Drying Haw Berries, Haw Jelly and Haw wine

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 28/09/08 at 02:09:44 pm

A few days ago Dave and I went out and collected a big bag of haw’s. I have had these haws lying around my house for a while and I decided it was about time I did something with them. 

Drying Haw’s

I looked all over the place for information on this, I think that sun drying would probably be the best way to dry Hawthorn berries. Laying them out on a baking tray in the morning and returning in the evening. I would have to go to the park and do this as my yard faces north and subsequently does not get much sun. So I put them in the oven on a low heat, yes it is a waste of electricity but I did put them in straight after the oven was used before turning the oven on, meaning I used a little of the heat leftover. Not entriely convinced this will work. I will return and edit this post with some results.

Haw Jelly

Firstly I made Haw Jelly, this was first introduced to me as my present from the secret selfsufficientish santa a couple of Christmas’s ago and I have loved the stuff ever since. Pretty easy stuff to make. The recipe that I use is inspired by some ofthe ishers on our web forum.

Ingredients

• 1 lb of Haws (500g)
• 1.5 pints of water (800mls)
• 3 crab apples
• 2 cooking apples

Method

Boil until the haws and the apples are all mushy. Then get a muslin cloth/jelly bag or an old CLEAN t-shirt pour in the mushy liquid, tie up some where (cupboard handles are a good spot) and strain through into a bowl. This is best done slowly even overnight as apparently squeezing it can make the jelly go cloudy, but I have no patience and tend to give it a helping hand. I am not puritan after all.

Measure our what liquid you have left and pour in the same amount of sugar. So one pint of sugar to each pound of liquid, 500g per 500ml. Then boil until you reach setting point. To test this put a saucer in the freezer for a bit, then dollup the jelly onto every now and then, when it seems to set and not run all over the saucer it is ready to put into sterilized jam jars.

It makes about three Marmite sized jars full. Unless like me you drop one into the rest of the big pile of haws and end up with a big jammy mess of haws.

Don’t drop a half filled

Hawthorn Berry Wine.

There are probally a few hawthorn berry wine recipes out there that are tried and tested, if you are reading this near or in September 2008 then I can’t tell you if this recipe is any better than any of the others. If you are reading it in or after the spring of 2009 then there might be an update and so you should look for it to find the taste.

Ingredients

• Four pints(2 litres) of Hawberries (fill a pint glass four times with them)
• 1 lb (500g) of chopped raisins (don’t go looking to buy them ready chopped do it yourself lazy tyke)
• 2.5 lb (1.25 kg) Sugar
• Juice of one lemon
• 1 gallon of sugar
• 1 campden tablet
• 15g yeast and 10g yeast nutrient.

Take out the stalks and all the bits of twigs. Rinse the Haw berries with cold water. Pour six pints of water over the top of them and leave loosely covered for a couple of hours.  No it is crushing time, squeeze every last berry with your hands so that you get right messy (make sure you have washed your hands).

Add the raisins and lemon juice leave for 24 hours in a fermentation bin if you have one, otherwise a steralized bucket covered in a tea towel.

After the 24 hours is up stir in the sugar when you are sure it has disolved add the  yeast and yeast nutrient. Keep covered in a warm place for 5-7 days depending on how busy you are.

Strain into a demi-john fit an airlock and leave for about 3 months, rack* then bottle after a month. Storing the bottles on their side.

*Syphon into another demi-john leaving the sediment.

Ireland calling – Virgin Update – Lacock

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 25/09/08 at 08:09:34 pm

Seems that I have somehow managed to strike a cord with Ireland. In a couple of weeks we are due to film a small something for a documentary to be shown on RTE and tomorrow I have been asked to talk about ecotarianism on a show called the Last Word on Today FM. Apart from the late, late show that we got over here for a bit, I have never really watched any Irish telly or indeed listen to that much Irish radio. Not really sure what to expect of either to be fair.

The Radio thing span off from an interview with the Times that I did the other day. It was a pretty good extract I thought and for once I was not misquoted.

