sustainable living - The Bridge Cottage

Kombucha Brewing

January 22, 2023/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Kitchen, Indoors, Sustainable Living/by Sue Reed

Kombucha Brewing

Kombucha Brewing

I first stumbled across kombucha, that lightly fermented fizzy drink made from sugar and tea, and a culture called a scoby (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) when in November 2019 I gave up booze and was looking for a grown-up drink that wasn’t sweet and sickly and didn’t cost a fortune.

Not that you have to have given up alcohol to enjoy drinking kombucha. Kombucha has health benefits all of its own.

Rather than type out their words and risk being accused of plagiarism, here is a post from those good folk at BBC Good Food, sharing some of the alleged health benefits of drinking kombucha.

Health Benefits of Kombucha

Not being prepared to part with large sums of money for shop-bought kombucha, I set about learning to make my own.

I am sure there are far better guides to making your own kombucha that the one I am going to share with you. When I started, I went to The Happy Pear, a jolly couple of lads from Ireland who are both pleasing to the eye and full of sound advice about healthy living. I watched their YouTube video and it told me all I needed to know.

The Happy Pear Kombucha Brewing Video

However, here is how I brew it.

FIRST FERMENT

You will need:

Kombucha Brewing – A scoby floating in the brew,

A Scoby – Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast. This is the being that floats or bobs about, doing its magic to turn sweetened tea into kombucha. With each new batch a new baby scoby is formed, so if you know someone already who brews their own kombucha, then see if they have a baby scoby you can adopt.
Failing that, head online – I got mine from Happy Kombucha who also do starter kits, have full instructions and guides and are generous with their advice.

Tea: You then need cooled, fermented tea. Green tea or black tea – take your pick. I like the freshness of taste that comes with green tea kombucha and like to think it is even healthier. use four tea bags or two tablespoons tea. Use around 2 litres boiled water to make your tea.

If you have a filter jug, kombucha prefers filtered water or spring water – but don’t go buying plastic bottles!! We don’t want any more non disposable plastic in the world.

Sugar: 150g – 180g granulated sugar.

Add sugar to the tea – don’t worry, the sugar is fermented out!

So, brew up a batch of tea and sugar and leave to cool.

Wide Necked Jar: Without squeezing the tea bags, drain your cold tea into a wide necked jar. I’m using these wide necked glass jars that I got from a local delicatessen – they were olive jars.

Top us with cooled water.

Another word of warning – scobies don’t like metal – so don’t strain your tea through a metal sieve or stir with a metal spoon. I’ve found a cotton cloth bag bought for straining nuts of making vegan milk to be great. I got mine from Amazon, but other sellers are available I’m sure. I even take off my rings to be extra kind.

Kombucha Brewing

Then lower your scoby along with around 200ml starter liquid from a previous batch or the liquid your scoby arrived with. Wish him happy brewing, cover and leave in a warmish place for around 10 days.

SECOND FERMENT

Kombucha Brewing – second ferment

You should by now have a healthy-looking white rubbery crust on top of your kombucha. Congratulations, you have made a kombucha baby! This can be popped into a scoby nursery with some of the fermented liquid, passed on to a friend or put on the compost heap. We have a septic tank here, and I like to think that if kombucha keeps my gut healthy then maybe it will do the same for the septic tank. But how can we flush our babies down the loo? Give it a new home, and encourage your friends to take up kombucha brewing too.

Pressure Bottles Into sterilised pressure bottles – like the ones Grolsh use for beer – the ones with metal swing tops. Add a tsp of sugar ( I find coconut sugar works well) and any flavouring you want to add. You can leave it plain, but the addition of some natural flavouring can be fun. As we’re huge fans of seasonal eating, we make this depending on what’s available.

Lime and ginger to flavour kombucha in the second ferment

Flavouring Strips of ginger or lime/lemon zest work well, apple slices or fresh raspberries or blackberries too. – experiment and let us know on social media what you prefer.Now, siphon your kombucha through the nut bag and into a jug, then pour it into your sterilised bottles, making sure any fluid used for sterilising is rinsed away. Leave for another week.

There are two schools of thought on burping. Some burp and some don’t. It depends on how much fizz you want. If you don’t release the pressure, make sure you open your kombucha over the sink.

Then store it in the fridge! This should arrest the fermenting process but still open with caution.

Enjoy the taste, health benefits & sustainability of your home-brewed kombucha.

Kombucha Brewing – the outtake

Now for the outtake! It’s not easy pouring kombucha with one hand whilst taking a photo with the other. Note to self – use a tripod and camera timer!!

In case you’re wondering if I’m still totally alcohol-free? No. I gave up for just shy of a year, and during that time, reset my relationship with booze, but when Tim sold his accountancy business and retired, I shared a bottle of very decent red wine with him and I do still love a gin and tonic!

For other posts on fermented food and seasonal eating, head back to the kitchen, or why not pop into the garden to see what’s growing or what jobs can be done?

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Fermented Vegetable Stock Pot

January 14, 2023/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Kitchen/by Sue Reed

Fermented Vegetable Stock Pot.

As I sit down to write about making my own fermented vegetable stock, a weak winter sun peers through the pines opposite. It doesn’t even clear the tops in these long dark days, and in this Northumbrian frost pocket, warming food is called for. Tim’s just come in from the garden rubbing his hands that have gone white with cold on the ends. He’s been pruning the apple trees. ‘Soup’s ready, I say’.

