Food preservation

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    Zucchinis: eating the whole plant

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    rollinggarden

    Zucchinis are usually grown for their delicious fruits, but is the fruit the only edible thing? Or can we eat the whole plant? Zucchinis(courgettes) are a part of almost every vegetable garden. This wonderful summer squash is fairly easy to grow but can be challenging to get it to make fruits. The plant loves warmth…

  • Lavender harvest

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    rollinggarden

    In Croatia, June is usually a Lavender harvest month. In the coastal parts lavender flowers sooner, and in northwestern Croatia we harvest it around the end of June. The lavender isn’t very popular here due to the popular opinion that the lavender can’t survive in the cold, but actually, some varieties grow excellent even in…

  • Storing red currants for winter

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    rollinggarden

    June is red currant time. Like all berries, currants don’t ripe all at the same time, so they can be hard to store for winter. The usual way of storing them is to freeze them in bags or processed them in juice, syrup, or jam. I used to store my red currants this way before.…

  • Drying elderberry flowers

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    rollinggarden

    Elderberry flowers are something I absolutely adore, the beautiful small white flowers, although don’t seem like it, carry loads of taste and are a great ingredient to make syrup, cordial, or even jam. Elderberry fruits are also excellent, but the birds also love them so I never get the chance to harvest any berries. This…

  • “Less messy avjar” or ajvar from the oven

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    rollinggarden

    Last year I made ajvar for the first time in my own kitchen and completely alone. Of course, that meant that I also had to clean the ajvar mess alone and that’s the experience I don’t want to do again. The boiling ajvar was squirting everywhere, messing up half of the kitchen, including the ceiling.…