Closer to home, Andy Hamilton is a Bristol-based forager and environmentalist and author of The Selfsufficient-ish Bible, an urban guide to “almost self-sufficiency”. Far from being a politically motivated firebrand, he is charmingly affable and at ease with this concept of compromise. “You have to question everything and look down the chain,” he says, “but it’s about being realistic.” He grows his own vegetables and will cycle half an hour to buy a “decent” pint of milk. “But equally I will buy Fairtrade orange juice now and again and I’m not just thinking ‘Right, I’ve done my bit for Africa there’, but I do actively choose not always to buy local for that reason alone. I like to buy local honey, but occasionally will buy Fairtrade because it is helping the rainforest, in that if they are making money from it perhaps they’ll stop chopping it down.

Enough of the showing off there!

Virgin Update

Virgin media have put a foot forward in the right direction and are refunding me some money, about bloody time too! I am still not entirely convinced that everything is square as yet need to sit down and scour through my bank statement. I have a feeling that all this arose due the staff being paid commission on getting sales. We got a letter from our phone company telling saying that they were sorry to see us go when we first signed up to virgin, we did not sign up our phone with them and had to get this overturned.

Pretty slow day otherwise.

Lacock

Spent yesterday in Lacock, a small village 4-5 miles from Chippenham. There was not much there but that did not really matter, it was great to spend the day ambling along the Route 4 cycle path by the river Avon from Chippenham to get to the village. Then stopping for cream tea at a traditional tea shop when we arrived, before wandering around taking pictures and generally just have a relaxed time.

We did not have tea served in this massive tea pot but there were plenty of oddities like this hanging around. It managed to be touristy without being Disneyfied, well I thought so anyway. Some of the shops had women serving wearing serving wench clothing, it took a moment to take in what I was seeing but seem fine. The whole village has been pretty much untouched from the 13th Century.

I did find that there was an odd calm to the village and indeed it seemed that I was not the only one. During wartime Londoners were evacuated there and there was a school set up in the Abbey (also used by Harry Potter). Aparently, the children behaviour was exemplary during this period. Reading other history’s of the abbey there certainly seemed that anyone who had any contact experienced this calm.

There is a spaced out theory that new places hold lots of chaotic energy and so we can react badly, this is why new estates can get vandalised etc. Not sure about the chaotic energy, but I do know that in an old place you can feel more relaxed. Old places have a character of their own, with the creeks, uneven floors, woody smells and small doorways. I really do defy anyone to tell me they feel less relaxed in a place from the 12th Centry than a concreate block from the 1960’s. Well unless it is haunted.

Look to the left, now is that not just sheer beauty? Well it is to me but then I think I am becoming a sucker for houses with even just a hint of wood and am slowly becoming a hater of Urban mistakes! In fact I am seariously debating a move away from the constant wails of sirens, house alarms and all that. I would miss being able to nip out and do all the stuff that a city can offer though. So this will possibly stay an internal dilemma for a lot longer.

Anyway back to the point, I was sort of speaking of wood; we also found this amazing Yew tree, not sure how old it is but looking at it I would say it predates the house above. You could almost transport yourself through time when you held onto this tree, it must have had so many stories happen around it.  People do report to have some strange experiences beneth a yew, perhaps as it is pretty toxic. On that note must make some food as I think I am getting decidedly light headed myself.

No plastic bags Bristol and a purple bee

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 21/09/08 at 10:09:10 am

Popped over to the bohemian part of Bristol Yesterday to see the launch of the GRAB campaign. The Gloucester Road Alternative Bag Campaign basically is exactly what it says on the tin, er well bag. 60 shops along one road have signed up to not give out un-biodegradable bags. So it was sort of a launch of not giving out a product and who said post modernism was dead!

Those of you who are long time ishers will remember the “carry a bag” campaign. We were one of the first webistes to really bring the issue of bags to the forefront. As we were the first I can safely say without being deluded in the slightest, that if it was not for selfsufficientish carry a bag campaign none of the biodegradable bags that some of the shops give out would ever have happened. Well we were top search for Tesco bag at one point and it linked to a letter from me to Tesco telling them that as they stated in an early letter they were not, “leading the way in green issues”.