It’s a lentil soup today, make with a tablespoon of fermented vegetable stock, leeks, carrots, celery and red lentils. I wrote last week about the basics of soup making in Seasonal Eating with Warming Winter Soups, with a recipe for Parsnip and Chestnut Soup, but as promised then, today I’m going to talk about the stock.

Fermented Vegetable Stock Pot

If you open the fridge, you’ll find a jar I call the ‘fizzing stock pot’. It’s a jar of fermented vegetables blitzed to a fine paste that has been allowed to ferment with the addition of salt water.

The ancients used fermentation as a way of preserving food and drink before fridges came on the scene. Here’s the science: there is controlled microbial growth and enzyme action in fermented foods that simply put, change some of the food’s parts into others. Microorganisms, bacteria, yeast or fungi convert organic substances like sugars and starch into alcohol or acids which act as natural preservatives as well as enhance the taste and texture.

Fermented foods have a distinctive strong, salty, slightly sour taste. If you watched the Hairy Bikes ‘Go Local In Northumberland’ last night, you’ll have seen them visit Belle and Herbs Fermentary in Wallsend and talk about fermented foods and their kimchi in particular. We are lucky to have both Bell and Herbs and Meraki Cacao from last night’s programme come to Hexham Farmer’s Market.

Health Benefits of Fermented Food

Fermentation gives us probiotics from bacteria which can restore the balance of bacteria in your gut, supporting digestive health.
Fermented food is easy to digest as some of the natural sugars and starches are already broken down.
The vitamins and minerals produced by fermented food are easier to absorb,
Understanding of the link between gut health and mood and behaviour is an evolving science. It is believed that some of the strains of probiotic bacteria found in fermented foods can help with anxiety and depression, and may produce cortisol, minimising the physical symptoms of stress.
Fermented foods can reduce blood pressure and address cholesterol balance, improving heart health.

That’s quite enough explanation of fermented foods for one week. Back to our stock pot!

Fermented Vegetable Stock Pot

Fermented Vegetable Stock Pot

Packaging and transportation besides, most commercially produced vegetable stock contains additives that I don’t want in my food. Once you start making your own fermented veg stock, you’ll soon realise how much the taste not to mention the health benefits of your soup is enhanced by it. And it’s easy to make! You’ll need a jar with an airtight lid.

Ingredients for Fermented Vegetable Stock Pot

Ingredients

I don’t want to be too prescriptive here – use what you have in! Experiment and don’t be too exact!

In this latest batch of stock, we used:

Onions – a medium-sized brown and small red

3 sticks celery

2 carrots

A slice of celeriac

½ small parsnip (we find the taste of parsnip can be overpowering is too much is used)

Couple cloves garlic

A few leaves each of parsley, thyme, sage, rosemary

A pinch of pink peppercorns and a couple of black,

½ tsp each of coriander, fennel and cumin seeds

Sea salt.

2 large or 3-4 small bay leaves

Chopped vegetables for Fermented Vegetable Stock Pot

Method

Roughly chop all the veg and blitz in a food processor with the green herbs.

Pestle and Mortar for grinding spices for Fermented Vegetable Stock Pot

Dry fry the spices and seeds in a small pan over low heat then grind with a pestle and mortar, coffee grinder or whatever you have to hand. A lump hammer might have to suffice!

Mix into the veggies.

Weigh the mixture and calculate what 4% of this is – ie if you have 100g, then you will need 4g of salt. Add 4% of the weight in salt and mix well. Pack into the jar until the paste comes about half an inch or 1cm from the top. Cover with bay leaves.

Fermented Vegetable Stock Pot

Press down on the bay leaves to get a briny liquid from the sea salt and veggies. If this doesn’t appear, make a bit of brine yourself – 2g sea salt and 50ml water should do the trick.

Pop the lid on and stand on a small plate or saucer.

We now pop it in our airing cupboard. It needs to be somewhere warm but not hot: ‘room temperature’ but here at Bridge Cottage most rooms are Baltic by day!

Leave it now for a few days. You can leave it for over a week. Once it starts fizzing, you may want to ‘burp’ it from time to time to release any built-up gas. (Nowt worse than trapped wind).

The longer you leave it, the stronger the flavour. Once you are happy with the taste, pop it in the fridge to stop it from fermenting further.

As a rough guestimate, (followers of the Bridge Cottage Way know I’m not one for exact measurements) use about a tablespoon of fermented stock in a pan of soup or stew.

As I type, I’m sipping on a glass of homemade kombucha, another fermented favourite here at Bridge Cottage, so while we’re talking fermented foods, I’ll make that the next post. Look out on social media for that coming up next week.

Fermented hot chilli sauce

Other posts on fermented food:
Make Your Own Fermented Hot Chilli Sauce

Homemade Yoghurt and Soft Cheese

Thank you so much for reading, and happy fermenting.

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or on our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other sections of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what we have been doing here at Bridge Cottage as the months go by:

Many thanks for reading.

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Seasonal Eating with Warming Winter Soup

January 10, 2023/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Kitchen/by Sue Reed

I have been thinking over the past week and chatting with followers on The Bridge Cottage Way’s social media pages about our favourite warming winter soup and wondering which recipe to share with you. However, I wonder if we could think first about the basics of soup making to give you the confidence to experiment with what is to hand? I hardly ever use a recipe but look at what is in season in my local market, what vegetables are locally produced, what ingredients are lying lonely in the fridge and need finishing up or have been reduced in the shops and can be put to good use.

