What are you bottling, then?

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by bella, Jan 17, 2006.

  1. bella

    bella Junior Member

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    Thought I'd start a new thread to find out what others are bottling

    Last week I bottled some mango - three large jars full. They were #31s. Tonight I opened a bottle to try it and out of the eight of us... eight LOVE bottled mango. So I'm going to do some more on the weekend.

    Today I made some mango jam, but it didn't set too well. I think I was being impatient as it was getting hot in the kitchen! It'll do!

    I also froze a heap of mango for all-fruit smoothies...

    Mango is the first thing I've ever bottled with my Vacola unit. I really, really wanted to do tomatoes as I usually have tons of romas, but it was not to be...

    Bel
     
  2. seussrules

    seussrules Junior Member

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    What happened to the tomatoes, Bella?

    We are just gearing up to bottle ours - amish paste and new zealand pink pear. We put in a few too many small varieties this year, so the bottling yield will be down. Any thoughts on good ways to use little tomatoes (I suspect our friends are going to be sick of the surplus before we run out)? I'm also going to pickle a bumper crop of lebanese cucumbers on the weekend....yum....
     
  3. billybuttongirl

    billybuttongirl Junior Member

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    The mangoes sound great! In the Fowlers book it says something about them becoming really mushy which kind of put me off... but you've encouraged me to try them. Did you just cut them into medium sized pieces and pack them in?

    I'm new to this bottling game too, only found a stove top FV unit 2 days ago and did some tomatoes (halves and quarters, one jar with some bay leaves, one jar with some garlic), cherries (seemed to work really well, unpitted), strawberries (uncooked, they all went soft and rose and compressed so that there is a 2cm layer of strawbs at top of jar, then the rest is red liquid...) and nectarines. Am still having trouble getting all the air out so i suspect that batch may not last long...

    I'm keen to find more tomato recipes too as both my parents and i will hopefully have a good crop, so all of you tomato bottling pros out there let us know what is the best way to preserve them!

    cheers,
    billybuttongirl
     
  4. HoneydaleFarm

    HoneydaleFarm Junior Member

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    I did a batch of cherry chutney last night, got given 4kg of export quality cherries (its more than you think!!) and there are only so many you can eat fresh or bake with LOL. The colour is gorgeous, and I can't wait to use it as a gravy base for roast meats in winter.

    Also have done apricot jams, chutneys and preserves, and am looking forwrad to the crop of tomatoes (bit later down in Tassie) to do chutneys, dried and sauces! Have also bottled some carrots, cucumbers and onions.

    Bring on the ripening of plums, and soon all the apples will be ready YAY!!!!
     
  5. bella

    bella Junior Member

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    suess, the tomatoes were attacked by rain, chickens, children, fruit fly, more rain, lawn mowing husband and then a heatwave finished them off. No matter what I did to protect my toms, the odds were against them last year. Will plant the next lot March/April and cross my fingers! Have changed a few things so their enemies will be lessened at least...

    suess, you can bottle cherry toms and the like too, don't know how you'd use them later. I've used in sauces etc when I had no other choice - the skins came away and floated, I skimmed them off the top. We have wild cherry tomatoes here so can pick a 10L bucket a day, easily. Sometimes I'm keen and cook with them. Chooks love 'em. Kids too.

    billybutton, the mangoes I cut into 2cm cubes. I only used nice firm squares of mango. The slice-type bits we ate fresh. They stayed firm, like tinned diced peaches really. They were perfectly ripe, not underipe and not squishy at all. I have a major glut, so can be picky!

    Honey, yum, yum, yum. Preserving in your clime sounds delightful. For us, the preservable excesses are really limited... :(

    Bel
     
  6. dryland dweller

    dryland dweller Junior Member

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    We have about 10 No 4s with Plums and the same of apricots and 6 jars of peaches so during winter we are set.....still have heaps from previous years.
    Opened a bottle of plums from 2000 and as nice as the day they were preserved :D
    We also dry our tomatoes and things like bananas and apples.
    Also make a nice schnapps with fresh fruit potent but nice over ice:)
    Pete
     
  7. bella

    bella Junior Member

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    Pete, great to hear that they last that long. How/where do you store them?

    Bel
     
  8. billybuttongirl

    billybuttongirl Junior Member

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    I have a question about tomato bottling, i was reading the other day that you should bottle tomatoes with any of the onion family (i guess this includes garlic) as it sours them... Does anyone have any comments on this? I bought about 4kg of toms this morning from the Vic market to do some 'practice preserving' on before mine ripen and i was thinking of cooking up a pasta sauce with onion, garlic, basil etc. Should i just bottle plain halves instead?
     
  9. billybuttongirl

    billybuttongirl Junior Member

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    oops, a typo in my previous post, i meant that it says you shouldn't bottle tomatoes with onions....
     
  10. living simple

    living simple Junior Member

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    Bottling

    Hi all,
    I have just stumbled across this website and am excited to see so many like-minded people out there!!

    I am a young, 'new-to-gardening' girl, who is trying to live a simple, stress-free life. I live on a secluded 50 acres on the north west coast of Tassie and i am about to harvest a heap of beetroot. I was hoping someone can give me the 'recipe' to bottle them!! I'm guessing it's vinegar, sugar and maybe water, but in what quantaties?? There is always so much sugar used in preserving some things, and i wondered if i could cut this down a bit?

