Ingredients:
1 medium cabbage, cored, quartered and chopped
2-3 capsicum, various colours, deseeded and chopped
1 hot pepper (optional) deseeded and chopped
4 medium green tomatoes, cut into wedges
2 celery stalks, with or without leaves, chopped
1 bulb of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 cup chopped fresh mint
1 cup chopped fresh parsley
3 TBSP non-iodised salt
vinegar of choice to cover (I use home-made apple cider vinegar)

Method:
Place all prepared vegetables in very large bowl. Sprinkle salt over veges, and use clean hands to mix well. Cover with a tea towel and set aside for at least 30 mins to extract juices and allow to shrink (often I'm busy and leave it for an hour or two). Take handfuls of veges, squeeze out liquid (back into bowl to save the liquid - see below), and pack veges into clean jars. use a wooden spoon to help pack them down. Continue adding veges until jar nearly full, leaving about a 4-5 inch head space. Pour vinegar over vegetables until completely submerged. To keep veges submerged, top with either reserved folded outer cabbage leaves, a small ziplock bag of extra vinegar, or a silicon muffin cup (that's what I use), before placing lids on jars.

Stand the filled jars in a suitable contain to catch any spillage as the jars ferment, and place in a dark, cool-ish place. Check them daily for 3-7 days, topping up vinegar if needed. When they have fermented as long as you wish, move the jars to the fridge to store and stop the fermentation. Use much as you would sauerkraut.

The left-over liquid squeezed out of the veges is full of nutrition, so don't throw it out! I like to freeze this in icecube trays then bag and keep in the freezer, then add to various things where I want some salt and flavour - drinks, smoothies, soups, whatever.

Ingredients:
1 large cabbage, cored and shredded (set aside a couple of whole outer leaves first)
1 cup carrots, grated
2 medium onions, quartered lengthwise and very finely sliced
1 TBSP dried oregano
1/4-1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
2 TBSP non-iodised salt (or 1 TBSP salt and 4 TBSP whey)

Note: the book also has an alternative version using a homemade pineapple vinegar instead of salt/whey. Can't wait to try that one day as it sounds yum!

Method:
Place all ingredients except salt/whey into a large glass or ceramic bowl. Lightly mix by hand. Sprinkle over salt/whey, and toss through to mix. Cover the bowl and let sit for 10-15 mins. Now, squeeze the cabbage mix with your hands, crushing it, causing liquids to drip out. If it's homegrown cabbage, you only need to do this for a couple of minutes. With store-bought you will need to pound the cabbage with a wooden pounder or meat hammer for 10-15 mins.

Take 2 clean quart jars. Add small quantities of the vegetable mix to a jar at a time (being careful not to lose any of the fluids from the bowl/dripping veges), using a kraut pounder or the end of a wooden spoon to firmly pound down the veges. Keep adding more, and pounding down until jar is full. Repeat with second jar. Pour over the remaining fluids from the bowl. All vegetables should be covered with liquid, and the top if the mixtures should be at least an inch below the rim of the jars. 

Fold up the set aside whole leaves and place in the top of each jar, to hold the veges submerged (you will throw away these leaves after the fermenting is done). I also added a silicon muffin cup for extra packing. Cover jars tightly and set on bench in a suitable drip tray (as they will probably overflow). Leave to ferment at room temperature for 3 days before moving to the fridge. Enjoy!

Method:

• Bring a large pot of water to the boil. 
• Pour lots of ice into a large bowl of water to chill it well
• Wash vegetables and cut into even sized florets. Slice in half any thicker stalks. 
• Either: lower a colander or metal basket (if you have one) full of vegetables into the boiling water, or if you have only the amount for one batch, simply drop them into the pot. Replace the lid and time for 3 minutes. 
• Immediately lift out or drain the vegetables and dump into the iced water to rapidly cool and prevent further cooking. 
• Drain again, and place well drained veges on clean tea towels, and gently pat to remove excess water. 
• Spread in a single layer on a baking paper lined oven tray
• Place tray flat in freezer. Freeze
• The next day, remove from the freezer, gently separate any florets that have stuck together, and place loosely into a large ziplock bag or container. Return to freezer. 

To use: remove the amount you wish to use. Thaw if you wish to use it in a salad, or cook from frozen either by boiling or steaming, or adding to stir fries.

​Frozen cauliflower, steamed, makes excellent cauliflower mash (just whiz in the food processor after steaming, with a little butter, sour cream or coconut oil). Excellent substitute for mashed potatoes. 

The recent storms blew some very immature apples off our trees. I collected them up, and made three products from them. These apples have quite a bit of codling moth in them, so by the time I cut out all the yucky bits, I had one kilo of apple, which yielded 3 jars of apple sauce, 1 jar of apple jelly, and just under a cup of homemade pectin to use in other jams. After Stage One below, complete only such of the following stages as you wish to.

​One might also have unripe apples from thinning fruit on a young tree - use as below.

Wash and rinse suitable jars for bottling the following items, depending which you choose to make. Stand jars right way up on a cold oven tray, and place in cold oven. Turn oven to 100C, and ensure jars remain in there for at least 30 mins from the time oven reaches temperature, to sterilize. Continue to keep at temp so remain hot until ready to bottle. 

