Grow Your Own, Eat Your Own - book review

Been reading Grow Your Own, Eat Your Own

It is a fantastic book and highly readable with quirky descriptions such as peaches go of faster than hand grenades. It is however written from a UK perspective with comments such as growing citrus in a bucket/container so you can bring them undercover in winter so they survive, and all dates/seasons out by six months. I have glended the following points:

Storage:

1. Pickling can be done really easily by pouring vinegar over the veg/fruits !
2. That distilling cider, or other fruit brews/wine brew, makes Brandy, with the flavor of the original product. Now I had never seen the point of distilling at home, however I know have reason. On of my Dad’s colleges has a distiller so later in the year I might give this a go.
3. Plums can be pickled by pricking them, soaking (in brine?) then cooking and bottling with vinegar
   
4. Salted plums, my dad like these as they had them while in Tonga. So I should give this a go
5. Salted beans, this looks very interesting. Three lots of beans to one lot of salt. The salt draws water out, so you can top jar up with 2nd lot before sealing

Brew related:

• Sauerkraut – another reminder that I would like to have a go
• Liquors. It talks about adding fruit to white rum to make liquors. I will modify this by adding fruit to my wines, to increase nutrient value. I have a stash of loquat wine that is a bit bland and insipid, so this would make an excellent base. I think I will try blueberries and yellow zest (not together) and maybe some herbs

Recipes:
Fruity pancakes – make a slightly thick pancake recipe poor about half into hot pan. Turn down the heat, place sliced fruit on the pan cake. Once this mixture has almost set/cooked, pour in remainder mixture and cook on low heat.

That I could get mushroom spores and grow them on my wood mulch. You can make mushroom antipasto by soaking in brine, then cook with vinegar, garlic ,peppercorns etc, summer until softened, drain and pack into jars, fill with very hot olive oil and seal. Waste vnegar can used to flavor other dishes.

Broad beans. We grew these for the first time last winter, surprisingly everyone enjoyed them. This was because we picked them when they were still quite small, so they tasted more like peas and we soft and juicy not hard and rubbery. Broad been pate sounds interesting. 750 grams of broad beans, cook sated water 5-6 mins, cool remove skins. Sauté an onion, small red and green pepper (all chopped small) in olive oil. Add broad beans tablespoon of tomato t water, bay leaf and summer savory (what is this?) simmer, remove bay leaf and any savory stalks, blend it up tip into bow with 75g of bread crumbs, 2 eggs (whisked) and back in medium over for 40 mins. I would like to give this a go for our next family event to see if people like it.

I need to get into growing nasturtiums. They grow like weeds and are self seeding. You can use the leaves as a salad green, can stuff the flowers and make the seeds into poor mans capers. You can also pickle them by brining for a few days, drain, rinse pack into jars, add vinegar, peppercorns, bay leaf etc.

Other:
Moving the cycle of fruiting/cropping. I had never considered that you could move the time when fruits and vegetables come into season. However it is now obvious. If you plant early varieties or plant things in the north facing they will fruit/grow earlier. If you do it south facing then it would be slower. You can speed things up with mini greenhouses. Thus you avoid some of the glut as everything comes on at once.