A little later that promised, perhaps, but this is what our finished apple jelly looks like.

The colour depends on both the variety of apple used and the length of time you boil the mixture. As we scrumped our apples from a tree down by the river we have no idea what they are, so can’t say at this stage whether the caramel colour we’ve ended up with is down to the variety or the way it was made, but we were careful not to keep the boil rolling after it had reached the required 105 degrees.

Our recipe made 15 pots like this.

We finally got time to make jelly with the apples this weekend. They were the ones we gathered two weeks back, from the tree we’d found down by the river when we were looking for elder flowers. Since then they’d been sitting in the outhouse, and despite the fact it’s much hotter in there than the rest of the house in the summer they’d kept fairly well. A few brown spots here and there on the skins, and a couple clearly off, but the rest were good to use.

Apple jelly differs from apple jam in the same way that any two jams and jellies differ: jellies are made using the juice of the fruit, while jams use pieces of the fruit themselves, usually pulped. As such, hard fruits like apples make particularly good jellies.

You extract their juices by boiling them up, then straining them through muslin, which is why making jellies requires a bit of forward planning, and a little bit of working time on two consecutive days.

The following recipe will make around 15 small pots.

Ingredients
2.7kg (6lb) apples
1.5 litre (3 pints) water
2kg (4.4lb) sugar (preferably preserving sugar)
Juice of half a lemon
25g of butter

Equipment needed
Very large, heavy-bottomed pan
Wooden spoon
Measuring jug
Scales
Muslin strainer
Muslin stand
Large bowl capable of holding 2 litres
Tray
Small plate
Thermometer (optional)

Method
Wash and quarter your apples. There is no need to peel them or remove the pips or stalks, as these and the skins will be caught when you strain the juice out of your fruit.

Put them into your large pan and add the water, then cook over a moderate heat until the apples are pulpy. You should be able to squash them very easily against the side of the pan using your wooden spoon.

Once they are mushy like this, set up your muslin so that it is supported over a large bowl, which itself should be stood on a tray to catch any overspill. Spoon your pulpy apples and water in to the muslin and leave them to dip overnight. Clean your pan and spoon thoroughly.

By morning, you should have around 2 litres (4.2 pints) of apple juice in your bowl. If it has stopped dripping, don’t be tempted to squeeze out any more, or you will make your jelly cloudy. Measure out the liquid, and add 1kg (2.2lb) of sugar for every litre (2.1 pints) of liquid. Return this to the pan and bring it slowly to the boil, stirring all the time until the sugar has dissolved.

When it has completely dissolved into the liquid, bring the mixture it to a rapid boil for 10 minutes, then add the lemon juice and butter to dissipate the scum that will form on top (you can skim off any that remains using a large flat spoon).

Boil for a further five minutes after adding the lemon and butter, then test for setting. Do this by spooning a little onto a cold plate. Allow it to cool for a few seconds, then push it across the plate with a finger or the end of a wooden spoon it. If it rucks up like jelly, you’re ready to pour it into jars. If you have a thermometer, you can double-check that it is ready by making sure that your mixture has reached st least 105 degrees Celsius.

They’re sealed and capped now, and just need their labels sticking on, which we’ll do tonight. We’ll post a photo of the results tomorrow.

Self sufficiency doesn’t all have to be about growing your own vegetables, keeping chickens in the garden or screwing a solar panel to your roof. Sometimes it’s the smallest things that make the biggest difference.

Since switching energy providers to a green tariff, which came bundled with a free electricity usage monitor, I have become ever more aware of the amount of power I’m using, and am much better at switching off lights and banishing the standby button than I ever was before.

It soon became evident that by far the most power-hungry appliances at home are the kettle and the tumble drier. Switch on the kettle and you could increase 10-fold the amount of energy the house is using at any time to run the freezer, fridge, TV, alarm system, a few clocks and a couple of lights. Switch on the tumble drier and it’s not much different.

Unless you’re prepared to switch to a camping stove for making your tea, there’s little alternative to the kettle, but in the summer season one of the simplest, most effective self-sufficiency measures you can take is to string up a line across the garden and air your clothes the way nature intended. Banish the tumble drier and you’ll not only help save the environment; you’ll save money, too.

Plus, there’s something quite satisfying about watching your shirts blowing in the breeze.

Broad beans

We had our first proper harvest at the weekend. Three types of beans: French, runner and broad. Not a huge amount of any variety, but enough to cook ourselves a three-bean risotto for dinner.

Our totals for each crop, which have matured quickly in the last week, were:

When the broad beans had been shelled, the French beans sliced and the runner beans stripped, this was perfect for a two-person meal, which we’ll call:

Nik and Rich’s three-bean risotto

Ingredients
220g of beans of your choice
250g of risotto rice
1 glass white wine
1 litre vegetable stock
1 red onion
Quarter of a lemon
Grated parmesan or other hard Italian cheese
1 tablespoon of olive oil

Method
Prepare your beans as appropriate, slicing any that are eaten in their pods (such as French and runner) and shelling any that are eaten as seeds (such as broad beans). Blanch these by throwing them into a pan of boiling water for three minutes, then drain into a colander, and put to one side.

Mix up a litre of vegetable stock and put to one side, then heat a tablespoon of olive oil or other cooking oil in a heavy-bottomed pan. Use this to soften a finely-diced red onion. You’re not looking to brown it here - just to make it soft. Keep it moving so that you don’t burn it, and once it has softened pour in 250g of arborio or caranoli risotto rice and stir, watching carefully for the point at which its outer husk starts to go slightly translucent. Once it does, pour in a glass of white wine and keep stirring until the wine has evaporated.

Now add your stock, one ladleful at a time, stirring all the time. Only add your next ladle once the current one has been soaked up by the rice. Expect to spend around 20 minutes stirring to absorb all of the stock; the longer you stir, the more you disrupt the husks of the rice, and the more gloopy your finished risotto will be.

Once all of the stock has been used, test the rice to ensure it is cooked (there should be no crunch when you bite into it). If it is not ready, add some more stock and continue stirring until it is done. If it is ready, stir in your blanched beans and a good measure of grated parmesan. Squeeze in the juice of a quarter of a lemon to give it a little bite.

Serve, eat and enjoy with crusty bread or a green home-grown salad.

Nik and Rich’s three-bean risotto

Technorati Tags:
risotto, recipe, cooking

We had a bumper picking session yesterday, and the most prolific crop wasn’t even one we were after. We headed out to find some more elder flowers so we could make a second batch of champagne, having bought a crate of plastic bottles with screw tops so we could release the pressure over time (all but one of our corks have now blown).

The only trouble is, the council came along yesterday morning and trimmed the hedgerow from which we’d been picking it. We were, frustratingly, mere hours too late to pick an even bigger crop than we had done the first time around.

So we set out on our bikes, looking for more. We cycled through the park and along the fields as far as the next town, and then came back along the banks of the river, reasoning that the best crops, if any remained, would likely be found where they were well watered. That was true: we found plenty of elders. The only trouble is, those that hadn’t been trimmed had fruited, and the blossoms had given way to berries, which are great for beer but useless for champagne.

The last place we tried was the little copse two streets from home, but while the elder here had also turned to berry we found that it had wrapped itself around a rather grand old apple tree that was starting to drop its first fruits on the grass. We picked them up, and plucked whatever on the branches was loose and on the point of falling, cycling home with a haul weighing in at an impressive 3.8kg.

We did find enough elder flowers for half a dozen litres of champagne, which we duly mixed in the fermenter when we got back home, but the apples are a far better prize that we’ll be turning into apple jelly in the next week or two.