Looking at Leeks: Growing and Eating

The Bridge Cottage Way is all about reducing the drain on our planet’s precious resources, so we want to encourage folk to eat with the seasons, to eat food that has been locally produced where possible and not grown under plastic thousands of miles away, shipped over here by boat or plane and wrapped in single-use plastic. We talk about this a lot, and instead of thinking of it as a limiting practice, try reframing it to bring seasonal delight and variety to your diet.

It is midwinter here in the UK, and the only crops we have in the veg plot to use are leeks, kale and if the shrews have left us any, some Jerusalem artichokes (though beware of the latter – my mother-in-law calls it arty farty soup for good reason. The wind can be crippling!). In the local market, there are leeks, cauliflowers, carrots and parsnips: all perfect for winter soup.

The Basics of Soup Making.

Clean, chop and sweat vegetables.

Place a small amount of olive oil or a knob of butter in the base of a heavy pan on very low heat then add chopped vegetables. Place the lid on and sweat for five to ten minutes. This draws out the flavour.

Add stock.

We keep a jar of homemade fermented vegetable stock in the fridge. Or you could make a batch of vegetable stock and freeze in ready-to-use portions. You could try this vegetable stock recipe from our friends at River Cottage: River Cottage Vegetable Stock. (I see I need to add stock-making to the list of posts to write this year.) Or use a stock cube or spoon of Bouillon powder. Add enough stock to cover the vegetables and bring to a boil. You can always add more hot water if needed.

Meat eaters may also have stock in the freezer from boiling a chicken carcass or keeping the stock from boiling ham or cooking up lamb bones with water.

Cook & Blitz

Cook your vegetables until soft – meaning a sharp knife point will go in easily, then blitz with a hand blender if you like smooth soups. To blitz or not to blitz, that is the question and a bone of contention in this house. Tim likes chunky soups and I like smooth. Or you may not own a hand blender ( a potato masher will break up big chunks). When the kids were small all soup had to be blended within an inch of its life or our daughter would not touch it. The grandkids are just the same. It’s also a cheeky way of getting veg into them unawares. Though to this day, our daughter can sniff out a pepper at a mile.

So that’s the basics, now I will give you a recipe. Doing a shop in a local supermarket, I saw chestnuts had been reduced post-Christmas, so grabbed a few packs to put in the store cupboard. They marry so well with parsnips in soup, or with leeks in risotto.

Warming Winter Soup. Parsnip and Chestnut.

Parsnip and Chestnut Soup.

1 kg parsnips

Knob of butter or 1tbsp veg or olive oil

180g bag whole chestnuts, rough chopped

1 pint veg or chicken stock

1 pint milk – oat or dairy.

Peel and chop parsnips then sweat in a tablespoon of oil or knob of butter with a lid on for five mins. Add stock and cook for fifteen minutes. Add chestnuts and continue to cook until the parsnips are soft.

Add milk and bring back to simmer.

Blitz and serve!

An alternative to chestnuts might be ginger – parsnip and ginger is another winning combination and most definitely warming for these cold January days. OR maybe bung in some carrots? There really are no rules. Meat eaters might like to start with finely chopped streaky bacon at the beginning, reserving some for croutons on the top as I have done in this photo.

I’m off to the fridge now where I know there is a sad-looking cauliflower and some Stilton left over from Christmas. I may add a leek and a few chopped potatoes for body too. Go experiment with your soup-making, but please, keep it seasonal, and do let us know how you get on!

Sue and Tim from The Bridge Cottage Way

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or on our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other sections of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what we have been doing here at Bridge Cottage as the months go by:

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the mailing list by this link:

Newsletter sign-up form link.

This will go out four times a year, with the seasons in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. We, of course, will not share your details with third parties, and you have the right to unsubscribe at any time.

You can use the link above or the form below to ask us to sign you up for the newsletter, or just a message or comment on this post. We’d love to hear from you!

Christmas Needn’t Cost the Earth. Part Three. Christmas Brunch.

December 19, 2022/0 Comments/in Sustainable Living, The Bridge Cottage Kitchen/by Sue Reed

Last week, in Part Two of Christmas Needn’t Cost the Earth, we decorated the house with gathered grasses and seed heads, and during the cold snap in part one, we made ice art for the front door. This week, we share some Bridge Cottage recipes with you for making your own Christmas morning brunch of home smoked salmon, homemade cream cheese and freshly baked bannocks.

Christmas Needn’t Cost the Earth. Christmas BrunchLast week, in Part Two of ‘Christmas, Needn’t Cost the Earth’, we decorated the house with gathered grasses and seed heads, and during the cold snap in part one, we made ice art for the front door. This week, we share some Bridge Cottage recipes with you for making your own Christmas brunch of home-smoked salmon, homemade cream cheese and freshly baked bannocks. Vegans look away.

We have a family name for a full English, and that’s a Daddy breakfast – the works, sausage, bacon, eggs, beans, but this is known as a Tommy brunch after our eldest son, who loves the tradition of smoked salmon as a treat on Christmas morning. In the past we’ve wrestled with bagels, proving them overnight and popping in a pan of boiling sugar water to glaze and then baking – quite a phaff! This year, we’re going with bannocks. Easy, cheap and quick to make. Of course, had to do a dummy run to get the photos for you and test that all was delicious.

Christmas Needn’t Cost the Earth: homemade bannocks for brunch

The recipe for bannocks, from the Gaelic bannach comes courtesy of Felicity Cloake who writes for the Guardian.