    Anyway, hoping someone can help . . .

    Cheers
    Lyn
     
  11. billybuttongirl

    billybuttongirl Junior Member

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    HI Living Simple,
    Your place sounds fabulous!! I 'stumbled' upon this site a few days ago myself and totally agree with you that its great to see so many like-minded people out there!

    Have you done beetroot juice? Its nice combined with other juices and ginger.

    Check out the Green Living forum, they have a recipe for Beetroot chutney. Go to https://greenlivingaustralia.com.au/foru ... c.php?t=78

    cheers,
    Billybutton
     
  12. Rob6014

    Rob6014 Junior Member

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    I am hanging out for the pears and quinces... I do pears whole in a vanilla and white wine syrup (which is requested by visitors for dessert.) I make quince paste, and quince jelly and bottle a few quinces for a Greek pork dish with quinces. Tomatoes are a must - and I do a minimum of 30 bottles (the big ones) a year and they all get used up well before the next crop is due. They go into curries, Italian dishes, middle eastern dishes and Greek dishes - (we are working our way round the culinary world...) Plums are next on the list - I do them plain, because I have found that some spices, like cardamon and cloves tend to get stronger and stronger over time. Cherry plums and flowering prunus plums are put into flagons with cheap plonk and some sugar and become delicious liqueurs. I tried bottling berries in the past, but they weren't a real success, so they stay frozen until I need them. I used to try to bottle everything, but found it is not always the best way to preserve things.
    Robyn
     
  13. billybuttongirl

    billybuttongirl Junior Member

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    Hi Robyn,
    Your bottling sounds great! Can i ask which things you now no longer bottle?

    I loved the idea of using those small weedy Prunus plums. I once tried making jam from them, but far too fiddly to remove the stones. Fruit liquer sounds much better!

    Billybuttongirl
     
  14. seussrules

    seussrules Junior Member

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    I found that using an olive pitter was a very good way of pitting the small plums from our rogue plum tree in order to make jam. It certainly made short work of them. It was to no avail, however, as my first effort at jam making in over twenty years was a wash-out. Consistency was great, but the plum skins became candied and so tough that it was inedible :(
     
  15. dryland dweller

    dryland dweller Junior Member

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    Hi Bella basically in the pantry, in the shed or the pitin the garage :D
    Dont worry they last a long time we actually opened a bottle of plums from 1991 and they were still good as
    Pete
     
  16. spritegal

    spritegal Junior Member

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    Hi all

    BillyButtonGirl, I sincerely hope that the info you read is wrong, as I just cooked up 5kg of tomatoes onions garlic and herbs this evening and bottled it as pasta sauce. Maybe I should have read this forum first?

    As I think more about it, that info you sourced surely can't be right unless both the tomatoes and the onions are RAW when you bottle them together, because otherwise all the pasta sauces on the shelves in the supermarket would also be inedible - and they're not...(although the purists amongst us might want to argue that point :wink: )
     
  17. billybuttongirl

    billybuttongirl Junior Member

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    Hi aussie_spritegal,
    Well i just did a batch of pasta sauce from 2.5kgs tomatoes, WITH onions and garlic (+ basil and marjoram from the garden), last night to bottle.... so i hope what i'd read was wrong too! I'd read it in a book on growing vegies from the 90s (maybe late 80s), forget the name, something about "Beat the recession in your garden" (a nice read though), there was a short chapter on preserving food. But i figured that since no one had replied to my post saying it was true and i hadn't seen it anywhere else that it mustn't be right.

    I've been noticing that on a lot of the American canning websites they say you should use bottled rather than freshly squeezed lemon juice as the acidity of the latter is variable and you can't be sure you are adding the right amount to things like tomatoes. Anyone have any comments on that? I'm not sure if i like the idea of buying bottled lemon juice when there are so many lemons about.

    Bella, i also did some mangoes which i picked up cheap at the Queen Vic Market here in Melbourne. Also did some peach quarters, but i was in a hurry and forgot to peel the skin off the clingstone ones.... i guess a little more fibre can't be that bad!

    I think i read in another thread someone lamenting that their grandma wasn't here to ask questions about bottling - ditto from me!!!

    Billybuttongirl
     
  18. spritegal

    spritegal Junior Member

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    Hmm...oh dear

    I didn't put any lemon juice in, as I felt after tasting that the natural acidity of the tomatoes was enough for preserving, should I have put lemon juice in?

    spritegal :shock:
     
  19. barely run

    barely run Junior Member

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    I've never put lemon in my tomatoes...just toms and herbs...basil, oregano,marjarom, chives and black pepper and garlic
    Cathy
     
  20. Franceyne

    Franceyne Junior Member

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    I don't use lemon juice when I have bottled tomatoes either - no problems my end. :)

    My partner, Glenn and I have just bottled about 550 apricots - Glenn counted the kernels! :lol: All from our own tree. We were up until 2:30am with two stove top Fowler Vacola units - it was great fun.

    We have just been given a big bag of plums - some of which I have made into jam and some of which I want to try turning into plum sauce (a first for me).

    Has anyone used the saucing bottles in their Fowlers Vacola or similar?

    Cheers,
    Fran.
     

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