I’ve loved discovering The Minimal List blog through #weeklyblogclub and particularly enjoyed the latest post by Naomi about the trend for using the transition into autumn as a reason to reward ourselves. How often do we get tempted with ‘treats’ we don’t need and which only offer limited relief from the cold and dark? Her post suggests that the real reward might actually be in spending time on something we don’t normally get a chance to do.

Reading Naomi’s post made me want to write about the time we’ve spent foraging and preserving foods from the bushes and trees close to our house.

This autumn will be the first I’ve spent settled into my house with my husband. We both lived here last year but were so deep in decorating materials that it wasn’t a very pleasant place to be.

This year, with everything in place and our house feeling much more like a home, we’ve got on with the job of exploring nature’s larder and doing what we could with foraged food.

Since August this year we’ve been…

Out collecting brambles and crab apples.

Making crab apple jelly.

Bottling crab apple jelly.

Making mint jelly.

Bottling mint jelly.

More brambling.

Storing jars of jelly and jam.

Bottling sloe gin.

So, I think so far this autumn we’ve made:

• Crab apply jelly
• Bramble jelly
• Bramble and apple jam
• Mint jelly (from a recipe in Gifts from the Garden)
• Blackberry vodka (from a recipe by A Thrifty Mrs)
• Sloe gin (from a recipe by Chilterns NT ranger Len given to us on our wild food walk).
• EDITED TO ADD: I’ve just remembered we also made…
• Rosehip syrup
• Haw-sin sauce (from Hugh F-W in The Guardian)

… now we just need to get on with eating and drinking them all!