In A Pickle

I only make a few different chutneys now, just my favourites - like the sweet onion 'marmalade' chutney and my red hot or not so red hot tomato/pepper. But after buying and enjoying a jar of cornichons for Christmas last year and finding and growing  the tray of gherkin plants, I now have a jar of pickled gherkins. ........and even though vinegary things weren't my favourite I now also have 4½ jars of  Sweet Cucumber Pickle. 

All because  4 small cucumbers appeared all at once when I already had 1½ in the fridge. So  I found a recipe and had all the ingredients in the house. 

The recipe - Oxburgh's Sweet Cucumber Pickle, came from the National Trust book of Jams, Preserves and Edible Gifts and used the 4 small cucumbers plus onion, celery, salt, cider vinegar, mustard seeds, soft brown sugar with a little turmeric and ground cloves.

There's enough sugar to make it sweet and sour which is good, I've eaten the half jar already and I'm thinking of making more but leaving the cucumber in bigger pieces. 

Another lot of gherkins have appeared on my plants so I need to sort them out today. And now I can see I should have left the first lot I picked to get much bigger.....like this

 Although I found I'd run out of jars and decent lids so needed to stop at the floristry supplies/party stuff/cake decorating/ packaging supplies shop on my way home from Stowmarket....very handy having this shop so close. It's easy to spend Way too much there - I was very good and only bought jars, lids and a jar of the local honey that they sell. The lady who owns this place was just back from her weeks of being a line judge at Wimbledon. She does a talk about it at WI's etc - very interesting to hear how it all works.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Better Than Nothing

 5oz of gherkins/cornichons*  and 10 oz of gooseberries isn't anywhere near self sufficiency but better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick!

The gherkins were from the tray of 6 small plants that I bought at a boot sale in the spring even though I really didn't have room for them  They were planted in a big tub with a plant climbing frame thing for them. I have a slight memory of trying to grow some from seed a few years ago and having a fail although I can't find any mention on the blog, but these have grown quite well - probably not as well as they would have done in the ground.

I searched the recipe books for how to pickle these few gherkins and found three different recipes. One involved putting the gherkins to soak in salty water for 3 days so that's how I started but only left them for a day and a half.

Then on searching google I came across a very young Jonathon Wallace who has been writing a blog and website called "Self-Sufficient in Suburbia" for years. A video from 12 years ago.

So I used his recipe to finish them off.

I've made 1 small jar full. There might be more to use later.

*Also found this description of the difference between gherkins and cornichons. Now I know!?

Q. Are cornichons the same as gherkins?

A. Cornichons are dilled gherkins, not sweet gherkins. If a recipe calls for cornichons, it is referring to the dilled variety of gherkins. If a recipe calls for cornichons and you don't have any, substitute small slivers of dill pickles. Remember all cornichons are gherkins, not all gherkins are cornichons.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

So Many Things Happening

 It's always a dilemma when so many things are happening in different villages and towns around all on the same day.

What to choose?

A Village Garage Sale Event a few villages away from me?

A Once a Month Farmers Market in the other direction where I could find some more cheeses to try?

The first of the years once-a-month car-boot sale further away

National Mills Weekend (windmill and watermills open day)

The regular Saturday car-boot sale?

Weird and Wonderful Wood at Haughley Park?

(Maybe not that last one - I tried to go on the Saturday  last year and the queues of cars to get in stretched for nearly 2 miles down the road! I went on the Sunday early instead but even though it's been voted one of the best events in Suffolk I'll not go again this year - perhaps next year)

I'll let you know in a post next week which one or two I decide to go to - unless it rains all weekend and I don't go anywhere!