Boil a pot of water on the stove. Place lids in pot and boil for 5 mins before using. 

​You will also find it useful to have a preserving funnel to fill jars without spillage. I have one, but it's too wide to fit inside small jam jars, which is mostly what I've used for this. I also have a large ordinary plastic funnel, which I long ago cut the narrow part off of, creating a wide mouthed funnel that fits into jam jars and enables me to pour or ladle in liquids without mess. 

​Place some folded newspaper on a wooden chopping boards to place hot jars on for filling and until they cool.

Unripe apples are bitter and hard when raw, but once cooked they are palatable and edible, but not very sweet. I used the pulp from the above process to make some applesauce, which I bottled to use in other recipes, such as my Curried Sausage Pie, in the future. (My regular applesauce is what I used on it's own or to top breakfast etc). 

To make applesauce: process apple pulp through foodmill to puree and remove skins. Measure resulting puree. Place in suitable sized pot. For every 3 cups puree, add:
1 cup water
1/2 cup honey
2 TBSP lemon juice
1/8-1/4 tsp cinnamon (optional)
1/2 tsp finely grated lemon rind (optional)

Ingredients:
6kg ripe red tomatoes
4 apples (skin on but cores removed)
2 onions
2 TBSP allspice
2 cloves garlic (crushed)
750g white sugar (or substitute about 2 1/2 cups honey)
1/4 cup salt
1 litre malt vinegar

Method:
Wash and chop tomatoes and apples. Chop onions. Place in a large stock pot. Tie allspice and garlic in a muslin bag. Boil all ingredients together slowly for two hours, stirring frequently. Cool, discard muslin bag, and process in batches through a foodmill or food processor. Return to pot, bring back to boil, and if desired simmer a bit longer to thicken further. Bottle into hot, sterilised bottles*

* To sterilise bottles, wash, rinse, then place in cold oven, turn heat to 100C and maintain for at least 30 mins - keep them hot after that until ready to fill. Boil clean metal lids in a pot of water for 5 mins. Can also use Agee jars etc.

Method:


Place unopened cream on the counter and leave at room temperature for about 8 hours to sour a bit. 








Pour cream into food processor, using a knife to scrape out thick cream that sticks to the inside of the bottle. 

Process until cream separates into curds (butter globules) and whey (buttermilk). About 1 minute. 












Tip into a strainer set over a suitable metal or glass bowl. Let sit for a minute or two to drain. Do not press butter as you don't want to push it through the seive. 























Tip butter into a separate metal or wooden bowl. Stir and press it with a wooden spoon, causing small amounts of buttermilk to run out - tip the buttermilk into the container with the rest of it. Do this over and over until you've got as much buttermilk out as you can. Pour buttermilk into clean glass jar, cap and refridgerate. 









​Now, slowly run cold water over the butter, holding your container on an angle over the sink and working and pressing the butter over and over so that the water washes out all remaining buttermilk residue. (This milky water is not kept, unless you want to use it in the garden). It is important to get all traces of buttermilk out - any left behind will cause the butter to go rancid much more quickly than it should. 

Form clean butter into whatever shape you desire and place in container. Refigerate, or freeze for longer storage. 

​The buttermilk can be used in baking, or as a starter for lacto-fermentation of vegetables. Using whey/buttermilk in fermation means that less salt can be used, as the whey speeds up the process of formation of sufficient lacto-acid to prevent the vegetables from spoiling. 

Ingredients: (to make a very big pot full - if you don't have a 10L stock pot, then halve this recipe)
Just prepare everything and chuck it in the pot one by one as you go.

• 2.5 kg tomatoes, washed and cut into even-ish chunks
• 1 large marrow, peeled, seeds removed, and grated (I cut it up then use a food processor to grate it - speeds this up a lot! I use the biggest marrow I have - this one was mammoth!)
• 5-6 stalks celery, diced
• 6 onions, diced
• 1 whole garlic bulb, peeled, crushed and roughly chopped
• 2 dessert spoons blackstrap molasses
• 2 TBSP uniodised salt
• 2 TBSP soy sauce
• 1-2 handsful fresh parsley, finely chopped
• 1 handful fresh oregano, remove stalks and chop leaves
• 1-2 handsful nasturtium leaves, washed, stems removed, and fairly finely chopped
• 1/2 cup honey (I used up some older, crystalised honey; still works fine!). Can use sugar instead if you wish.
• 2 cups tomato sauce (use my recipe or your store bought favourite)
• 1/2 cup malt vinegar

Method:
Prepare each item as described above, adding to pot as you go. Give everything a rough stir together. It will seem dry, but as soon as you start to heat it, the tomatoes and marrow will release a lot of moisture. Bring to the boil, stirring frequently. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 45-60 mins, stirring right to the bottom of the pot often to prevent sticking. Leave to cool. (I often make a pot of this in the evening, and just leave it covered on the stove overnight to cool down - it's no problem). You don't have to cool it completely before you carry on - I just find it convenient to take a break at this stage, and cooler mixes are safer to put through a food processor.

Ladle about half the mixture into a food processor in batches, and blitz until smooth. Recombine blitzed with unblitzed portions (leaving some unblitzed adds texture and interest to the sauce). Return to the boil, simmer 10 mins, then ladle into hot sterile jars and seal. 

Makes 5-6 agee jars full.