Felicity Cloake – The Perfect Bannocks.

The bannock recipe calls for buttermilk, but we’ve used the runoff we get from our tub of homemade yoghurt. It’s known as acid whey, and if you make your own yoghurt, you can collect this clear yellowy liquid in a jam jar in the fridge. We make a 3-pint tub of yoghurt every week and use any leftover to make soft cheese.

I’ve shared this in what has become a very popular post: Homemade Yoghurt and Soft Cheese.

Soft cheese is so easy – it’s just a case of hanging yoghurt in a piece of muslin overnight and collecting the drips in a bowl. We like it plain with our smoked salmon, but can have added chives

That’s the bannocks and soft cheese took care of, now to smoke our salmon!

As I said, Vegans look away.

Sustainably Sourced Salmon

Farmed salmon is getting a lot of bad press now, and quite rightly so in some cases. You might like to look at a more sustainable fish such as mackerel, but we’ve checked carefully and are assured that our salmon comes from a sustainable source. We have a wonderful old-fashioned butcher/fishmonger/veg shop in Haltwhistle, Belly Bell’s. It’s proper old school. Our granddaughter, Daisy loves a trip on the train (it’s only ten mins up the line) to go to Billy Bell’s for a pie. ‘Good old, Billy Bell’ we all chant.

Making fish stock with the salmon head

With the salmon collected from Billy Bell’s – you might like to get a smaller fillet, half a salmon perhaps rather than a whole fish, we set about preparing it. This is the point at which I leave the kitchen. I’m not happy around fish heads. The only time in my life I’ve ever fainted was in a Spanish fish market when all the gaping fish mouths, and glassy eyes became too much for the pregnant me.

Tim chops the head off and fillets the salmon, putting the head and bones in a pressure cooker to make fish stock which is frozen in bags when cool and saved for a fishy risotto. If you don’t know how to fillet a fish, head over to YouTube and Gordon Ramsey will show you how.

How to fillet salmon by Gordon Ramsey.

Christmas brunch: Salmon fillets

Next, we decided on what proportion of the fish will be smoked and what will be chopped into fillets to freeze just as they are for the year ahead. It works out so much cheaper than buying individual fillets. And comes with less packaging.

In the summer months, we hot-smoke salmon on the barbeque and this is another option and another post altogether to be written. The method I’m writing about today is for cold smoked salmon.

You can weigh the piece of salmon you’re about to smoke at this stage. This is so you can work out the moisture content before and after curing and how dry your smoked fish is. I’m not a numbers person so don’t really bother with this. I just go by the feel.

Christmas brunch: curing salmon

Using the dry salt method to cure, lay your salmon fillet on a thin layer of cooking salt in a non-metallic container, preferably with a lid. Then rub a good handful of salt and soft brown sugar over the top. You can add juniper or fennel seeds if you have any to hand, although as the moisture is drawn out, I’m not convinced as to how much flavour this imparts. We used fennel seeds this year as we had some growing in the garden. You can also add a small amount of white pepper – just a pinch.

Cover and leave your salmon fillet to cure in the fridge for 3-4 hours. Then rinse off the salt and immediately pat dry on a clean tea towel or kitchen paper. Place on a cooling rack so the air reaches the top and underside and leave on a cool place to dry. The outside should look sealed when it is done.

It is at this stage that you can measure your moisture content and repeat the curing process if it isn’t dry enough.

Homemade cold smoker

You now need two things: a smoke generator and a container with a hole in the top. When we started, we used a strong cardboard box, a wine box, with a punctured hole in the top. Then Tim got clever and used some discarded plywood to build a smoking box. It really is just a box with a door and a hole in the top. He’s put runners in so we can fit three wire cooling racks in. While the salmon is smoking, we add a block of cheap cheddar to make smoked cheese, or chillies or garlic.

Cold smoking coil

The smoke generator isn’t cheap, but it could make a good gift – I bought it for Tim as a Christmas present some years ago from ProQ Smokers. It’s a metal coil container that is filled with sawdust and has a place for a tealight. The coil is placed at the base of the box, with the sawdust burning slowly, with the smoke escaping through a small hole at the top. Tim reckons it takes two rounds of the coil or a few hours, to smoke a large fillet. You then need to leave the fish to mellow overnight. If it’s cool, and another reason why this is a great midwinter make, just leave it in the box outside.

Christmas brunch: cold smoked salmon, bannocks and cream cheese

All that’s left now is to slice thinly, and once we’ve rushed downstairs to see if ‘he’s been’, and opened our stockings (we’re still very big kids at heart here), then Christmas breakfast brunch can be laid up.

Merry Christmas

I’ll leave Tom, of the Tommy brunch fame and his fiancée, Rachel to toast you.

Merry Christmas everyone!

I’ll be putting out the Winter Solstice Newsletter in a few days, so if you’d like to add your name to the mailing list, let me know using this comment box or sign yourself up using the newsletter link:

Bridge Cottage Quarterly Newsletter.

Christmas Needn’t Cost the Earth. Part 2. Natural Decorations

December 15, 2022/0 Comments/in Sustainable Living/by Sue Reed

Natural Decorations

Christmas Needn’t Cost the Earth. Natural Decorations

Christmas decorations that are sustainable, homemade and natural have got to be winners in our book, and when they look as good as this Christmas star and are easy to make it’s a no-brainer.