Back to Gloucester Road thing, it was a great day out with singers, freebies, bags and the sun shone for the first Saturday in ages. The singers were so good I took a little video clip of them – GRAB

I have heard the argument that whilst we concentrate on carrier bags the rest of the 99% of packaging is being forgotten about. Again Bristol seemed have got it right and some of the shops were even stopping their packaging. The Butchers had reverted back to grease proof paper, home brew shop was only offering bio-degradable packaging on many of their products and the Scoopaway shop have reduced the size of the bags you get your nuts, flour, muesli or whatever into.  Not just that anything that makes people question what they consider as normal as using a carrier bag is great in my book (page 456).

I am seriously considering a new campaign to get companies responsible for their waste. Not sure the logistics of that yet and even if it would work, will have to ponder for a little longer.

Purple Bee

I forgot to mention in my elderberry wine post the other day; when I was preparing the elderberries I saw some of them move. I looked down into the mass of berries and saw a bee, well I can only assume it was a bee as it was dyed a very dark purple from all the elderberries. I scooped it out and threw it out of the window and it was gone by the time we left the house, so hopefully he flew back to his hive and had a story to tell all of his other bee mates.

Elderberry Wine & Netham Common

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 19/09/08 at 10:09:54 pm

Just been down to the common to pick a load of elder berries to make into elderberry wine, using my Mums tried and tested method that is in our book.

Every time I walk on Netham Common, which is almost every day at the moment, it really fills me with a sense of hope. Even in living memory the common was a toxic dump. I spoke to one of my neighbours and he remembers when it used to be a chemical works. The Barton Hill History Group state that from 1859 to 1949 a huge chimney used to belch out smoke, casting a shadow across Barton Hill.  The massive 40 acre site must have looked like something out of Threads.

In fact vast areas over this side of (South East) Bristol along the river Avon between here and Bath were once heavy industrial sites. Here is an extract from the South Gloustershire council website – “The thick walls of the old smelter works near Conham River Park are still standing, along with the boundary wall of Conham Hall. The hall itself was demolished in 1971 and made way for a sewage works and later a refuse tip. The site has now been landscaped and its small thickets provide a good habitat for small birds and mammals”. Indeed I have seen a Heron around this area and even a massive wild Muscovy duck, although I fear that someone might have ate him this year as I have not seen him for a while!

So next time you see a chemical plant or Didcot Power staion think of Netham Common and the surrounding area and think that it might one day be a little pocket of paradise.

So the Elderberry wine, yesterday I picked some elderberries but when I got back and weighed them they were not neally enough, so we had to go out and get some more. Emma (my girlfriend) was concerned that we leave enough elderberries for the birds, she is right I know and so we left all the berries on high branches.

THE ELDERBERRY WINE RECIPE – taken from The Selfsufficientihs Bible published by Shodder and Stoughton

Our parents, who are fortunate enough to habve an elder tree at the bottom of their garden, have tried various different elderberry wine recipes over the years and they have now settled on this one as their favorite. This recipe makes six bottles. It is quite a dry wine, but we’ve found the taste varies from year to year, depending on the amount of sun and rain during the summer,

1.5Kg (3lbs) Elderberries, 4.5 litres (1 gallon) water, 1tsp of brewers yeast, 1.5kg (3lb) granulated sugar, 7 tbsp warm water, 2 yeast nutrient tablets crushed or 1tsp of yeast nutrient.

