Fruit picking and preserving

My dad has an orchid on his 5 acre lot. Most years we get a few bags of fruit when we happen to be back, but normally the fruit falls to the ground and rots as there is just too much for mum and dad to eat. I mentioned to my friend that Dad had a orchid one day and she suggested getting together and picking the fruit so it didn't go to waste. So that's exactly what we did on the weekend - we picked the first lot of fruit - plums, white peaches and apples. We will have another round probably in another month or so, to pick figs, more white peaches and more apples.

It was a lovely day (perhaps a little hot), but great to get together with the family and our friends from Sydney to pick some fruit.

This is the orchid - Dad has completely enclosed it, so birds and other animals can't get to the trees. The orchid contains several types of plum trees, white and yellow peaches, several varieties of apples, as well as some fig and quince trees (I can't wait for these to ripen).

Everyone got stuck into picking the fruit - the little ones got the low hanging fruit - Jassy was tall enough to get some of the higher fruit and fruit in more awkward positions:

The plums are a decent size - and very sweet. We had to get a ladder to get to the higher ones on the tree.

Eliza loves fruit, so she spent most of the day, sampling the produce.

Jassy loved hanging out with all her cousins and generally looking gorgeous!

And Dave was on hand with some muscles to help carry all the bags and boxes down to the house.

We ate so much for lunch, that we all decided to do a lap around the block for exercise (plus Hellie is competing with her hubbie and some friends for the most steps per day - so we thought we would keep her company!)

For lunch we had chicken and rolls, and followed this up with a deconstructed crumble which was cooked with some of the produce we picked.  It was delicious!  I used a recipe from the "Love to Cook" cookbook, and just changed it a bit. The recipe was the Plums and Blackberry Crumble with spiced cream. I obviously changed the fruits to plums, white peaches, a couple of figs, and for the crumble I substituted the walnuts for macadamias.

Everyone just helped themselves to fruit and then added the cooked crumble mix on top, with a dollop of the spiced cream (which was made from equal quantities of greek yoghurt, thickened cream and mascarpone with a Tablespoon of caster sugar, and a dash of vanilla extract and ground cardamom). We also got to enjoy some scones which Michelle had made for us as well!

So - what did we do with all this fruit once we got home?

Well, some of it we just ate:

I made a lot of it into preserves of some description:

From left to right: Fast cooked cherry tomato sauce (recipe found here), Chinese Five Spice Plum Sauce (recipe below), Peach Chutney (recipe also below), Spiced Preserved Plums (also below).

You'll notice I have cherry tomatoes there as well - that was the other thing I did - my boss's wife gave me some cherry tomatoes from her garden so I gave her some plums!

This week it is American food week in the Turner household, so I found a recipe for Apple Brown Betty in a cookbook which was loaned to me by Eliza's best friends mum Rebecca. Apple Brown Betty is essentially a layered crumble, except the crumble is made with breadcrumbs instead of flour. I must admit I cheated on this one, and used the left over crumble from the weekend!

Recipes

Chinese Five Spice Plum  Sauce

Place

1kg halved mixed plums

1 finely chopped red onion

1 Tbs finely grated ginger

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup apple cider vinegar

½ cup water

1 Tbs lemon juice

1 Tsp salt

1 tsp chinese five spice powder

½ tsp chilli flakes

In a large saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to Medium-Low and cook stirring for 30 minutes or until the plums collapse. Use a stick blender to blend until smooth. Pour into sterilised bottles. Seal and date.

Spiced Preserved Plums

(ingredients for one large bottle)

Combine

            2 Cups dry red wine

            1 Cup caster sugar

            2 cinnamon sticks

            2 star anise

In a saucepan over low heat. Cook stirring for 5 minutes or until sugar dissolves. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to low.

Add 6 Plums (I found I could only fit 4.5 plums as they were huge, and I halved them to maximise the use of space in each bottle). Cook for 2 minutes until just heated through. Use a slotted spoon to transfer to a sterilised jar. Pour over the syrup. Seal while hot, and date. Needs 2 weeks to infuse.

Note: I had a little liquid left over - which I drank of course - it was divine, and would make a lovely Sangria base.

Peach Chutney (from Taste.com.au)

Makes 2 cups

1kg yellow peaches, peeled

1 small red onion finely chopped

2 garlic cloves crushed

5cm piece of fresh ginger peeled and grated

½ cup malt vinegar

½ cup white sugar

2 Tbs sweet chilli sauce

Cut peaches in half. Remove stones and roughly chop flesh

Combine peaches, onion, garlic, ginger, vinegar, sugar and sweet chilli in a 3-litre capacity, microwave-safe jug or bowl. Microwave in Panasonic Microwave, uncovered, on HIGH (100%) power for 25 to 30 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes, or until chutney is thick.

Spoon hot chutney into hot sterilised jars. Cover with a tea towel and allow to cool. Seal and label. Refrigerate after opening. Serve on Christmas day with ham or turkey. Alternatively, use on sandwiches.

A note on sterilising jars:  The method I have found easiest for sterilising jars, is to heat the oven to 120 degrees and then put jars in for 20 minutes. I sterilise the lids in the dishwasher.

Would you believe that I only have 4 plums and 15 apples left! I think we will just eat those.

I am looking forward to another fruit picking day perhaps in about a month's time when the figs, more apples and more peaches have ripened!

Di :-)

Italian Week

Today ends Italian week at the Turner household. A pretty easy week food wise, as everyone in the household enjoys Italian food, and it's fairly easy to cook. Most recipes were from Love to Eat - the new Delicious cookbook, there were a couple of other recipes used, which I have mentioned later on.