I hear that pampas grass is having a comeback in interior design. I remember when pampas grass in a front garden was code for swingers living there, but we’ll not cast any assertions on our farming neighbour who most generously lets me trim his pampas before winter sets in.

Christmas Needn’t Cost the Earth. Natural Decorations

I went on a gathering mission earlier in the season and tied bundles in the shed. Gather dried grasses, seed heads and anything you think will look good for decorations when the weather is dry and store them in a dry, cool place ready for use. Make sure you only take what you need, as when the weather gets cold seed heads to provide valuable food for birds.

Natural Christmas decorations

We love growing honesty, and its random way of self-seeding guarantees these silver discs are in plentiful supply. We get ours from Ben from Higgledy Garden. Just rub the brown casings off with your thumb and forefinger to reveal the treasure. I love how a small sprig of honesty and a fir cone make this charming little angel. I used a glue gun to stick a ready-made felt ball on top of the fir cone and added either an acorn cup or a small sprig of dried lichen as hair. Suspend with a piece of thread and there you have a very cute, natural tree decoration.

Back to our star!

Natural Christmas decorations

The framework for the star is quite simply a block of dry oasis with a garden cane threaded through and then tied onto the window handles. You can experiment in your house to see where it could hang. If it can’t hang, make a standing decoration – place the oasis in a dish and tie it on, taking the string right around the oasis and dish.

Natural Christmas decorations

Now it’s just a question of arranging your grasses, teasels and seed heads. I started with teasels to give structure, my memory going back to my mother doing the flower arranging in church. It’s all about balance – Then simply build up your sculpture – make sure you add depth by allowing some to come forwards. The oasis is finally covered using bits of old man’s beard that had gone fluffy in the airing cupboard.

If your finances allow the cost of the electricity, a few soft white lights threaded through to bring this alive at night and make a fantastic window piece. However, it still looks great without the lights.

Easy peasy, making good use of what we have and reducing the drain on our planet’s precious resources.

ice sculpture. natural decorations

I’ve been loving seeing your ice sculptures. Haven’t we been having the perfect weather for them? It’s forecast to be -8 here tonight. Here’s one from Ann in Northumberland who shared this on Twitter (@suereedwrites) and tells us that she’s getting all her sisters to make them. Apart from the one in Australia!

Christmas Needn’t Cost the Earth – Ice Art.

We are giving lots of homemade gifts this year and Tim has his Papa Elf hat in and is beavering away in the garage, but I can’t tell you what he’s making – walls have ears! I’m off to bottle the sloe gin earlier and boil up some fudge for friends’ gifts – I’ll write more on sustainable gift-giving later. Do let us know what you are making for Christmas, and remember, Christmas really doesn’t need to cost the earth.

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or on our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other sections of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what we have been doing here at Bridge Cottage as the months go by:

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the mailing list by this link:

Newsletter sign-up form link.

This will go out four times a year, with the seasons in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. We, of course, will not share your details with third parties, and you have the right to unsubscribe at any time.

You can use the link above or the form below to ask us to sign you up for the newsletter, or just a message or comment on this post. We’d love to hear from you!

Make Your Own Fermented Hot Chilli Sauce

October 17, 2022/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Kitchen/by Sue Reed

Ring of Fire Chillies

Are you a fan of hot chilli sauce? Do you grow chillies? Here at Bridge Cottage we make our own fermented hot chilli sauce which has no nasty additives, is sugar-free, great for your gut health and very easy to make. If that wasn’t enough, you’ll be producing food at home, without lining the coffers of the big food corporations who push their plastic-wrapped, shipped foods full of additives, preservatives and goodness knows what. Sure, it takes a bit of time and effort, but isn’t that worth it in the grand scheme of things?

There are other ways to preserve chillies: they freeze well, and a bag of frozen chillies will keep well all year round, ready to pluck from the freezer when a recipe calls for a whole chilli. Dried chillies are great too, chopped finely for chilli flakes, and keep well in a jar in the spice cupboard, but by far the most popular method of using chillies here at Bridge Cottage is by making fermented chilli sauce.

saving chilli seeds

It’s early autumn now and the chillies have ripened in the greenhouse. Time to pick them and freeze a few but use most of them for a handy hot chilli sauce which is incredibly easy to make. (Don’t forget to split open a couple of your favourites, dry and save the seeds for next year).

Bridge Cottage Fermented Hot Chilli Sauce

You will need:

A large glass jar with a screw top lid

A circle of plastic cut from the lid of a plastic tub

Water

Salt

Chillies

Ginger

Garlic

Fermented hot chilli sauce

Wash them and pack your jar with whole chillies, a couple of cloves of garlic and a couple of chunks of root ginger.

Add water so the chillies are all covered.

Pour out the water into a jug and add 4% salt – weigh the empty jug first, then weigh the water and add 4% of the water’s weight in salt. Dissolve the salt then our back over the chillies.

Fermented hot chilli sauce

Place a disc of plastic over the chillies – this is important and is to ensure all the chillies are kept submerged. This is anaerobic fermentation, meaning starved of oxygen. Alcohol and pickles are made this way and the airtight condition creates ethanol and lactic acid. The addition of salt is important as it raises the acidity and to cut a long story short, prevents you from catching botulism.

Place the lid on the jar and leave somewhere reasonably warm.

Your chillies will soon start to ferment, so once bubbles appear, it is important to ‘burp’ them every day to release the gas. You don’t want an exploding jar of chillies up your wall. This is done by carefully unscrewing the lid and allowing the gas to escape. There’s nowt worse than trapped wind!