1. Take the berries off the stalks with a fork. This is important, because the stalks are poisinous. You could put the berries in the freezer before making this wine – this is not essential, but they seem to be juicer as a result. When ready to make the wine defrost the berries first.
2. Crush the berries into a fermentation bin.
3. In a large pan, bring the water to boiling point and pour it over the berries in the bin. Leave to rest until the water is lukewarm.
4. Mix the yeast, 1tsp of the sugar and the warm water in a cup; leave for 15 minutes to activate
5. Put the yeast mixture together with the yeast nutrient into the fermentation bin. Stir well. Cover tightly and lave at room temperature for 3-5 days, stirring daily. Do not allow the temperature to go below 15C (59F) or over 25C (77f).
6. Put the rest of the sugar into a second fermentation bin and sieve the gunge (known as must) from the first bucket into the second. Cominde the must thoroughly with the sugar until dissolved.
7. Using a funnel, fill a demijohn up to the shoulder with the mixture.
8. Fit the bung with the airlock attached and half fill the airlock with water.
9. Leave the mixture to fement at room temperature – this can be quite a voilent process. When all activity has ceased (that is when no bubbles are coming out of the demijohn), the wine can be siphoned into sterilized bottles.
10. Leave the bottles stored on their side for a good 6 months before drinking.

Virgin Media Broadband overcharging

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 17/09/08 at 05:09:45 pm

Not a very selfsufficientish day today, I did get some elderberries, some yarrow, some plantain and some hawthorn in order to make stuff will post at a later date about that.

Just a bit of a waste of 3 hours I have had trying to sort out my Broadband bill.  You know you often glance at a DD and just think ok that must be right, it is not until you really can’t put your hands on any cash that you start to look at your transactions. I did just that recently, well over a month ago and found that Virgin Media really were taking me for a ride. – reminds me of a quick joke,

Just got stung by a bee.

Really are you OK

Not really £20 for a jar of honey.

Anyway, I was in a writing mood today shame that it ended up being spend on something so trite and down right unnecessary as trying to get money back off a massive company with millions. I wonder if I am alone in getting really bad service from Virgin Media? Well below is the email I have just written them, it is my third.

I have a few problems with my Virgin Media service and am not at all happy. I am happy with the connection but very unhappy with the level of customer service and billing and am still unsure as to what I am actually paying for. I have not had the same reply from your customer service operatives more than once so as to add to the confusion.

I am self employed and so to me time literally means money, I have had to waste a number of hours talking and emailing Virgin trying to rectify my billing. In the end I was told to speak to my bank who are in the process of sorting out my account, it seemed that Virgin media are incapable of doing so. Indeed when I first set my account up Virgin Media even tried to disconnect my telephone without permission and make me sign up with them. In fact I have never signed anything with Virgin media and certainly did not ask to sign up for the phone line.

On one of my recent calls I was assured by telephone that I would only be paying £10 a month instead of £35.99 as I have been paying. One payment of £18 that is apparently correct and one of £17.99 that is not.

I was also told that I would be refunded the extra £25.99 a month that I have been paying extra and this would be sorted out forthwith. Rather than being paid this amount I was offered a telephone package as an add on and asked to pay £20 a month and not £10 as previously agreed. I was also told that the person I had spoken to before hand was a liar and told that “I could stop emailing now”! This Sales caller in customer service clothing told me that the case would now be closed and I would have to pay £18 a month. He then gave me the number of you collections department who to be fair did look into the problem and were very polite, but did say that I should contact my bank and not you.

I await with baited breath to see what Virgin Media will do next, will I ever get a refund, will I ever pay £10 a month? Will another DD appear on my account? In the meantime I am paying interest on a debt created by Virgin Medias ineptitude and I have also lost out on the possibility of a lot of money due to having to sort out this problem instead of looking for freelance work.

I have decided to blog this so as to have a permanent record of it and also to see if anyone else has had the same problem. I have also contacted various consumer rights radio and television shows.

Washing with Borax and Bicarb, TV stuff too…..

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 15/09/08 at 09:09:28 pm

Well I carried on my quest for the perfect eco wash today and used two teaspoons of domestic Borax powder and two of Bicarbonate of soda. I must admit the results were not that great the item I looked at to test the wash this time was a white shirt that I had worn on Dave’s allotment.

