The first batch of new little wood fired dual/fuel kilns takes shape in my workshop. I could say ‘rolls off the assembly line’, but I’d be telling a lie. My kiln shed is only just big enough for 8 of these little gems at one time and there is definitely no assembly line, just a kind of organised chaos as all the parts get made individually and then assembled. I have 9 kilns ordered this time round. I can’t fit them all in comfortably, or even uncomfortably, so I decide to split the work into two parts. The 6 large and then 3 small units.
I spend an extraordinary amount of time making all the fiddly parts that go into handles and locating lugs etc. I spend 3 days on these parts, even with a bit of help from my lovely Swiss intern Catherine assisting. There are 100 lugs to be manufactured for just one small part of the first 6 kilns. Each part needs to be filed on all 4 sides and also have the corners filed down and rounded for safety, then a safely edge folded over to make it extra safe. In all there are about 1,000 individual actions that need to be performed on these tiny bits, just make one small part that no-one even realises is there.
That is until it is not there!
After three days of this monotony, I need a day in the garden!
While all this industry is going on, there is still gardening to be done to continue the flow of food from the garden in 3 months time. The equinox is the time to plant garlic, as well as leeks, brocoli, cabbage and Kale. Cauliflowers and Brussel sprouts were already planted in January. Today I am planting radish seeds to make sure of a continuous supply of salad next month. The lettuce seeds are already up and thriving.
The 2nd planting of corn is all over and we are onto the 3rd crop now. The few small 2nd cobs on the old corn plants are rather small, but I pick them and dry them in the sunny kitchen window to dry them out. when they are fully dried, I’ll mill them up into polenta for winter comfort food.
Today, I also harvested half of the coriander crop, as it is at peak leaf just now. This is the seed from the summer planting, which was the seed from the spring planting etc. I decided to make a coriander based green chilli paste.
Recipe;
A bucket of fresh picked coriander leaves
A hand full of green onions
4 long green chillis (hot)
The juice of one each, lemon and lime
Some salt to taste, I keep this to the minimum, but without it the full flavour profile insn’t realised.
Salt is evil stuff, it hardens your arteries and causes hypertension. It is added in far too greater quantities than is really needed to every processed convenience food. We all get way too much of it without even realising it! It’s up there with sugar as a harmfull ingrediant, simply because we eat too much of it.
We don’t buy any junk food, and hardly ever buy much processed foods, but it is still very wise to limit the intake of salt. As a result we don’t have high blood pressure. I think that the two are related.
Still, a tiny pinch of salt goes really well with just a few particular foods like; tomatoes, eggs, curries, pickles and this coriander paste.
I manage to fill 2 plastic tubs with the concoction. It’s tangy, spicy, hot and very aromatic. 3/4 of it goes into the freezer in this way, so that it will keep for the rest of the year, as needed. The rest goes into the fridge for immediate use.
Items like pesto and coriander paste are not cooked, so can’t be sterilised with heat to preserve them. We don’t own a freezer, so we have to limit what we choose to freeze. This raw paste, pesto, bone marrow stock concentrate and a couple of meals, cooked in excess at the time to be frozen for emergency meals.
The last of the summer beetroot crop needs to be dealt with before it bolts, so I give them a fast roiling simmer for a few minutes to boil them and soften them a little and then drained and straight into hot bottles from the oven with preserving vinegar. i.e. cider vinegar with a spoon full of sugar plus a 1/2 of salt and brought to the boil with a few spices like, cloves, cinnamon, star anise, pepper corns, bay leaves, chillis and mustard seeds. Such a mix is variable and is different with every batch, as it takes my fancy. Pour the mix over the sliced beets and cap straight away while almost too hot to touch. They vacuum seal as they cool.
Best wishes from Steve the industrious, well-preserved, boiler and boiler-maker.
Tonight my Fingers Smell of Garlic 
You must be logged in to post a comment.