Screw the lid back on, and burp daily til the bubbles stop. You can leave them like this for as long as you want. Some people leave them for months. We tend to wait til they have stopped fizzing and then move on to the next stage and make the sauce.

Strain the contents, making sure to reserve some of the liquid.

Put into a food processor and blitz.

BE CAREFUL – YOU NOW HAVE THE EQUIVALENT OF PEPPER SPRAY.

If it is too thick, add a dash of the reserved liquid, and pour it into sterilised screw-top glass bottles.

Here is a timely reminder to never throw glass bottles away. We like to bottle our chilli sauce in small bottles and give some away as gifts.

It is important to remember with fermented sauces that they are live. You will need to loosen the lids from time to time to let the gas escape.

Fermented Chilli Sauce

Once opened, we keep a bottle in the fridge and add a dash to soups, stews and curries. A Sunday morning breakfast of smashed avocado on toast with grated lime zest and a dash of chilli sauce is divine. Non-vegans can add a poached egg.

I’ll be writing more on fermenting foods in due course, but in the meantime if you want to find out more and get some fabulous recipes, look no further than the River Cottage Handbook No. 18. Fermentation by Rachel de Thample.

It’s October as I write this, and we’re saving seeds for planting out next year, chillies being the first crop that gets sown in the greenhouse in the New Year.

Growing chillies

This old photo did make me laugh! How earnest did I look? It was taken for the old Bridge Cottage Way blog I first started on BlogSpot over ten years ago when I left teaching, (but it no longer exists) and harks back to my Woolly Pedlar days when I make clothing from recycled knitwear. I also dyed my hair back then, but now embrace the grey, having ditched the need to try and look younger. I’ll make sure there’s a post on growing chillies in good time for the new growing season over in the Bridge Cottage Garden section of this new website.

October in the veggie garden

I’d better get this article finished and published, and go and join Tim, who is outside in the veggie plot planting out winter kale and getting sections ready for garlic and onions which can go in any day now.

The seasons are rolling on, and there’s always something to do here at Bridge Cottage.

We still haven’t finished making apple juice, chutney or jams jellies.

Autumn’s Bounty: Apples.

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or on our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other sections of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what we have been doing here at Bridge Cottage as the months go by:

Many thanks for reading.

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Autumn Equinox Gathering. A Foraged Wreath

September 20, 2022/2 Comments/in Foraging for Free Food, Outdoors, Sustainable Living, The Bridge Cottage Garden/by Sue Reed

Autumn Equinox Gathering. A wreath for the front door

There’s a nip in the air as the autumn equinox opens the garden gate and a new season enters. Apples are falling from the trees, crying out to be juiced, dried and turned into crumbles. A bucket of green tomatoes sits in the kitchen waiting to be made into chutney, and the last of the blackberries are winking in the sun. It’s a time for gathering, for bringing in what is ripe and ready and for laying down the stores for winter. I also like to look at what is over in the garden, at the seed heads and plants that can be dried and brought indoors to decorate the house. It’s been a busy few days looking after grandchildren and juicing apples and today I fancied doing something creative, just for me. I thought an autumn equinox wreath to decorate the front door might be a fun thing to make, so took myself off around the garden, secateurs in hand to clip a few bits and bobs.

Poppy seed heads

Beneath the blackberries that grow along the garage wall, poppy heads sway in the breeze and teasels reach for the sky. The goldfinches have had their fill of the teasel seeds and it is now time to gather in those architectural seed heads before autumn’s storms batter them to the ground. Before taking them inside to dry, shake poppy seeds from the dried heads on the ground where you want them to flower next year, and you’ll be rewarded with poppies galore. What glorious forms these two have.

Autumn Equinox Gathering. Honesty seed heads

Jostling for a place amongst the dock leaves and nettles the honesty has also gone to seed. Don’t be fooled by the murky brown casings – there’s silver treasure inside!

Honesty seed heads

A quick rub, front and back, and the casings disappear. Again, scatter the seeds where you will then bring the silver inside before the winds of autumn shred it. I just love honesty in decorations. I used it last year to make wings for Christmas angels.

Another plant that romps away in our garden is old man’s beard. We thought it was a fancy clematis when we spotted it on Jim Morrison’s grave in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris and pocketed some seeds. However, he breaks on through to the other side whenever given the chance and spills over fences and gateways. Dried, it looks as tousled and as wonderful as the singer himself. Before we dry fennel seeds to make tea or add to our apple and fennel chutney, I’ve lifted a few seed heads and have added all the above in this late summer wreath that is now hanging on the front door.

Fennel Tea and Apple and Fennel Chutney

Autumn Equinox Wreath

It’s easy to make and uses the same method as making a Christmas wreath. Gather small bunches of whatever you are using: in my case, a seeded flowerhead from old man’s beard, a fennel seed head, a sprig of honesty, a nigella and poppy seed head, and tie to a wreath form using this florist’s wire. You can make your own wreath form by tying willow in a circle and binding or buy one from your local florist, or online. If you can, make your own, I found one in Hobbycraft for a fiver, made from grapevines, but it was made in China! I don’t know how your ethics sit with that and the transport costs involved. It doesn’t have to be willow: a few pliable twigs are all you need. There are plenty of YouTube tutorials for making your own. Try this one from Tuckshop Flowers:

How to make a willow wreath base

I’m also mindful of collecting the seed heads, grasses and plants that will be dried to make decorations for Yule or Christmas, whatever you call the festive season. I’ll be talking more about having an eco-Christmas as the seasons draw on, and yes, I hear you: it’s too early to be thinking about Christmas, but in a way it isn’t. Sustainable living is so often about preparing, looking ahead, and laying the groundwork for what is to come. Today it is about gathering and drying so we can make decorations that don’t cost the earth in both monetary and environmental terms.