It came out with dirt still on it! I am not sure if I need to up the dose. The Duvet cover seemed alright though and looks and smells clean. I wonder if I would have got the same results if I had of used nothing though.

4/10 but need to up the amount from two teaspoons of each.

So to recap

• Soap Nuts – not bad for everyday but fails to really clean mucky clothes.  – 5/10
• Alma Win – Cleanut laundry Detergent. -An improvement on above, still does not remove the most stubborn stains. However, it does warn this on the packaging. 6/10 (I might even push up to a 7 on a good day.
• Bio D Non Biological Washing Powder best so far 7.5 out of ten

Other News – TV stuff

We did some filming at the weekend with BBC inside out west They were a great bunch to work with and it was a real good laugh. I think it will be broadcast next month on local BBC west country not sure if they have a watch again thing will post it if they do.

Also had a call today from a TV company in Ireland who are filming something for RTE one of the national channels over there. Apparently they want to film something in a few weeks and have us appear on a show, been down this road before with the Paul O’grady show, we even filmed all day and it was cut at the last moment after telling all of our friends so I won’t be daft this time and announce it publicly. Definitely keep all TV stuff to myself from now on.

Quince Comfits and Knowle west

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 14/09/08 at 09:09:42 pm

Quince Comfits

Just finished making some Quince Comfits a recipe from the 1700s. I made it with Quinces that I picked from along the river Avon last week. The recipe came from an excellent book called “Food in England” by Dorothy Hartley. I won’t bother putting a link to anywhere to buy this as it was first published in 1954 and you are sure to find it in a second hand book shop or charity shop somewhere.

Anyway, the recipe for quince comfits is pretty simple. Chop up and Stew every part of the quinces, I used just enough water to cover them and cut them into quarters they took roughly 10-13 mins and 32 seconds to become soft. Then push them through a sieve. This takes some time and will take even longer if you have loads of quince to get through, enlist someones help if you get bored. You should be left with pips and a sort of dry pulp in the sieve and what looks like baby food in the bowl beneath. Now put this into a saucepan put the heat onto about 3 or medium and put the same amount of sugar in. To do this cover half the bottom of the pan in the pulp and measure next to it (using your eye) the same amount of sugar.

Keep stirring, the book says wait until it dries up I did not know what this meant and worried a little, it just means wait until it becomes a bit stiff. – I am sure the story of some peoples lives! Scoop this out onto a bread board and roll in shapes about the size of marker pen lids. Dust with icing sugar and this should keep until Christmas in a tin. Might try this with other fruit at some point, haw comfits anyone?

Knowle West and the food Fayre

I was told yesterday about an event in Knowle West the “Knowle West Carbon Makeover Food Fayre”. I was in two minds about going as this is considered to be one of the worst areas in Bristol. I then thought about my trepidation and decided that places are never as bad as they are made out to be. This indeed was the case with Knowle west, the streets might not have been paved with gold but they were clean (apart from near to the shops) and the people we had to ask for directions were very friendly; one girl even waved us off after giving us perfect directions. I saw a couple of people with beer cans at 10am but really this seems to be the case in many areas in cities these days. What I did see were families out enjoying the sun and lots of smiling people.

After walking for about an hour we found the Knowle west media centre and the Knowle West Carbon Food Fayre. First person we saw was the omnipresent Tea bike person. Then various other people including a food co-op, an anti plastic bag league where they teach people to make bags, a cob pizza oven, jam making and a medicinal herb woman. We were in fact the first customers of Green Medicine a lovely woman who is sharing the knowledge she gains whilst learning about herbalism. There were more stalls and people and I apologize if I have not met them as it was a great morning spent and they helped make a very relaxed yet insperational atmosphere.

We then went to the alloment and havested some of corn. A magical Sunday really.

The quest for the ultimate green washing powder continues….

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 14/09/08 at 02:09:35 pm

To recap previous blog entries I am washing muddy clothes in a normal wash at 30 degrees Celsius.  I have only tried two methods so far and here is a brief description of the results.

