What preps are you doing this week? part 2.

[westlothianlass]

I made jam this morning, 5 jars of summer berry and 5 of rhubarb and raspberry. I keep wandering into the kitchen to look at them as they look so tasty

[Decaff]

I've added more onions and carrots to my dehydrated stocks. More chicken stock to the freezer for soups and warming autumnal dishes. Need to go berry picking for jam and rose hips for syrup.

[izzy_mack]

Made some rasp and some blackcurrant jam, not as much as last year as one of my sources of fruit moved, damn them . Our local tescos seem to be having one of their throw out times, they reduce the prices of stuff they're no longer stocking or whatever. Got 10 boxes of 240 typhoo for, wait for it £1.45!! a box. 24 tinned peas 11p, a double bed summer duvet £2.50, tinned spag. 10p, large cornbeef £1.25, paks 3 tins tuna £1.13, shredless marmalade 30p, cooking choc 19p, 20tins irnbru £1.58. All I've got to do now is try to find somewhere to put it all!

[itsybitsy]

Made some rasp and some blackcurrant jam, not as much as last year as one of my sources of fruit moved, damn them . Our local tescos seem to be having one of their throw out times, they reduce the prices of stuff they're no longer stocking or whatever. Got 10 boxes of 240 typhoo for, wait for it £1.45!! a box. 24 tinned peas 11p, a double bed summer duvet £2.50, tinned spag. 10p, large cornbeef £1.25, paks 3 tins tuna £1.13, shredless marmalade 30p, cooking choc 19p, 20tins irnbru £1.58. All I've got to do now is try to find somewhere to put it all!

I'm jealous! I never find deals like that.

[Decaff]

Me too! I would have been the one buying ten minutes before the price drop

[Decaff]

Lakeland are selling Ball canning jars in various sizes so I've ordered a couple of packs, spare lids, spare jelly bag for straining my blackberries later for jam and easy peel off labels.

Done an extra shop online, being delivered tomorrow, strawberries were a good buy so I'm going to jar some/most of them in a simple syrup for the stocks and the same with pears. Going to get a lot of tins of tomatoes tomorrow in B&M to make spaghetti sauce and can that too.

Happy days I love being in my kitchen

[cumbrianish]

Decaff tins of tomatoes are 4 for £1 in home bargains and 25p each in poundstretcher.

This week we've started putting money aside for Christmas.

Just bought seeds for winter veg.

[CynicalSurvival]

Lakeland are selling Ball canning jars in various sizes so I've ordered a couple of packs, spare lids, spare jelly bag for straining my blackberries later for jam and easy peel off labels.

I don't have much experience of canning (except seeing my gran do it, back in the day), but buying new jars strikes me as expensive. Do reused ones not work as well? Thanks!

[Deeps]

Lakeland are selling Ball canning jars in various sizes so I've ordered a couple of packs, spare lids, spare jelly bag for straining my blackberries later for jam and easy peel off labels.

I don't have much experience of canning (except seeing my gran do it, back in the day), but buying new jars strikes me as expensive. Do reused ones not work as well? Thanks!

We've been making jam, not masses but we ran out of jars, if you disregard the whole waste side of things, you can buy jars of lemon curd from Aldi's for 22p, you can either use the lemon curd or bin it, either way they're the cheapest jars we found, they also have cheap jam at either 27 or 29p a jar (can't remember) if you're wanting to use the contents before reusing the jars.

[Decaff]

Lakeland are selling Ball canning jars in various sizes so I've ordered a couple of packs, spare lids, spare jelly bag for straining my blackberries later for jam and easy peel off labels.

I don't have much experience of canning (except seeing my gran do it, back in the day), but buying new jars strikes me as expensive. Do reused ones not work as well? Thanks!

you can reuse the jars over and over, you just have to replace the lids each time. I have tons of jam jars from Lakeland which I reuse each year for jams and jellies but the ball ones are bigger and more suited to waterbath canning, the glass is thicker.

We've been making jam, not masses but we ran out of jars, if you disregard the whole waste side of things, you can buy jars of lemon curd from Aldi's for 22p, you can either use the lemon curd or bin it, either way they're the cheapest jars we found, they also have cheap jam at either 27 or 29p a jar (can't remember) if you're wanting to use the contents before reusing the jars.

It's not recommended to reuse shop jars for jams or waterbath canning as they are made for single use, they are fine for storing dehydrated food in though with new lids and oxy absorbers.

Hope this helps