Friday 29 August 2014

Tonight I have mainly been...

Making a blackberry and banana bread recipe from here (replacing rasps with blackberries, as I'd picked a small crop today after work). Well, the blackberries sank so I wouldn't impress Mary Berry but we just had two slices each..it's tasty! We didn't let it cool either so it squashed a bit when cutting, oops...and used the wrong kind of knife...hey we were hungry ok! ( or maybe just impatient ).
Fail on the berries
And making yet more pickled gherkins. We tasted the first lot of vinegar gherkins (made with white wine vinegar) tonight and they were a tad sharp! So I've made another lot of naturally fermented ones, adding a dash of brine from my first batch (eaten a while back, very nice, but saved the brine in the fridge) to help the fermenting process.
And there's still another 8 gherkins waiting to be pickled, with more growing. I need more jars!

6 comments:

  1. If things taste good that;s the main thing and the sounds tasty.. I bet things don't always go as Mary Berry plans.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Sue, yes it's true. I just won't be entering the great British bake off anytime soon!

      Delete
  2. I have a few cucumbers that I'm planning on pickling today too - I've only ever made refrigerator pickles so thought I would give traditional canning a shot to see how they turn out. My vines are quickly succumbing to powdery mildew, so I probably am not going to have too many harvests left on those. And the rush to dig into the bread just made me laugh - I can't tell you how many times we have done the same thing!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I went to buy some more big jars today and saw those ones used in canning I think - are they the ones with two bits to the lid and you have to do something in the oven with them? I hope it goes well. I think I'll get a few more pickles yet, the weather's warmed up a bit and though the plants are looking v tired and mildewy (which they have been for ages) they've still got a few more baby fruits. But I won't mind if they give up though, we can't eat them fast enough and I'll have to get even more jars! I've already re-used two.
      Yes, it was late and definitely didn't want to wait for it to cool! As Sue says, it's the taste that counts :)

      Delete
    2. Yup - the jars with the two piece lids are for canning. The flat part on the top sinks down when the jar has sealed. If you press down on it and it moves, you know the jar is not sealed - like the metal lids on purchased jams.

      Delete
  3. Hmm, interesting, they were actually a little bit cheaper than the clip jars.

    ReplyDelete