Sensational Sour Cherry Strudel and a Peach Glut, March 19th 2013

Last week, after watching a first episode in the new series of Gourmet Farmer on SBS,  I was inspired to start using some of the frozen Morello cherries that I picked in January. Matthew Evans met up with a friend ,originally from Croatia, who showed him how to make a sour cherry strudel. Seemed a simple recipe other than having to deal with fiddly filo pastry so I gave it a go on the weekend. The filo was fiddly as predicted but who cares when the result tastes so good. Sour cherry would have to be one of my most favourite flavours! Yummmmm!  I can see this recipe becoming an all time favourite.

I was busy bottling tomato paste and drying tomatoes on the weekend but one new thing that I tried was making peach leather. The peaches are rapidly ripening on the tree so I am going to have to come up with some uses for them. This peach and passionfruit leather looks and tastes nice.

 I also made a peach and walnut cake for my book club last night.....looks nice and tastes that way as well.  There seem to be millions of peach cake recipes on the net so just picking one was difficult. This one came from a site called Foodnetwork.  

Plenty of Pickles , February 26th 2013

Its pickling time....the vege garden is exploding with produce so I need to do something with it all. This weekend I have made two types of pickles. First up I made pickled red cabbage – salting the cabbage and sliced onion overnight before bringing a pickling vinegar to the boil and  pouring over the jar packed with the washed brined cabbage. I don’t think I have tried this recipe before which has raisins and orange zest in the vinegar. Now I am looking forward to tasting it.

 Next day it was time to make bread and butter pickles from some small crunchy cucumbers.

 Again it involved salting the cucumber and onion overnight before rinsing off the salt next morning. The cucumbers are brought to the boil in the pickling vinegar before packing into the jar. 

Each lot of pickles has a different mix of spices so I won't know what they taste like until I get around to opening the jars. I have several recipes of these types of pickles so making and tasting them all could take a long time.

Plum Worcestershire Sauce and some dehydrated goodies for a hike. February 12th 2013

The plums are finished except for a few in the fridge. On the weekend, I made some Plum Worcestershire Sauce with a mix of Damson and Satsuma plums. Even though I halved the recipe, I still ended up with probably more bottles than I will use in a year.  It was very easy to make – just boil all the following ingredients for 3 hours until it thickens slightly. Strain and bottle.

 750g of plums to 2 cups of treacle, 10 cups malt vinegar,65g salt, 65g garlic, 375g brown sugar, 65g bruised ginger,30g cloves, 15g allspice berries and ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper.

 While the sauce was boiling, I was busy preparing pre-cooked meals to dehydrate for an upcoming hike. I bought a book recently called Backpack Gourmet which is full of new ideas for dehydrated goodies to take on a hike. We now need to go on lots of hikes to try out all the recipes! On the weekend  I made 2 dehydrated pastes to have with rice cakes for lunch. One used tinned tuna, white beans and tomato paste or salsa blended together then dehydrated.

The other ,Backpack Bruschetta, was a mix of garlic,white beans,tomato puree, lemon juice, salt and pepper. When we want to eat them, we just mix with a little water. I also cooked up some pasta and dehydrated it to go with some dehydrated bolognaise sauce sitting in the freezer, left over from last year’s hikes.  Last weekend I made a Chilli Turkey dinner with couscous for one of our dehydrated dinners.  As the meal is already cooked, all you have to do is to cover it with water and bring to the boil. It sure beats soaking and cooking individual dehydrated ingredients out in the wilderness as I used to.

                                                   There is still lots to do out in the garden. The zucchinis and squash are going crazy and I have making jars of zucchini/squash pickles, making zucchini slice, grilling them on the BBQ and still they keep coming. Luckily the chooks like to peck on the big ones. Here are the ones from last weekend that got away from me.

And then of course, you just have to leave some time for a few swims at my local beach to make the most of the warm summer weather. :)

Enjoying the summer berry harvest ............Sunday January 13, 2013

Happy New Year - my first blog post of 2013.

The blueberry bird cage that we build late last year has really paid off with lots of blueberries ripening each day. I have been  picking every second day for the past couple of weeks and apart from freezing some, have just been enjoying the blueberries eaten fresh - the best way to have them.

The raspberries have been ripening madly too and I have had to pick them almost daily to keep up with the crop. This weekend I have sat some in vinegar to brew for the week so that I can make some raspberry vinegar next weekend. After 6 days of sitting in vinegar, the raspberries are strained and then the liquid brought to the boil with an equal amount of suger. Makes a delicious salad dressing. There are plenty of raspberries sitting in the freezer too until I decide what to do with them. Jam, syrup, cordial are on the agenda at some stage when it gets cold and there isn't the motivation to be outside.

Garlic + egg yolks + olive oil = Aoili

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2012

The garlic is dug dried and plaited.

What better way to use up the egg of which I accidentally broke a little bit of the shell than turning into Aoili for a special Christmas extra.   First the cloves of garlic are pounded in a mortar and pestle. The egg yolks are separated.

Then bit by bit the olive oil is added into the mix, a dash of lemon juice until it all magically thickens up and becomes Aoili.

What to do with the leftover eggwhites? Whip them up into a meringue, smash that up and mix with cream and all those excess strawberries and raspberries we have at the moment. And what do you have? Eton Mess for dessert.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Herbs for all seasons, December 11, 2012

Tarragon

Dill

My new herb garden is growing like crazy.  This afternoon I harvested a few pieces of tarragon, coriander and dill and chopped them up finely. They keep really well in small ziplock bags in the freezer to have on hand whenever there isn't enough of the fresh variety in the garden. Now I am looking for some recipes to use the tarragon in as it is the first time I have ever grown it.
Updated Dec 12. Oh no - I was just reading Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion and she recommends growing French Tarragon as it is much more flavoured than Russian. I just checked my seed packet and......yes, mine is Russian.  :(   Better luck next time.

My 100th post.......simple salads for summer Monday December 3rd 2012

Everything is planted in the garden and now we just have to wait for it to grow. There are tiny zucchinis and squash forming. The climbing beans have commenced their climb. The lettuces are flourishing. Even the snow peas are podding up. Those pesky birds can't get to the strawberries and blueberries any more.
With warmer days and even sometimes warm evenings, it is time for barbecues. There is nothing simpler than putting a salad together to accompany whatever is on the barbecue so it's nice to have some snazzy dressing on hand to go on the salad of freshly picked lettuce and mustard greens. Add a few dried tomatoes and marinated artichokes from last season's stock and it is ready.

Supplies were running a bit low the other day so it was time to whip up a new batch. This dressing is really simple but super tasty. Olive oil, white wine vinegar, mustard, garlic, thyme, oregano, basil and curry powder. Toss everything in the blender, mix it together on smoothie setting and voila.....a dressing to have on hand for any occasion. Tastes great!
And as for that Stilton.....it is wrapped in foil in the fridge but I dare not look at it.