mins, until its thickened to a chutney-like consistency. Leave the lid off if necessary to aid thickening. Put into sterilised jars, should make about 4 jars. Enjoy!
Bekyip's Lemon & Lime marmalade Ok before anyone says something I know you can't cook this in the van but you can take a jar of it once you've made it. I made it on Tuesday - we've ( well mostly me) have eaten a full jar already it's brilliant. My top tip is to use scissors where possible to cut the lemons instead of a knife. _This recipe is taken from Delia Smith’s Winter Collection. bek Method Begin by measuring 3 pints (1.75 litres) of water into a preserving pan, then cut the lemons and limes in half and squeeze the juice out of them. Add the juice to the water, and place the pips and any bits of pith that cling to the squeezer on the square of muslin (laid over a dish or cereal bowl first). Now cut the lemon and lime peel into quarters with a sharp knife, and then cut each quarter into thinnish shreds. As you cut, add the shreds to the water and any pips or spare pith you come across should go on to the muslin. The pith contains a lot of pectin so don't discard any, and don't worry about any pith and skin that clings to the shreds – it all gets dissolved in the boiling. Now tie up the pips, etc loosely in the muslin to form a little bag, and tie this on to the handle of the pan so that the bag is suspended in the water. Then bring the liquid up to simmering point and simmer gently, uncovered, for 2 hours or thereabouts until the peel is completely soft – test a piece carefully by pressing it between your finger and thumb. Towards the end of the simmering time pre-heat the oven to gas mark 3, 325°F (170°C). Pour the sugar into a roasting tin, lined with foil, and place it in the oven to warm gently for 10 minutes. At this point pop the saucers into the freezing compartment of the fridge. Next remove the bag of pips and leave it to cool on a saucer. Then pour the sugar into the pan and stir it now and then over a low heat until all the crystals have dissolved (check this carefully, it's important). Now increase the heat to very high, and squeeze the bag of pips over the pan to extract all of the sticky, jelly-like substance that contains the pectin. As you squeeze you'll see it ooze out. You can do this by placing the bag between two saucers or using your hands. Then stir or whisk it into the rest. As soon as the mixture reaches a really fast boil, start timing. Then after 15 minutes take the pan off the heat and spoon a little of the marmalade on to one of the cold saucers from the fridge and let it cool back in the fridge. You can tell – when it has cooled – if you have a 'set' by pushing the mixture with your little finger: if it has a really crinkly skin, it is set. If not, continue to boil the marmalade and give it the same test at about 10-minute intervals until it does set. After that remove the pan from the heat (if there's a lot of scum, most of it can be dispersed by stirring in half a teaspoon of butter, and the rest can be spooned off). Leave the marmalade to settle for 20 minutes before potting into jars that have been washed thoroughly in warm soapy water, rinsed, dried, then warmed in a medium oven for 5 minutes. Label when completely cold.
Bekyip's home made ketchup. runnier than shop bought so don't just pour it on. 1 carton of passata ( 500g) 200mls of white vinegar couple of pinches of salt 30 g sugar half a teaspoon of season all half a teaspoon of dried onion powder. bay leaf or 2 bring to boil simmer for 10 mins remove bay leaf and pour into sterilised bottle. bek
How was the quince mincemeat? We have a good crop this year (last year was the first year that our trees fruited and we only got a few) and want to use them.
@Owen Snell have you got any quinces this year? The quincemeat has been made for the last two years and can honestly say I wouldn't use shop bought again. It tastes amazing. Made quince jelly last year too, very delicate and a beautiful scent.
Not sure they are completely ripe yet, but there are a lot on the trees. Do you want a box sending when they're ready?
ooohhhh, do you want some quincemeat sending back? Quite fancy making quince ratafia, a brandy based liqueur using quinces. I've no idea what it would taste like but it's worth a go
I'll look at the fruit and see how it's getting on at the weekend. Some quince based products back would be great!
@72wilma - we've got loads of quinces fallen now, they're not that big but there are a lot of them. I'm going to need an address and a day when someone will be in so I can do a TNT delivery and we'll get a box sent over.
