Sloe Gin

Tales from the freezer number one: I picked a carrier bag ful of sloes in October last year but ran out of time to make sloe gin and sloe jelly. So the bag went into the freezer. This weekend saw a general sort through of the contents of the freezer and we decided it was time to use some of the sloes. We are not sure this will work having left the sloes in the freezer for so long, but here goes anyway.

Recipe for sloe gin:

500g sloes

125g ordinary sugar

handful of blanched almonds

75cl bottle of cheap gin

• Prick the sloes with a needle (this allows the juice to escape into the gin)


• Add sugar to a pickling jar


• Add sloes to pickling jar


• Use a rolling pin to lightly crush the almonds then add them to the jar


• Pour in the gin


• Seal and shake


• Leave to stand for about 3 - 6 months, occasionally shaking to ensure sugar is fully dissolved.

You can strain it and bottle it. I think it's more fun to leave in the jars.

Photos: David pours the gin and the pickling jar ready for sealing.

Making gooseberry and raspberry jam

If you know where to look, you can find lots of raspberries and a reasonable number of gooseberries growing wild. Look in hedgerows and woodland for gooseberries. Raspberries tend to like more open spaces. Both can be grown on allotments. We have both on the 2nd allotment (the one that is fully derelict at the moment). We picked the gooseberries there for the following jam making exercise. We haven't yet picked the raspberries. Rain today put a halt to that. We also cheated a bit and if you are a jam maker, you may want to try what we did a bit yourselves.

Check out market stalls selling fruit and veg close to closing time, especially if the market is not in operation the next day. You can often pick up cheaply large quantities of soft fruit in particular that the market trader is desperate to get rid of. David bought 12 punnets of raspberries in Consett yesterday for £2. Three punnets weigh a kilo in total. This quantity and price makes jam making worthwhile.

So, here's the recipe, using the quantities I used this Saturday afternoon:

2kg of gooseberries
2kg of raspberries
grated rind and juice of 6 lemons

Pleace these in a pan and bring to boil, stirring regularly.

You will find the raspberries break up quickly. The gooseberries take longer. Eventually the heat makes them burst.

When everything has pulped down, add in the sugar. 4kg in this instance, ie total weight in sugar is the same as total weight in fruit.

Bring to boil again and keep stirring until setting point has been reached (ie when it has developed a skin on the surface, or when after putting a small dollop on a saucer it has developed a skin) it is time to put into warm jars. Make sure you spoon off the scum surface that develops.

It should be ready to use immediately afterwards.

I saw one recipe today that said the fruit should be heated and then sieved to remove the seeds. You have to be mad to do that! The seeds are part of the characted of the jam. And secondly, life is just too short to waite on sieving soft fruit!

Here's the video of today's jam making: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_kg6g91FdEw

It's amazing what you find in the freezer

One of the themes of this blog is to look at ways of avoiding food waste. Well, here's a handy tip. Check through the contents of your freezer! We have just done so and it's amazing what you find. We went through our chest freezer today and found in there two large bags of rhubard from years ago. We will probably avoid using it for jam but there will almost certainly be a number of rhubarb pies leaving the kitchen shortly.

The reason for looking through the freezer was to get out of it the bag of gooseberries I picked a couple of weeks ago (for making jam) and the bag of sloes I picked last year to make sloe gin. The sloes got put into the freezer as I ran out of time in October to do anything with them. I'll be writing about making sloe gin shortly.

And coming up soon will be the recipe for the gooseberry and raspberry jam I've just made, along with the video!

How the crops are doing - some photos

Cherry tomatoes coming along rather well. These are groing on the patio of our house which is now covered in pots and a cold frame.

Strawberries - the birds and slugs got too many of them!

I am so proud of my onions! Heading for a good crop.

Gherkins - still growing but some have already been pickled.

Broad beans. Also look set for a good crop.

How to make nettle tea

As well as growing food, we also forage for it wild. Whilst most people treat nettles as a weed that stings you, we treat it as a food source. Its full of iron and makes a good soup and tea and can go into flans or can be steamed or boiled to use as a veg on your dinner plate. (It's very similar in that respect to spinach.)

Here's another of my videos. This one is about: How to make nettle tea.

You should use green young leaves on nettle plants. Bigger older ones are bitter in taste. Don't forget the gloves when picking nettle leaves, though the stinging bit is only on the edge of the leaves.

Tea making is simple and can use either fresh or dried leaves. Simply put the leaves into a clean tea pot and add boiling water. Leave to brew for a couple of minutes and then drink. You can have it neat or add a slice of lemon (which apparently changes it to a pinkish colour though I haven't tried that before).

How to make raspberry jam and gin

If you are heading for self-sufficiency, you need to know how to preserve fruit. There will be times when there is an abundance of produce so that's when jam making and pickling come into play.

Making raspberry jam and gin is explained on this video I made: How to make raspberry jam and gin.

Basically for jam, you need same weight of sugar to raspberries and 2 lemons per kilo of raspberries.

• grate rind off lemons and then squeeze them


• add lemon rind and juice to raspberries in jam pan


• bring to boil and simmer until the fruit as broken up


• add in sugar and keep stirring and simmering until the setting point as been reached (when the jam develops a skin)


• put into warm jam jars.

For raspberry gin you need 600g of raspberries, 300 of caster sugar and a 75cl bottle of cheap gin:

• mix raspberries and sugar together in pickling jar with the gin.


• close jar and shake


• leave to stand for 3 months, shaking occasionally


• after 3 months enjoy!

Latest on the allotment

I am in London at the moment but David has sent me an update live from the allotment! We planted seeds last weekend for salad produce. I noticed through the week that the radishes have sprouted. Well, now comes the exciting news that the lettuce seeds are sprouting as well!

Salad crops are great for people who are starting out on growing a bit of their own food. They grow easily in pots and window boxes. We have a set of window boxes on our garden wall in London which we use for growing herbs but have used in the past for lettuce. Actually, most of them currently have a crop of sycamore saplings. This is my carbon sink. In a few years time, I will be looking for homes for them.

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