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But looking back at this week...........................I called in quickly to the midweek boot sale on my way to shopping and bought a tree I didn't need! But when I saw  a man had loads of pots of good sized Rowans for £5 each I just couldn't resist. It's been squashed  into the side border - just hope it survives and grows as it will help hide the house that's behind me. Then I came home a different way so I could visit a small nursery that specialises in perennial plants and is only open in late spring and summer. I was looking for a Bergenia or Elephants Ears and hadn't seen one anywhere else. Luckily he had just a couple left out the back - he said no one wants them anymore so he's no longer propagating and selling them. I want it to spread and fill a gap in the front border - at least the last two days of rain showers have watered both things in........yesterday was really nasty down here in Suffolk.

Our Keep Moving Group is still going well - all 12 or 13 of us are feeling the benefit. We put up posters to try and find a few more people but it hasn't worked so far. Two weeks ago we had a visitation from the man organising a more recently started group in Debenham, plus a physio from the NHS and a lady from the District Council - all came to see how we are getting on running it ourselves (after being organised by Community Interest Groups previously). The MSDC lady and the Physio thought we were doing fine but the man from Debenham mildly criticised all we did and made several "suggestions!". He invited us to go to Debenham to see how they did things (better than us of course!). I suggested that one morning in June we all descend on their group en-masse just to find out. That could be fun.

Who else does the New York Times Daily Wordle? I was late to the party so had only played 69 games when it was on # 691 on Thursday. There are even websites where you can cheat or get hints - disgusting! I'm on 99%  - only 1 fail - without cheating- but there are some strange words appearing. I love the way that if it takes all 6 guesses to get the word it flashes up with PHEW! as that's exactly how I feel.

My tomato and aubergine plants are mostly now potted up into their big pots in the greenhouse and I'm still puzzling over where to put the other two courgette plants, the three squash and the six gherkin plants............seem to have forgotten I don't have a smallholding or a six vegetable beds anymore!

And finally tonight is the Eurovision Song Contest and if you didn't know then you must have been asleep all week! It's being held here rather than Ukraine for obvious sad reasons. We won't be coming second like we did last year and the music and costumes are weird but so many people love it and anything that gets people from different countries together enjoying themselves must be a good thing. 

This week I've been grateful for......

• Watching my garden grow
• So many good books
• The Keep Moving Group working well
• The lovely comments on my Thursday post and knowing my blog is the first one some people read every day - thank you. 

Have a good weekend. 

I'll be back Monday

Sue

At The Weekend

 Hope you all had a wonderful celebratory weekend.

Between ironing, odd jobs and gardening I half watched a lot of the Coronation ceremony, it's the history of the whole thing that I find so amazing....... to think how many Kings and Queens have been crowned in the Abbey. A very unique and moving ceremony. To celebrate I made scones and bought clotted cream but no special quiche.

In the TV studio someone commented that other countries have riots about change of Prime Ministers, deaths of leaders etc but here we had all those events in the space of a few weeks and no one rioted, no civil wars were started and the new King didn't have any opposition that could have caused any serious problems. I reckon all that was done in the past - 100s of years ago, so we know the consequences! I'm very glad to live in a peaceful country. (Although I didn't agree with the arresting of 50+ anti monarchy protestors . Think that could have been sorted without arrests and holding them for 16 hours)

I enjoyed the Coronation Concert on Sunday evening, would have been good to have seen more of Take That and less of Lionel Richie and Steve Winward - but that's just me! The drone light display was incredible - just how do they do that?

I had my first whippy 99 ice cream of the year at a car boot sale but it wasn't all that special so won't bother again from that ice cream van. 

Two better purchases were made. One was a tray of 6 gherkin plants. (6 is five more than I have room for so will need to find a different place to grow them!) I seem to remember trying them from seed myself one year and ended up with not a lot of gherkins - a bit silly pickling one at a time! Hopefully 6 plants will give me a few more.

I also came home from the boot-sale with this for the garden. Rather pleased with him and stood him among the plants but then I read he shouldn't be straight onto the soil so I found a small square slab from out the front and now he is between the Lady's Mantle looking good.

Back Tomorrow

Sue