A Loveliness of Ladybirds

Every couple of months we have to read our electricity meter and send the details to Western Power.  Imagine our surprise when we opened the meter box to find a loveliness of ladybirds.  Loveliness is the noun for a group of ladybirds.  How apt!  

We're more than happy to have these particular ladybirds as they're native to our part of the world.  They do a great job keeping aphids and other insects under control.  Go ladybirds.

How Excited Were We....

How excited were we when we saw this beauty.  Initially it was sitting in our fig tree but moved into the nearby wattles when we arrived.  

                                                

It is a Boobook owl.  We hear them often at nighttime, but we've never been lucky enough to see one.  They have a distinctive hoot and are often called mopokes because of their sound.  We're really hopeful the fact that it was around during the day, and didn't fly away completely when we turned up, means it was just too stuffed with figs to move and not that it was unwell. 

Still excited!! 

Figs, Figs and More Figs

This year we've had an abundance of figs on our trees which, much to our surprise, the birds haven't discovered.  We both love figs.  But there's only so many figs two humans (with the help of three cows and a small number of birds) can reasonably eat without turning into a fig.  We stopped weighing the figs we picked when we got to 23 kilos.  We gave away many kilos of figs and then set about doing something with the rest.  This included drying the figs, wrapping them in prosciutto and grilling them (those were seriously delicious and are highly recommended) and making jam and chutney.   I also discovered a fabulous recipe for a Fig and Raspberry Crumble Cake which I made to share with my lovely sister and her family when they were moving into their new home.  My mother-in-law was lucky enough to score one as well.  Which made R doubly happy because he got to have a share of both. 

The first few figs were picked from the tree we planted last year.   I'm always so excited with the first fruit off any of our trees.  We ate several straight from the tree.  I don't know what it is about eating a piece of fruit straight after it's picked that makes it taste so much better than one eaten an hour or so after picking.  But it's true for all the fruit trees we have.

This is the first basket we picked from the tree near the bottom paddock.  This is what 8 kilos of figs look like.  R decided to throw the damaged fruit to the cows in the paddock.  Turns out they love figs, more than plastic even. Every time we went anywhere near the fig tree they would rush over and start mooing at us, demanding their share.  I'm pretty sure if there wasn't a fence between them and the tree they'd have eaten the whole lot. Probably all at the same time.  Imagine the stomach aches from that!!

These figs were turned into fig and ginger jam.  Figs are probably one of the easiest fruit to turn into jam. They require very little effort.  All I did was chop off the stems and then cut the figs into halves.

Then I added sugar, finely chopped ginger (I used Buderim's Bare Naked Ginger), some lemon juice and rinds, water and stirred until the sugar dissolved. 

Then I brought it up to the boil (isn't the foam a glorious colour) then turned down the heat and let it simmer for half an hour or so.

Eventually it got jammy enough to put into sterilised jars.  They were labelled and R has already hidden them so I can't give them away.  Anybody would think there will never be another jar of fig jam made in this house again. Honestly!! 

Drying figs is just as easy.  Once the stems have been cut off and the figs halved, it's just a matter of spreading them on the drying trays. I'm lucky enough to have a Sunbeam Ezidry and, following their instructions, I set the temperature to 55 degrees celcius and let it do its thing.

The figs in this pic have been drying for about 8 hours.  They took about 24 hours to be fully dried.  We did some for a shorter time so they're softer. Those we keep in the fridge.  We also soaked some in sugar syrup overnight before drying them.  I read that gives the figs a much softer finish, which it does but they don't taste as nice.  Drying really intensifies the flavour of the fruit.  I'm looking forward to using the dried figs in my next batch of homemade muesli. 

The Fig and Raspberry Crumble Cake (Fig & raspberry crumble cake recipe | Good Food) was probably R's favourite thing to do with the figs.  We also used raspberries from our garden. It is very satisfying being able to make things from produce we've grown.

Anyway, what makes this cake so good is the layers of fruit.  Some of the figs are chopped up small, and along with a third of the raspberries, added to the cake batter.  Once the batter is in the tin, a layer of halved figs and more raspberries goes on top.

On top of that goes the crumble and .....

Another layer of raspberries.

I was really surprised that the raspberries kept their shape during the cooking process.  The end result is a lovely, fruity but not too sweet cake.  Perfect with cream (or ice-cream in R's case) and a cup of good coffee or tea. 

We're still picking figs.  I'll be kind of glad when there aren't any more to pick.  Although I bet I will still pull a sad face when the last fig comes off the tree.  

I wonder what we'll be picking next.  I predict quinces closely followed by apples. 

