Summer runner beans

I’d been thinking about importing a pressure canner from America for some time. I already bottle/can fruit and tomatoes each year but a pressure canner would enable us to bottle lots of other home grown vegetables for use during the winter. And of course the thought of being able to can spaghetti sauce, cassolet, confit of duck, patès and pesto to name but a few delicacies would be amazing. No need to pay electricty for freezer space, everything nicely on view on our shelves.

Water bath canning and the oven method takes some time and is only safe for fruit and tomatoes (if you add salt and lemon juice to the latter). Pressure canning is fast – so it’s much cheaper and energy efficient. And it’s safe. No chance of poisoning Danny or the Min Pins. OK you have to pay for the jars – Kilner (made by Ravenswood) or Le Parfait style but once you have invested in the jars only the top seals need replacing. Le Parfait seals seem to be a bit more economical and the used rubber seals can be reused as airtight seals on jars of dry goods.

A lot of people in the UK would like to invest in a pressure canner but no one appeared to supply one. As it happens, back in mid July I got an email from Jean D pointing me to a website that sells a pressure cooker large enough for canning. I rushed off to take a peek. As they didn’t actually mention canning so I was a bit uncertain. However this afternoon I decided to investigate the Hawkins Big Boy 22 litre pressure cooker further. I discovered that in America this is sold as a pressure cooker/canner – check it out on amazon.com! You will have to invest in a rack for the bottom if this is not included. But these can be picked up quite cheaply in the UK.

I also discovered that you can buy the Hawkins 22 Litre Big Boy on Amazon UK! Also an 18 litre one. The 22 litre Big Boy on Amazon UK is slightly cheaper than the one on the website that Jean D found.

There is a seller on Ebay UK that will send a Mirro canner to the UK – this seems like quitw a good deal as it includes the best rated canning book in America – The Blue Ball Book (see below). However if you import from the USA you not only pay for the international delivery but also the VAT when it comes into the country and sometimes extra Post Office charges too. I had to pay nearly £100 tax when I imported a collection of lead toys from America several years ago, which was a bit of a shock as it was on top of humungous delivery charges.

You do need to check that your stove is suitable for a pressure canner. Ours has a ceramic hob that is unsuitable for most canners. But we also have a small table top gas cooker and we’ll use this for canning.

There is also one final point to consider. And this is very important. During my research I found out the canner with the nifty circukar dial can be a bit of a nightmare. This was a bit of a dissapointment as I liked the idea of checking this guage from time to time. This type of guage has to be recalibrated regularly and apparently you have to stay with your eyes glued to the dial. This is fine if you are just dealing with vegetables but if you care canning a tasty chicken casserole this can take up to 90 mins. The ones with the simple top like the Hawkins Big Boy and the Mirro are strongly recommended by many Americans as they automatically control temperature. You can hear if something goes wrong.

I read a lot of American websites with regard to preserving – canning is BIG over there. If you are going to invest in a pressure canner you would be wise to buy a good, highly recommended book. Ball Blue Book of Preserving seems to be the ultimate bible. A canner is a big investment – this book would help you to guarantee that it’s put it through its paces.

Young happy pigs

If you haven’t tried curing your own bacon at home, please give it a go. It’s so easy. You will be eating superb bacon for a fraction of the cost of even the cheapest, nastiest tasting unhappy pig bacon available. 

You can also control the levels of salt – Danny has high blood pressure so commercially produced bacon is a bit of a no no. And unless you inject your bacon with preservatives, you will get no white residue to alarm you. With homemade bacon at the helm you can actually Make Friends and Influence People without having to lay out for the book.

I’m constantly playing around with recipes but not our bacon. Our standard recipe is fine but surely could be tweaked and played with too? So last week I added some light Muscavado sugar to the mix and left out the molasses. The result was exceptionally good, the taste more complex and satisfying than our standard recipe. I can’t wait to start experimenting more!

We have also discovered that leaving the bacon to soak for seven days, rather than four, the bacon tastes better and lasts longer. Both recipes are for bacon with a lower salt content than normal bacon. Once cured, it will last in the fridge for about a week or so, wrapped in a clean tea towel or grease proof paper. If you slice it and freeze it flat – one slice deep – you can cook it straight from the freezer. This would be my advice to a bacon making newbie. Make it and freeze it immediately to enjoy your bacon at its very best.