• Soap Nuts – not bad for everyday but fails to really clean mucky clothes.  – 5/10
• Alma Win – Cleanut laundry Detergent. -An improvement on above, still does not remove the most stubborn stains. However, it does warn this on the packaging. 6/10 (I might even push up to a 7 on a good day.
• Bio D Non Biological Washing Powder, See below

Bio D came highly recommended by a friend of mine with 2 small children; they live on the edge of a city and so have plenty of muddy fields surrounding them. Needless to say she does have to deal with some pretty mucky clothes.

I tested this load with a dark load of washing and it has all come out pretty clean.  I have a pair of water proof trousers (that have been overused this summer)! they really do get caked and ingrained with mud. This was to be the item I inspected closely in order to ascertain the effectiveness of the powder. They still do have mud ingrained in them but I think this is from a while back when I went to a very, very muddy festival along with months on the allotment.  So again Bio D can’t work miracles but it is effective and does seem to wash clothes at low temperatures with similar results to one of the leading fish killing detergents.

Bio D 7.5 out of 10.

Alma Win Product Testing

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 11/09/08 at 07:09:42 pm

When I first tried soap nuts I really wanted them to work, what better a totally natural washing detergent. They contain Saponin which is apparently the active ingredient. I am slightly embarrassed to say that I have even written about them in our book. At first they did appear to work which is why indeed I wrote about them. After using them for a few months I noticed that none of my clothes were getting clean. I can’t say I am that fussed, being a bit of a messy bloke. My girlfriend was less than pleased and decided to switch back to one of the less than environmental brands for her clothes and much worse switching up to a 40 degree wash.

Undeterred by her environmental terrorism, I am trying out some alternatives that I have picked up to wash at 30 degrees today I am using Alma Win – Cleanut laundry Detergent. – Others will follow. We live in a hard water area so I used 60ml as stated on the bottle.

Results are in and it has performed ok, not great but ok. I must add that there were some pretty dirty clothes in the machine. I lifted my gardening fork up over my shoulder the other day and did not realise that it had been acumulating water inside the hollow handle. This water had turned black. Like an idiot I was wearing one of my favourite shirts. You can guess the rest.  This is why it has not turned out great, the shirt still has black marks on the shoulder and down the sleves. I would say this product just out performed soap nuts although it is hard to tell and is perhaps good for a person who does not get as muddy as me.

Alma Win Verdict – not to be used if you get dirty.   Marks 6/10

BBC Radio Essex Dave monk Show and Eat the Change

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 08/09/08 at 11:09:25 am

Just done a telephone interview with Radio Essex. I have been crapping myself all weekend about this, strangley so much that I was distracted when giving the talks at the organic food festival. I might bang on about these things, but they are still a big deal to me. Dave and I might have been on National Tv and radio but that seems like a distant dream by now.  Which means stuff like this is still nerve wracking.  It is strange to think that many people who do TV for a living never get over their nerves. Dan Cruikshank, is a good example when we met him just before going on live telly he was absolutely crapping himself, I felt a bit like I was calming him down. I must add though that he is one of the good blokes. So, the Radio Essex thing when ok said what I had to and plugged the book and this website, Dave Monk the DJ asked me if I wanted to be Tom Good (from the good life) I think I said that Felicity Kendal was alright not realising that would be the end of the interview. Odd I had relaxed by that point and it had just started to feel like a chat.

Anyway enough of that glitzy stuff. It is the start of Eat the change this week. Well should have been on Saturday but I am running it from 10am this morning until 10am Monday morning. The trouble being I forgot and I have a whole packet of Bacon in the fridge, as my girlfriend is vegetarian I am not going to let that go to waste. I am however not going to buy anything wrapped in plastic, only buy UK food and I am going to endevour to be Vegan. That is the Eat the Change Challenge. Hmm, I have tried at giving up plastic twice before, it is difficult although not impossible. The Vegan part might be the most difficult for me, ah we shall see. Off to Daves in a bit to forage for food this should make the whole eat the change a lot easier.

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