Foraged Christmas Star

I made this star a couple of years back, using pampas grass, teasels, honesty, and seed heads stuck very simply into a dry oasis suspended on a garden cane and with a few white led lights strung through. It really was very simple, but very effective. Last year I made angels from fir cones and hung them from red dogwood stems, but I think I’ll revert to the star this year and so am off around the garden to see what can be gleaned. I’ll write up a step-to-step guide for making this Christmas star a bit later on, but let’s dry what we need first. I’ve hung the teasels, nigella seed heads, honesty and poppy heads upside down from the rafters in the garden shed to dry. Anywhere warm and dry will do.

Teasels and honesty hung to dry

We planted hops years ago and never got around to using them to flavour beer. They are rampant! Dried, however, and strewn above the fireplace, with a few white lights woven in, they will look wonderful. They are currently drying in the airing cupboard. Be prepared for plant life to temporarily take over the drying areas of your house!

So there we have it, a beautiful wreath for the front door to mark the Autumn Equinox and dried seed heads and hops gathered to decorate the house at yuletide. Time to light the fire and find my knitting! I have thoroughly enjoyed sharing my Autumn Equinox wreath and this moment of mindfulness with you. As we gather early autumn’s offerings, let us have a moment of reflection, and be grateful for the bounty and beauty of Mother Nature as one season passes, and another arrives. Do share your wreath-making or gathering with us on the usual social media channels – we’d love to see what you make.

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or on our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other sections of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what we have been doing here at Bridge Cottage as the months go by:

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the mailing list here. This will go our four times a year, with the seasons in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. We, of course, will not share your details with third parties, and you have the right to unsubscribe at any time.

Raspberry Vinegar. Season: July and August.

July 14, 2022/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Kitchen/by Sue Reed

Have you ever made your own raspberry vinegar? What a wonderful year for raspberries 2022 is! We’re picking around a kilo every day here in the Bridge Cottage Garden. Do you grow raspberries? They are very easy to grow and here in the northeast of England they are very well suited to our climate.

Growing Raspberries

Raspberries in the Bridge Cottage Garden in July

Raspberry picking takes me back to a summer job I once had, travelling by train from Worthing to Inverness as a seventeen-year-old to work on a fruit farm in Inverness picking raspberries. It was hard graft, with a double bucketed punnet tied around our necks. The boss would rattle out tents, and we’d emerge, hungover from a night at the local pub, The Bogroy, and traipse into the raspberry fields. We were a mixed bag, and I’d joined the party element – we shocked the straighter students by holding a naked raspberry picking day, wearing nothing but our wellies!

Raspberry vinegar

But enough of naked raspberry picking. What to do with all these raspberries? Jam making and ice cream spring immediately to mind, and I’ve already written pieces on that, which you’ll find along with lots of other seasonal recipes in the Bridge Cottage Kitchen.

Summer fruit ice cream

Raspberry Jam

Health Benefits of Raspberry Vinegar

However, that’s quite enough of naked raspberry picking. Time to get back on track. Today’s writing concerns the making of raspberry vinegar. Not only is it delicious, but it’s healthy too. Raspberry vinegar is an age-old remedy for sore throats, coughs and colds, did you know? It contains ellagic acid, a known cancer fighter and has antioxidants by the bucketload. Pam Corbin, in the River Cottage Series No. 2. Preserves, ( a kitchen bible in this house) writes: ‘During the nineteenth century, raspberry vinegar, in particular, was recommended as a refreshing tonic to overcome weariness.’

Culinary Uses

Nigel Slater advises us to pour it over ice cream and use it to deglaze the roasting tins of lamb or liver, giving a ‘fruity depth to the caramelised juices in the pan’. My husband, Tim, drinks it with fizzy water/soda and it goes equally well with tonic – very healthy. I love to make a fruity salad dressing mixing equal parts with olive oil. It is the perfect accompaniment to cheese, and delicious drizzled over a goat’s cheese and beetroot salad. (Thought Tim says beetroot is the food of the devil).

Method.

Raspberry vinegar

So here’s how, and it’s really easy!

Makes 1.5 litres

1kg raspberries

600ml cider vinegar or white wine vinegar

Granulated sugar

Put the raspberries in a bowl and crush them with the back of a wooden spoon. Add the vinegar. Cover and leave to steep for 4-5 days, stirring occasionally.

Pour the fruit and vinegar into a jelly bag, or piece of muslin suspended over a bowl. We use a piece of cheesecloth, tied at all four corners and hung off a kitchen cupboard door, with a large bowl underneath to catch the drips. Leave to drain overnight.

Measure the liquid then pour it into a saucepan.

It’s important you use a stainless-steel saucepan for this next bit and not aluminium as that would react with the vinegar. For every 600ml fruit vinegar, add 450g of sugar. Boil for 8-10 minutes, removing any scum as it gathers. Take off the heat and allow it to cool.

Bottle in sterilised glass bottles (we save these all year round for such times) Will keep for 12 months until it’s summer again and time to make some more.

