My hand was forced!

Last summer, I brought back all of mum's home grown fruit (gooseberries and raspberries) and tomatoes from her deepfreeze and popped them in the deepfreeze in my shed. I didn't want them to go to waste as she had gone to the effort of growing, picking and preparing them. I used some last year, alongside mine, to make jams and various other bits and bobs, but there was a lot left. Also in the deepfreeze were bags of blackberries and loganberries which I had picked and large quantities of chopped apples from the two trees in the garden - all leading to a very full deepfreeze of produce.

You might be able to tell where I'm going with this ..... Yes, damn it, the blinking deepfreeze decided to give up the ghost!! Bum is one of the words that comes to mind.

Here I was concentrating on slimming down the contents of my cupboards, knowing that I'd have to get round to the stuff in the deepfreeze eventually before we moved house. As a plan, it could have worked if it weren't for the old and ailing deepfreeze choosing to force my hand!

Preserving the jars - ready to go in the oven 

So today,  I cooked up 4 kilos of tomatoes to make ketchup. I will make blackberry vodka, and jam with the loganberries, raspberries and gooseberries. I don't much like gooseberry jam, but it can always be given as gifts! I have multiple kilos of apples, some of which I will add to the red fruit in the jams and some will be puréed or made into crumbles, chutneys and a cake.

Blackberry and vanilla vodka, just waiting for me to buy the cheap vodka. 

The forgotten treat from the deep freeze :) 

I hadn't intended on dealing with all of this now, BUT, there are positives

• It will be done well in advance of any moving chaos
• It's helped use up even more of my store cupboard lingerers (3 bottles of part used vinegar for starters) 
• It's given me more room in the shed and is no longer using the electricity.
• It spurred us on to ditch the very old fridge which was also in the shed using up electricity whilst mostly empty.
• It's cleared the shelf of empty jars.
• I won't need to make any jam next year at all, so can focus on different things, like jellies.
• We found some cookies in there which we had forgotten about :)
• Just some sad looking pieces of fish were thrown away and that would have happened whatever as they were well passed their best.

I'll post about any more preserving as it happens. I've got some ideas for added flavours .....