October 3, 2017
My parents went to Japan and I am guarding our house with my cat. What my mom left behind was a fridge full of vegetables and fruits. Some fruits were a bit bad and veggies also … and since me and Nouf don’t eat that much I decided to turn everything to preserves.
If you also have a garden or a fridge full of leftover veggies or fruits turn them into something good also! **Don’t throw away perfectly good food. **
First I found a bag full of a bit rotten clementines. She got them from her friend. Homegrown clementines, mmm. I peeled and cleaned them and pour hot sugar syrup (ratio water:sugar 4:1). I pasteurised the glasses in the oven. They will be good to use in fruit salads or desserts.
Then I found a bowl of bad tomatoes and cooked them with celery (I saved it at work from death), apples, a bit of sugar, salt and vinegar. I cooked everything for around 30 minutes and blend it. I pasteurised the sauce in the oven. The mixture is insanely good but I still don’t know how to name it. Liquid makes-everything-better spice maybe? It will be perfect in giving the dishes some extra flavour.
The third thing was spinach (but it’s not on the photos). Maybe because my grandma managed to trick me into picking it with her while saying ‘I have a little spinach for you’. But at the end we cleaned a whole wheel barrel of spinach. It was half past 11 in the night yesterday, when I was steaming it and set it to cool down. Because I’m kind of lazy with chopping I just choped it in big pieces and write on a sticker “Spinach 2017; Not finely chopped”. Mom will use it in smoothies or something 🙂 #lifehacks
And as my last preserve I used a bag of cucumbers, a bag of carrots (also leftovers from my job), some tomatoes and celery. Firstly I massaged carrots and cucumbers with some salt and sugar, till it both became soft. Then I put everything in jars and pour hot mix of water, vinegar, sugar and salt over it. I pasteurised the jars in the oven. I specially see the usefulness of this preserve in the winter, when I will want to pimp my salad. I will simply open a jar and voila – 4 types of veggies will be waiting for me.