In The Kitchen

Last year was a super busy year for us with very few weekends at home.  Which meant that our veg patch got completely lost amongst the weeds. We were forced to stay home for a couple of weeks when we got Covid for the first time.  And we were not very sick at all, just fatigued and contagious and at home.  Every cloud as they say.   After a couple of days feeling miserable and sorry for ourselves (I know, pathetic right), we decided we'd make the most of our time and get out into the veg patch.  We weeded and hoed and dug and sat a lot in between.    Over the course of two weeks, we managed to plant tomatoes, peas (snow peas and regular), beetroot, lettuce (which bolted in no time at all), zucchinis, pumpkins, beans (which promptly got eaten by something), broad beans and capsicums.  Needless to say, we felt very satisfied when we had neat rows of vegetable seedlings where there had been knee high weeds.  We also managed to give the fruit trees a good mulch and feed and put in some alyssum to attract the pollinators.  

Normally we'd share a lot of our produce by leaving it at Mum's for my lovely family to pick up.  That didn't quite work out this year so I've had more produce to preserve than usual.  Of course we stuffed ourselves silly with the fresh fruit; apricots (all four of them), endless nectarines, peaches, three types of plums (Santa Rosa, satsuma and president), gooseberries, cherries, mulberries, raspberries, blueberries and strawberries. And loquats which we're particularly pleased with because we grew the tree from a seed from our tree in Greenmount.  

But I digress, we had a lot of produce to preserve.  I turned nectarines into chutney and jam, made some cakes which had pureed nectarine in the batter and still managed to give some away.   We had spare peaches which I dried - they turned out surprisingly well, sweet and tasty.  I also dried quite a lot of tomatoes and bottled some as well.  Peas and beans got frozen.  Although I ate most of the regular peas straight off the vine.  I love fresh peas.  

Most of the tomatoes are Roma.  To preserve them I just washed and chopped them, stuffed them into Vacola jars, added some water, a little salt and lemon juice.

  

 

 

I didn't take photos of the jars being stuffed with tomatoes.  But I did take a photo of the box of clips that are used to hold the lids onto the jars and of the preserver.  I mean seriously, I've got to plan these things a little better, I think. It wasn't until I sat down, feeling satisfied that the tomatoes were heating up in the preserver, that I thought that a photo of the processing would be good for this blog.  Sheesh.

  

This is the jars all lined up on our kitchen bench after spending 90 minutes in the preserver.  Those jars are all now neatly lined up in our hall cupboard (which masquerades as a pantry because it's the coolest cupboard in the house), waiting for winter when they'll get turned into spag bog or something else equally yummy. 

Drying tomatoes is a lot less work than bottling them.   The tomatoes simply get washed, halved and then laid out on the drying trays.  Then the temperature is set to 55 degrees and they're left for many, many hours.  Well, those that don't get taste tested along the way that is. 

Drying the tomatoes really intensifies the flavour. Once they were dried, we divvied them up into containers and put them in the freezer to increase their longevity.  When we're ready to use them, I'll thaw them out and we'll just use them straight away or I might put some in oil with herbs.  We'll see. 

We only had a few peaches to dry but it was well worth the effort. I just put them in with the tomatoes. On a separate tray of course. 

Of course, no blog about produce would be complete without showing off some of that produce.     This year we grew a variety of capsicum called Candy Stripe. It's easy to see how it got its' name.

We had plenty of loquats, blueberries and managed to get a wee bit of lettuce.

Oodles of snow peas, way more than we can eat but they freeze well.  We're still picking zuchinies;  green, yellow and the cream and green almost stripey ones. 

Our raspberries have done really well this year.  Nothing to do with us I'm sure.  Just good luck. We've treated them the same way this year as we always do. But we've had bowls of raspberries to eat. Yum.

We've just started picking our figs.   So far we've been eating them as we pick.  If we manage to beat the birds to the figs in the bottom paddock, we'll soon have a glut.  Fig jam might be in order methinks. Or maybe Fig Bakewell Tart.  Or dried figs.  Figgy pudding (does that actually have fresh figs in it).  The possibilities are endless. 

Kings Park in Spring

My dear mother-in-law had a fall earlier this year.  After a stint in hospital she's now in transitional care until she can go back home.   We visit her there regularly. It's a small place and there aren't many areas for visitors.  So, we snuck J out and took her up to Kings Park to see the spectacular spring bloom.  

Every time I go to Kings Park I'm impressed with its beauty. The park (which officially opened on the 10th of August 1895) has more than 3000 Western Australian plants on display. Who knew!!  So imagine what it's like in Spring when everything is in flower and the team at the park have added to the display with a mass planting of blooms.  It's amazing.  

Here are some pics (with the usual caveat about my less than average photography skills):

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

The photos really don't do the park justice. They just give a wee snapshot.  When you first arrive though you see the whole planting spread out before you with the city of Perth in the background. It's truly breathtaking.

J really enjoyed the visit. Although I'm not sure which part she enjoyed the most, the spectacular flowers or the cuppa and cake.  I suspect the latter because she's not allowed any cake in transitional care. They're not quite sure what to do with her FODMAP diet. So they've just cut out everything that might be a problem.  But we know she can have dairy and gluten free so a large piece of gluten free cheese cake was the order of the day.  I don't think I've ever seen a piece of cake disappear quite as fast as J made that one vanish.  Clearly she's been missing her sweets 

                                                    

Overall it was a lovely afternoon hour with J which has created a lovely memory for us to treasure.