We started last Sunday night with a Parmesan and cauliflower risotto with hazelnut pangrattato. This dish was meant to be made with Taleggio, but I had plenty of parmesan, so used this instead, The hazelnut pangrattato made for some nice texture on the top of the risotto.

On Monday night we enjoyed Roman Chicken with polenta. Once again, I did some slight substitutions - and used a block of polenta which I made into chips which were baked in the oven. I've made the creamy polenta before, so I just wanted to see what the chips would be like.  This dish was very tasty indeed, and there was enough polenta to serve with Wednesday night's dinner as well.

No Italian week is complete without a pasta dish - so I selected Orecchiette amatriciana, except I made with the bow pasta instead of the orecchiette. A nice simple pasta dish with plenty of flavour.

Wednesday night is swimming night so I put on this Tuscan Pork dish before we went to swimming and baked the pumpkin when we got back.  I loved the crackling on the pork - and the flavour of the fennel, rosemary and lemon on the outside. Although the crew didn't mind this dish, they aren't really fans of pork generally unless it's minced!

Thursday night I went out with some old work colleagues, to a Thai restaurant, and in my absence the rest of the Turner team made mini homemade Hawaiian pizzas.

Friday night we ate out to Sirens in Gungahlin, I had a delicious seafood pasta, Dave had pizza, and Jasmin had Chicken Parmis. The only one who didn't eat Italian was Eliza who opted for some Cajun Chicken.

We had a busy day on Saturday - which included a trip to the fresh fruit and veggies markets at EPIC, the Food and Wine show in Canberra, lunch at Belconnen Mall, a birthday party at Build-a-Bear in Belconnen for Eliza, while Jas and Dave headed off to the new trampolining place in Belconnen Mall. Needless to say I was a bit tired when I returned home, and opted for cooking a nice Minestrone with some of the fresh produce I'd purchased earlier in the day. The recipe was from the Italian Food Safari cookbook. I served it with some crusty italian bread (also purchased from the markets), and followed it up with some Lemon Tiramasu (from Delicious's Love to Cook cookbook). It was delicious!

Today we spent the day picking fruit at Mum and Dad's place, so it was leftovers for dinner tonight - I just had to top up the minestrone with some stock.

We voted for American food next week, mainly on a account of the fact that Jasmin is craving some burger (it's one of her favourites, so I guess if you had to pick a country it was from it would probably be America). After some deliberation we also decided to write all the countries we could think of on little pieces of paper, which have been folded and put into a container - we will draw out a random country from now on.

Off to watch some Black List.

Goodnight

Di :-)

Australian Food Week which lasted for Two weeks

I thought I would reward myself after doing a very Australian thing (mowing the lawns - or should I say weeds and dirt), by sitting down for a few minutes and writing the rest of a post about eating Australian food on return from Phuket.

We celebrated our return from Phuket by eating some very Australian food for a week, which stretched out for a second week, with some non Australian dishes thrown in for good measure. It could be said however, that a lot of food that we eat in Australia comes from a lot of different cultures.

So we kicked off our return from Phuket with these very Australian dishes - Anzac Cookies, Anzac Cookie Icecream Sandwiches, BBQ Chicken Salad with Passionfruit Dressing and BBQ Sausage Rolls with Red Wine Braised Onions.

 
 

Last week we continued the Australian eating theme with some more Australian dishes including:

 Roast Leg of Lamb with Homemade Mint Sauce and Potato Bake:

Chili Pineapple and Mini Pavs;

And what could be more Australian, than some fresh Australian Grown fruit:



The not so Australian food consumed included Cheese Quesadillas with Pinepple Salsa and Guacamole:



And this Cheat's Paella made from Cous Cous:

While we were away, our little pot of tomatoes started bearing fruit - Eliza has been enjoying wandering out the back door to pick and eat the cherry tomatoes like they were lollies. It's hard to believe that you get so many cherry tomatoes off one little bush!



Having had so much fun cooking food from one nationality for a week, I thought I would continue this idea for the remainder of the year, and cook a different nationality food each week (with a couple of non-themed dishes thrown in so that I can cook stuff from the mags I get!). This week we are having Italian Week in the Turner household, so I'll post after this week with some dishes we have enjoyed.

I leave you this week with this poster I made for Dave for Valentine's Day - the girls and I had a heap of fun shopping for and constructing his present. I can't take credit for the idea though, as I found it on Pinterest!

Di :-)

There's no place like home!

We had a wonderful holiday in Phuket - it was steamy and hot, unlike Canberra, which saw a bit of rain while we were away, but it's sure nice to be home. Probably could have done with a couple more days to recuperate from our holiday before returning to work and school, but we really can't complain!

In celebration of being home in Australia, I've decided to cook some Australian dishes this week from the Delicious - Love to Eat cookbook which I got for Christmas.

Sunday night I made this delicious Barbecue and Chicken Salad with Passionfruit Dressing. It was great to have some salad vegetables without worrying whether they had been rinsed in filtered water!



I also baked some Anzac Cookies in the afternoon - delicious when served warm straight out of the oven.

I made these little Anzac Cookie Icecream Sandwiches for dessert that night as well. The ice-cream and Anzac Cookie recipe also from the Delicious Cookbook. They were extremely filling!

 Monday night I decided to make these Barbecued Sausage rolls with Red Wine Braised Onions. The recipe in the cookbook was actually for Beer Braised Onions, but I didn't have any dark ale or stout on hand, and substituted the red wine instead - I think it's still very Australian and I think the onions turned out a lot nicer with wine rather than beer!

 

I'll be back later this week with hopefully a Phuket Post as well as a food post!
Di :-)
xxx