Of course, if you cure your own bacon you are taking a chance. But if you make sure that everything is scrupulously clean, that your meat is fresh and you follow the guidelines you should live to tell the tale. And what a tale that will be. We are greedy so find it hard to give our bacon away as presents but when we do people love it. On the self sufficiency front it is our gold when it comes to bartering. People proffer asparagus, home farm raised meat and so much more. A glass of Premier Cru champagne anyone? Yes, it happens regularly. Distribute your bacon, don’t ask for a swap and wait. If you are lucky you will sample other people’s gold dust too.

We tend to make streaky bacon as belly of pork is so much cheaper than lion ( for back bacon). Also streaky bacon cubed is in fact a ‘pancetta’ type of bacon and makes a great present for a serious foodie. Years ago I would never have considered using streaky bacon in a weekend fry up – now I actually prefer our grilled streaky to back bacon. ButiIf I have to buy bacon I always go for back.

In the olden days, many households kept a pig or two and cured their own bacon and ham. It was a way of preserving meat. The recipes for these use a lot of salt and saltpetre. Our recipes are different – less preserving agents (salt and sugar/molasses/black treacle) but a ‘healthier’ cure with a far shorter life.

New wet cure recipe for sweetcure back and streaky bacon
Ingredients:
1. A small 500g joint of either loin or belly of pork
2. 900ml of cold water
3. 100g of cooking salt
4. 50g of light Muscavado sugar
Method:
1. Mix the salt and sugar with the water.
2. Place the joint in the water and submerge it with a small plate. Leave to soak in the fridge for seven days.
3. Remove the joint from the curing mixture and dry with a clean tea towel. Leave the joint to chill in the fridge for an hour or so – this makes slicing easier.
4. Place the joint skin side down on a chopping board and slice.
5. Store in greaseproof paper in the fridge or slice and store in the freezer.
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Organic Seville Oranges

I picked up The Contessa from the vet’s this morning. She’d been staying with them for a day and a night as they carried out a blood sugar curve test. She was diagnosed with diabetes last year and is doing pretty well but recently she has lost a lot of weight and her diabetes needs to be stabilised. The daily injections are not the gruelling trial that I thought they would be. In fact, a kind reader suggested that we give her a tiny treat after the injection and that has worked well. Immediately she spots the syringe she starts to dance with joy and is happy to sit on my chair whilst I do the Doctor Kildaire thing.

The Contessa was alternatively shrieking about her adventures and gazing out of the window of The Duchess as we glided along. Then I remembered that it is The Marmalade month so we swooped into Waitrose to pick up some organic Seville oranges. Wondering whether The Contessa would set off The Duchess’s alarm I whizzed into Waitrose and bumped into Gilbert in the citrus fruit section. He usually makes an annual trip to Seville to stay with his friend Juan and handpick his own oranges from Juan’s grove. Something must have gone wrong.

“Hello Gilbert! It’s ages since we’ve seen you.”
He turned and gave me a bear hug. The thin bags of oranges bumping against my back.
“Despite the Euro and the exchange rate we’ve been holed up in France for months. But Marjorie had a yen for her Aga. Need I say more?”
“Is everything O.K.?”
“Ahh you’re wondering why I’m plucking Seville oranges from Waitrose? Well sadly Juan died. It was very sudden. Happened last July.”
He turned away quickly and started to examine the Seville oranges very closely.

Within seconds he’d pointed out that the unpackaged organic oranges were cheaper than the ordinary ones in handy nets.
“Crazy. Organic make marmalade that reverberates. The others are alright but loads of people must assume that they are cheaper and don’t even bother to check the price of the organic ones.”

We loaded up our baskets with organic oranges and lemons.
“This year I’m going to try making some marmalade myself.” Gilbert confided. “Bella, Juan’s daughter, asked me to stay and pick oranges. I just couldn’t face it but maybe next year. I reckon that if I do go, I’ll fill the boot with orange bounty. The entire lot will be transformed into Seville orange liqueur. Juan loved it.”

You can find Gilbert’s Seville orange liqueur recipe here.

We have several good marmalade recipes that we have developed over the years:
A super three fruit marmalade. A best seller on our gateside stand.
Easy Seville orange marmalade. This fine shredded marmalade is a classic and gets the thumbs up from my mum.
Seville orange and quince marmalade. Lots of deep flavours in this orange and quince mix.
Sultry thick cut maramalde. Only for dark marmalade lovers.