From a young newbie to preserving and gardening, I love your videos. You make things really simple and easy to follow and I love your enthusiasm! I can’t wait to work through your videos. I’m hoping to find lots of gardening tips too! I haven’t looked yet but a simple 12 months guide to show gardening & preserving jobs throughout the year would be amazing. Thank you for all your hard work 😊

@EnglishCountryLife

5 жыл бұрын

Thank you, you have made an old man very happy! I am working on a couple of interesting gardening videos that I hope will be of interest showing the full lifecycle of certain plants from planting the seed through growing and harvesting to flowering & gathering new seed.

@katieg9188

5 жыл бұрын

English Country Life You’re very welcome! I think it’s great that people share their tried and tested methods and knowledge. They sound great! I’ve subscribed so I’ll keep my eye out!

@EnglishCountryLife

5 жыл бұрын

Thank you. This is a new venture for us, so all feedback gratefully received!

When we do this. We do it the Hungarian way. Take a potato ricer and squueze till flat the left over fat cubes. This removes the last of the fat. The tip out a fluff up with a fork to separate them again.. also it produces a drier scratching the season with salt n pepper. Delicious..

@EnglishCountryLife

Жыл бұрын

Fascinating!

Pineapple peeler & slicer? New one to me! Live & learn, enjoying the series, many thanks again.

@EnglishCountryLife

3 жыл бұрын

Cracking tools, well worth having, but not as good as an apple peeler & corer!

Hugh. The freshly dried pineapple is supposed to be going into the Kilner jar. It's too tasty to store. It's got Eat Me written all over it. Took some postage stamp sized bits of rhubarb and ginger leather down to our local tonight and, once they'd had it in the mouth for 10 seconds it met with universal approval.

@EnglishCountryLife

2 жыл бұрын

That's so weird Chris! We found pineapples on offer this week and Fiona made a big batch of dried pineapple. I don't expect it to last long 🙂

Fresh pineapple is a Southern favorite ..grab n go healthy snack cut into spears usually.

@EnglishCountryLife

5 жыл бұрын

Sadly fresh don't grow here so they are always imported. I do grab a bargain when I can though!

Could do with see some drying of herbs. I'm sure it's straight forward. Best Jack

@jacquiehahn4910

4 жыл бұрын

Depends on what you're drying, but for woody stuff like thyme, savoury, rosemary and bay, cutting as long a stem as poss, tying into bunches of about 10-15 stalks and hanging in a warm, airy place for a couple of weeks has always done me fine. Pop the dried herbs in a clean old jam jar and store in a cool, dark cupboard. Lovage responds well to the same treatment, but after drying, pick the whole leaves off the stalks and jar as above. Only crumble or chop the leaves as you need them. That way they keep their flavour. Don't bother with commercially available dried, powdered lovage. You might as well add dust. Parsley, dill, coriander and other wet, delicate herbs, I'd either just freeze or start swotting up on how to use a dehydrator.

@jacquiehahn4910

4 жыл бұрын

The dried stalks from the lovage can be chucked on the BBQ or smoker to give a big flavour boost.

Having discovered the joys of dried pineapple, may I sound a note of caution. It's too easy to think "ooh, dried fruit = very healthy". Dehydrating also concentrates the sugars, and fruit sugar IS STILL SUGAR! It is vastly more calorific than fresh pineapple, or whatever fruit you choose, and tends to stick to the teeth more, with all of the sugar+teeth=dentist connotations. Enjoy, and you should, but try to do it in moderation ( not always easy!)

@EnglishCountryLife

4 жыл бұрын

Your right. Calories per gram is much higher as the water weight is lost. Moderation is the key. The beauty of doing it yourself is that you're not adding the artificial preservatives, colours or additional sugar normally added to commercially dried fruit

@jacquiehahn4910

4 жыл бұрын

@@EnglishCountryLife no sulphur or any other things where you just think....ehm, no thanks. Absolutely.

So you just dehydrate it as is? You don’t dip it in anything? Awesome! Does the color change over time?

@EnglishCountryLife

Жыл бұрын

Nope, no dipping. It's a darker yellow when dried but stays that colour for several years

@jjpetunia3981

Жыл бұрын

@@EnglishCountryLife thank you!

Great vid mate, will give it a go! Love to hear about your canning and salting. Do you make your own beer?

@EnglishCountryLife

5 жыл бұрын

We do some kit beer homebrew but also cider from our orchard and a lot of country wines 🙂

@harrym7930

5 жыл бұрын

@@EnglishCountryLife excellent, would like to see that. Will look back to see your old content and look forward to the next one's. Keep it going mate.

@harrym7930

5 жыл бұрын

@@EnglishCountryLife also how did that elderflower fizz turn out?

@EnglishCountryLife

5 жыл бұрын

@@harrym7930 Thank you. There's some videos in an ongoing series on Elderflower wine. I plan to cover not only cider but making cider vinegar if that might be of interest?

@EnglishCountryLife

5 жыл бұрын

@@harrym7930 The current batch is wine rather than champagne. It wants a couple more days to finish fermentation. I will do another video on clearing & bottling when its fully fermented.

I'd love to learn more about all the ways you preserve food, but also how you plan the process. Do you think in January or February about what you'd like in the pantry for the next year? Do you swap things up? Have tried and true favorites?

@EnglishCountryLife

5 жыл бұрын

We certainly gave tried and true staples. We make a lot of apple rings for example and dry them. That though creates a lot of cores and skins. We make pectin from the cores and skins. We have to can the pectin because we need that next strawberry season. If I want sage and onion stuffing, I have to make it when both are available, but it dries well....and do it goes on

Would it work to leave the bottom on -- using the device down as far as you can go and then carefully extracting it from the top. Now you have a pineapple 'glass/bowl' ... fill with other fruits / soda water etc. to extract the last of the juice? Just a thought ;-)

@EnglishCountryLife

5 жыл бұрын

I bet it would!

Would this method work with Pears?

@EnglishCountryLife

3 жыл бұрын

Yes indeed Adam. Apple (rings), sliced pears, whole raspberries, quartered plums, sliced strawberries, whole blackberries and more. Hugh

Great but does seem a lot of waste unless your going to scoop out the remaining pineapple from the skin top and bottom

@EnglishCountryLife

5 жыл бұрын

It does look much more waste than there is really. When I knife trip I also have to remove 5mm or so around the edge because of the brown "spike" parts that are unpalatable when dried. I confess to slitting open the skin and scooping out what I can fresh though!

@jacquiehahn4910

4 жыл бұрын

Ahem...! Fear not. Aunty Delia has it covered...www.deliaonline.com/recipes/collections/delias-summer-collection/pineapple-cooler