Finally a day that seemed more like summer!
And I, insanely, spent all day in the kitchen! Its 11.30pm and I am STILL not finished and I think I am a little over it!
It was the Plum-Worcestershire sauces fault. I only make it once a year and the quantities are rather large and everything has taken an eon to do.
Plus, once you have boiled over a sauce that has three tins of treacle in it and had it ooze all over your kitchen, you get totally paranoid about it happening again (The clean up was horrendous) so I had to stay close all day.
First things first. Lets wrap up the choc-rasp/ice-cream bites thing.
Melted the chocolate and got most of the squares dipped before the chocolate went doo-lally on me and wouldn’t go runny again.
Mine didn’t turn out magazine worthy, however…
A hasty photo before Jeff and I taste tested and pronounced a success!
I think next time I do this I can just use my recipe of ice cream, bung some fruit in and do the same – into a square tin, cut and dip in chocolate.
So – onto the buckets of plums and the sauce
Luckily I have my super garlic stash upstairs, as this recipe calls half a pound of it! (I use a bit more)
And it takes a looooong time to peel that much garlic
Happily you can just chuck the plums in as is – no messing about with taking pips out or skinning
I also set another big pot of plums to cook…. will sort them out tomorrow
You also need a lot of spices – about an ounce of each kind.
The house smells a bit amazing – although its incredibly strong when you are near the mixture
Also three pounds of white sugar, two pounds of brown sugar and 7 pints of vinegar! (over 4 litres) (Why you need a massive pot!!)
This whole thing took a couple of hours to come to the boil!!!
In between hovering over my sauce I sorted dinner and crocheted a few more granny squares!
Once the stones leave the plums, you need to strain it then reboil.
I was bottling it up when I realised I didn’t have enough bottles ready, so right now I am just waiting for the next lot of bottles to sterilise before finally finishing this marathon!!
Hope everyone else has managed to move more than ten feet from their kitchens today for more than 15 minutes!! 😀
Cheers!
Lisa, Please share the name of the gorgeous pink flower in the last picture and btw, your granny squares rock. I never learned to do the circle in the middle style. Mine are just boring squares.
hi Jeri!
Would you believe that pink flower is a type of dahlia??!! Its stems/leaves are almost black. I have googled and found at least 4 different names for it!! I don’t even know how I got them. But I separated the bulbs out so now I have a little patch of them.
oooo – youtube! (re granny squares) You can find some amazing tutorials that are so easy to follow. There were two stitches in this I didn’t know before but it was easy to follow the video and the whole thing is quite a quick process!! 🙂
Wow, that plum-worcestershire sauce is a mammoth effort! How much does the recipe make? I bet you felt like crying when that previous batch boiled over!
Your granny squares are looking great!
Hi Judy – I just looked over the bottles and I estimate about 7 litres!!!
Holy cats – I think I DID cry!! lol. I rescued a lot of it (no I didn’t mop it off the floor and wring it back in haha) but the stickiness!! Honestly, it took MONTHS to clean it as every time the oven was used, the mixture that was caught underneath and in places you can’t get to heated up and oozed out!!
Really enjoying your snowy travel adventures! 🙂
Lisa, please share the plum sauce recipe. How do you eat it or what do you eat it with?
Thanks so much!
Hello Janet! I will certainly share the recipe – It was a bit long and I was ready for bed late last night. Just figured I could be massively lazy and do nothing then blog the recipe tonight! haha
I use it in cooking, not as a sauce like relish or ketchup.
The best thing is when I make my rissoles/hamburgers. I slosh in a bit of this sauce – along with onion, garlic, herbs, an egg and bread crumbs into the mince meat and it gives them a fabulous flavour.
It also goes into my spag bol. sauce and some casseroles. That type of thing.
Its also part of my sisters BBQ sauce recipe.
Lisa, thank you for posting the plum sauce recipe. I think it would be a great way to use an over abundance of plums. I have never heard of treacle, I will research it! Something new, fun!
Thanks again!
Hello – you’re welcome!
Treacle… molasses ? Basically its the uncrystallised syrup thats made during the refining of sugar. I also use golden syrup in my cooking (in the raspberry/banana bread) but the treacle is stronger in flavour.
If you are doing this, set aside a whole day!! If you do it really quickly don’t tell me – I’ll be jealous! 😀
Lisa,
Your granny squares are so very pretty!! Those bright colors set in black just stand out so beautifully!!!
Thank-you Pat! I am really enjoying doing these. They are nice and quick and quite relaxing! I am glad you like the black background. I was hoping for exactly that effect!