Summer Kitchen

 Hello everyone , how are you all?

The weather is totally gorgeous at the moment and yet we are in the kitchen daily doing our best to save and preserve our crops .

In the Summer our kitchen turns into a small processing station. The sink is usually full of either veggies or soft fruits being washed, then onto prepping it all for either blanching or in the case of the glut of Raspberries we have at the moment , being placed on trays and flash frozen. Our beans, carrots, cabbages are blanched and then chilled, left a little while to drain and then again placed on trays to freeze. The next day they are all bagged up and put in the chest freezer.

If we are not doing all that then it's jam making or chutney and just recently Pickling.

My back Pantry is full of empty clean jars all ready to go. 

Most of the work is more preparation than anything else. I have a mental check list before i start anything.

Jars check

Sugar check

Lemons check.

Preserving Pan check

Jam spoon check.

Freezing trays check

Freezer bag check.

Once i have it all lined up and ready to go then we start and normally get it all done in a few hours. It's a team effort, one will be washing or chopping them blanching and chilling whilst the other is getting jars ready and beginning the jam process. It really is hot and sweaty work at times but the end result is our own food , no pesticides or chemicals on it. The taste of a jar of jam is like nothing in this world, it tastes even better when you know how it was made and exactly what went into it.

The summer kitchen is busy and lively with our Alexa playing our different playlists and having a laugh whilst doing it. Don't get me wrong it looks like a bomb has gone off at times and the clean up is a long laborious task with pots, colanders and pans all needing to be washed ,dried and then put away. I have a small list and write down how much we made and stored away, it's like a small record so i know how much we have and how long it will last in the freezer.

The next day i will put labels on the jars with a date when it was made and pop them on to shelves in the Pantry, it really is a good feeling to see it all starting to fill up with our handy work.

And then the next day it starts all over again. We spend a lot of time in our kitchen and it really is the heart of our home, it's not flashy or ultra glossy just a well loved hand made kitchen with different seasons to it's life. Summer it's worked real hard and then tends to just be a normal kitchen for 6 months of the year.

Tomorrow it gets the day off, we have nothing ready to prep and we have to have a chill day as well.

Have a lovely weekend and take care.

Love Ftm🌻