As we still had a few loose apricots lurking around after we’d made our next year’s supply of jam, what next? Preserves or sauce? Tough call, but we decided sauce. So another 2kg (stoned weight) of apricots and substantially less sugar than the jam later, we have two bottles of sauce.
I think I prefer jam making over sauce. Certainly seems to take less time, and at least there’s a test to tell when it’s ready.
This year I wanted to do something with apricots. Preferably make jam, as I love apricot jam. First of all we had to source some apricots from somewhere. Our fruit trees are currently not at the fruit producing stage, or if they are they keep getting hammered by the grass grub beetle right at the wrong time of year and decide that energy is better spent just staying alive than trying to bear us any fruit.
But all was not lost! As I used to work in the orchard industry some years back now during my school and uni times I meekly and politely asked them for some apricots. Well, to be honest I asked my mother to ask them for me. (Thanks Mummy!) And much obliging they were too, donating some good ole Central Otago apricots (and a few yummy Dawson’s cherries thrown in as a yummy bonus). In fact it was a pretty big box of apricots, so huge thanks Kathy and Bill!
Stage I: Cook the fruit a bit until soft. Easy enough. No dramas there. Bubble, bubble, bubble…
Stage II: Add the warmed sugar. Warmed sugar? How the hell do you do that?! Ah. Thanks Google!
[Visual record of this stage not recommended if you actually want to eat any of the jam!]
Stage III: bubble, bubble, bubble until the “setting point” is reached. Hmm. OK. I think we managed that, but only time will tell, I guess.
Stage IV: Bottle it up, and stack in the cupboard.
So from 2kg of fruit and and [an undisclosed amount] of sugar we managed to get nine jars of jam of various sizes. I suspect that’ll get us through a year. Unless it’s just so yummy that we have it on porridge, scones, chicken breasts as well as the usual toast.
Now we just have to think of something to do with the rest (about half a box full). I am thinking some yummy spicy apricot sauce.
This year we thought we would try and make a Christmas cake. Not sure why as I don’t even like fruit cake. I think for me it was more about giving the icing a go. So we found a cake recipe in the back of my cake decorating book and thought we’d give it a try. And after 3.5 hours of cooking on a low heat it was ready.
Then after a day or two came the fun bit of putting on the icing. A two step process – almond icing first and then royal icing next. I have never used either before, and it was not as complicated as first thought. But it was hard work trying to get it perfect and that is something I have not yet mastered. Only time and practice I guess will get it perfect. But I am pleased with the first attempt. Oh, and I didn’t make the little characters on the top, obviously!
And the cake itself? Well it isn’t too bad, in fact those that have had it have said it is very nice. So I guess we will use that recipe again next year and perhaps even try and make some little characters ourselves to put on the top out of icing too.
Stunning day here, so a bit of clean up in the garden was undertaken. All the manky celery plants that have failed to produce anything that was remotely unlike string were pulled out and thrown to the chooks, as well as all the parsnips that were lurking in the same plots.
We’d thought that this year’s parsnip crop was an abject failure, so we’d pretty much given up on them months ago, and all above ground traces of them had slowly vanished. Looks like we should maybe have paid them a bit more attention!
This little beauty weighs in at 1.447kg. Almost A&P show material! (Although you do have to have 3 matching veg for a good score there apparently, except in the giant pumpkin classification. You learn things like that out in the sticks.) And there were a few other good ‘un in there too. Looks like parsnip soup for the next week.
Which is just as well really, as there’s not much else happening out there. But at least we have some nice clear, freshly dug bits of garden for a change.
Yes, this little rock hangs out in our kitchen, normally beside the egg timer. It’s a very quiet little rock. Doesn’t say or do much. We found it hanging out outside when the lawn was being prepared.
But it does perform a very important function in our lives. It keeps the lid of the rice pot more firmly squeezed onto the pot, hence avoiding too much spillage or steam seepage giving us a much cleaner stove and nicer rice.
Thanks, little stone!
Another crop that’s done well in the tunnel-house this year has been capsicums. So, what do you do with a glut of tomatoes, capsicums and chillies? Only one thing for it, brew up a batch of chilli jam!
First up, prepare the basic ingredients…
Note, that I wisely took the photo before I deseeded the chillies. I’d rather not spread chilli juice over the camera right now as we’re trying to remember to pick it up and use it more regularly at the moment. And there’s a moment every time I have to deseed a number of chillies that I’m very, very thankful I wear glasses!
So a bit of bubbling, bubbling, bubbling later, and at some random moment when we decided it was ready it was into the jars.
Now just the usual wait to let it all come together before the grand tasting!
Out in the hot house the tomato plants have just been chugging away, doing their own thing for the past few months. They’ve really been rather neglected, and most have taken to just sprawling out over the floor as they’ve wanted to with little in the way of guidance as to which way it could be awfully useful if they could just bring themselves to decide to aim in that general direction. Like upwards, for example.
I’ve been dragging the odd 5 or 10 off for salads etc, but today we went on a bit of a well overdue hunt for any ripe (or over-ripe) ones with the hope of not wasting them too. So 2kg of plum tomatoes later…
Bit of a rinse, bit of a “wazz-up”, bit of a boil up, bit of a spice up later, and we had some spicy tomato ketchup.
Not a lot of ketchup for 2kg of toms! But I’m sure it’ll be the very essence of summer and spice in a jar. I’m just giving myself a couple of days before trying it so the flavours meld and settle. Better be worth it!
But in other hot-house related news, there’s now a big, empty void where the cucumber plant used to be. Yes, I know. A very sad day yesterday when it was removed from the premises. For us and all those others that have been partaking of it’s prodigious product.
It had finally stopped producing any more flowers and was getting a bit over-run with some sort of nasty mite that we’d rather not have infest the whole crop so it was time to go. On the upside we did manage to harvest a last six cucumbers as we were dragging it out the door, so it will live on in the fridge for just a bit longer!
This is probably the most veges we’ve harvested in one go. Not that we haven’t used lots from the garden already, but we’ve tended to grab one thing or another for whatever meal we’ve been cooking. But today we grabbed cabbage and carrots and spring onions for an Asian inspired coleslaw, lettuce and capsicum for a salad, potatoes and beetroot for sides (and a bit of bottling). Yum yum yum!
It’s official we finally have our first BBQ! Our Christmas present (the only one, unless Mike is secretly surprising me), to ourselves this year was to install a BBQ on the property. And after looking around for about a week and pondering on what makes a good BBQ (not sure we are any the wiser), and what price one should spend, we finally settled on this one!
And the first batch of sausies we cooked came out OK…… a slightly charcoal bit here and there!
Yes. Yes indeedy. It does seem that you can, in fact, make a curry containing just about anything! Tonight’s effort was based around watermelon, and I have to say it was actually quite unexpectedly yummy!
Light, but tasty. Not too sweet, as the chilli powder seems to take away some of that. Just right really! And really quick. Think I’ll keep this one handy for a really quick, summer light dinner or lunch.