Variations

We’ve made fruit vinegar with elderberries in autumn, gooseberries and blackcurrants and blackberries. All delicious!

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or on our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other sections of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what we have been doing here at Bridge Cottage as the months go by:

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the mailing list below. This will go our four times a year, with the seasons in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. We, of course, will not share your details with third parties, and you have the right to unsubscribe at any time.

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Harvest Time Minestrone.

August 1, 2021/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Sue Reed

August Harvest Minestone

Minestrone making is one of the joys of late summer’s harvest time. A seasonal recipe that freezes well, is a meal in a bowl and brings a welcome reminder of summer in the depths of winter. I first wrote this piece on the first of August and Lammas, the pagan celebration of the harvest. This bountiful collection of vegetables was gathered from the Bridge Cottage garden yesterday.

We’re just back from a trip away and we’ve come home to some courgettes of marrow proportion. Courgettes are still in their ‘glut’ season, and I’ve written a separate post giving some seasonal recipes for courgettes. Here, in minestrone, they can be added in chunks along with seasonal tomatoes. Both of these are covered in separate posts to give more inspiration for seasonal eating.

Our broad beans are past their best now, leathery in texture, so are shelled. It’s a bit of a phaff, but well worth it. Simply blanch for a couple of minutes in boiling water, then plunge into a bowl of cold water with ice. The skins will then be easy to squeeze and the tender insides squashed out.

I also like to skin the tomatoes – it’s up to you if you want to make a passata or keep them in chunks.

Here is our minestrone recipe, though feel free to adapt according to what you have ripe and ready, and vary the amounts if you don’t have as much veg ready and ripe. We like to cook in bulk and freeze, so this will make around ten generous portions:

August Harvest Minestrone

Bridge Cottage Minestrone

(Makes ten portions – enough to keep some in the fridge and freeze the rest for winter)

2 tbsp olive oil

1 large onion

4 cloves garlic

3 red peppers

Handful each of French, Runner, Borlotti beans, chopped.

Broad beans

1 kg ripe tomatoes

4 courgettes

Chopped fresh herbs eg oregano, parsley, basil.

2 litres stock (chicken or vegetable)

100g small pasta – we like little star-shaped Stellete but Orzo works well too.

Salt and pepper

Method

Shell the broad beans and remove skins by blanching for two minutes in boiling water, then plunging into a bowl of iced water. Squeeze to remove outer shells.

Prepare the tomatoes: Simply score with a sharp knife then put in a heatproof bowl, and cover with boiling water. Leave for a couple of minutes, then drain. Peel off the skins once cold enough to handle, and whizz them up in a blender to give a beautiful tomato sauce. If you don’t like the pips, then pass through a sieve. Alternately, skin then chop into rough chunks for a chunkier soup.

In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil and gently cook the onion, adding the tomatoes, peppers, beans, chopped herbs and stock. Bring everything to the boil and cook for five minutes before adding the chopped courgettes, crushed garlic and pasta. Cook for a further ten minutes or until the pasta is done. Season with salt and pepper.

Enjoy warm, then cool the rest for the freezer, putting in recycled plastic bags or tubs, and labelling with the date. You’ll be glad you went to the bother in darkest January!

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or on our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other sections of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what we have been doing here at Bridge Cottage as the months go by:

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the mailing list here. This will go our four times a year, with the seasons in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. We, of course, will not share your details with third parties, and you have the right to unsubscribe at any time.

Homemade Yoghurt and Soft Cheese

July 15, 2021/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Kitchen/by Sue Reed

Homemade yoghurt

We’ve been making our own yoghurt and soft cheese for years here at Bridge Cottage. The Guardian even got in touch a couple of years ago and interviewed us about switching from commercially bought yoghurt to making our own: Culture shock for ‘big yoghurt’ as foodies switch to DIY

So why bother? for one, we get through about four pints of yoghurt a week so can make it in bulk. We have it for breakfast most days with fruit either fresh from the garden in summer, or from the freezer in winter.

There is the plastic issue – we use the same tub, and so are reducing our plastic consumption by not buying new every time.

It’s delicious, good for us, with live bugs that do our tummies good!

It’s not delivered on lorries and saves us driving to the shops! So that’s reducing our carbon footprint.

It’s also really easy to make. Here’s how:

Homemade yoghurt.

Homemade yoghurt

(makes 2 pints)

Heat 2 pints whole milk in a large pan to 95 degrees. (almost boiling if you don’t have a thermometer)

Whisk in 2 tablespoons dried skimmed milk. (this makes it thick and creamy)

Place saucepan in a sink of cold water and cool to 45 deg (blood temperature)

Whisk in a small pot (2 tbsp) live yoghurt.

Place in a clean container with a lid and put somewhere warm for 4-5 hours. an airing cupboard is ideal.

Save 2 tbsps of the new yoghurt for next time, in a sterilised container in the fridge.

It is important to pour boiling water over all equipment before use, to make sure it is clean.

homemade soft cheese

To make soft cheese, simply place yoghurt in a muslin or cheesecloth, tie and hang over a bowl to drip for about six hours. Keep in fridge.

You might like to add chopped chives, garlic, or other herbs to your soft cheese.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!

Do let us know how you get on!

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or on our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other sections of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what we have been doing here at Bridge Cottage as the months go by:

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the mailing list here. This will go our four times a year, with the seasons in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. We, of course, will not share your details with third parties, and you have the right to unsubscribe at any time.

Tag Archive for: sustainable living