Plums, Plums and More Plums

One of the things I love about gardening is picking our own fruit and veg and finding various ways to preserve it. I'm enjoying this even more now that I don't have to cram preserving into evenings after work and weekends.  It's certainly a more delightful aspect of gardening than raking the leaves from the forty plus deciduous trees we have here.

This year we've had bacterial canker in a lot of our fruit trees.  So, we got very little fruit off our late apricot (thankfully the early apricot didn't get infected), no peaches or nectarines and only a few prunes (darn it, that tree was loaded for the first time this year).  But the plum trees escaped infection.  We have two, one is a Satsuma and one is a double graft of Satsuma and Santa Rosa.  The Santa Rosa is the cross pollinator for the Satsuma. Without the Santa Rosa there would be no Satsumas.  This year we had an abundance of both plums.  The Santa Rosa came in first and we picked about 15 kilos.  We'd just finished those when we started picking Santa Rosas. We've picked 30 kilos of those, not counting the ones we ate.  That's a lot of plums to preserve. Thankfully we had our lovely family for lunch and were able to persuade them to take plums home with them.  And we didn't even have to twist their arms.

I have very fond memories of bottled plums prepared by my lovely Mum from a Satsuma tree, owned by my equally lovely aunt, which was a heavy fruiter.  We had luscious plums to enjoy all winter.  As I have a properly functioning stove top now, I decided I'd preserve some our plums using my Vacola preserver, which I had to find from the place it had been stashed while the kitchen was being renovated.  Bits and pieces were stashed all over the house and, being of a certain age, my lovely husband and I couldn't quite remember where the preserver ended up.  Thankfully we found it, the jars, lids and rings without too much time wasted.

As with all preserving, the first step is to wash and prepare the fruit. I prepared the fruit and filled jars as I went along. Mainly because I didn't know if I had enough jars for all the fruit.  In the case of plums the preparation means halving them and removing the stones. Or so I thought. Eight jars and five kilos in I remembered eating the plums that Mum had bottled and discarding stones on the edge of the bowl.  Doh!!  Needless to say, the plums for the remaining four jars were simply halved.

                           

I used Size 20 Vacola jars which hold enough fruit for two really hungry people or two less hungry people and a friend.  They're a great size but the top is too narrow for me to put my hand in.  Which makes getting the fruit in tricky.  It has to be layered and tightly packed. I can reach my fingers down almost to the bottom though which helped. As long as the first piece of fruit I dropped into the jar fell onto the cut side all the other pieces layered themselves nicely.  Thankfully. 

Once the jars are filled the next step is to add in some sugar syrup.  Mum used to make a sugar syrup (equal parts of sugar and water cooked until the sugar is dissolved) which she used to fill the jars.  Vacola have modified their preserving method.  It isn't hard to make a sugar syrup but I decided to give the new method ago.  This involved filling the jars of water and adding some sugar, ergo, one less pan to wash up. Vacola provide some useful guides to help determine how much sugar you need for the size of jar you are using and the level of sweetness you want.  I added two tablespoons of sugar for each jar which seems like quite a lot.  The taste test will tell I guess.

                                                   

Once the jars are nicely packed, and the sugar and water have been added, the next step is to make sure there are no air bubbles (I'm not sure why this step is important, but it is) then to put on the rings, lids and clips.  Putting the rubber rings on can be tricky but after the first one or two I found a technique which meant the rings went on smoothly without any twists. It's tricky to describe but basically, I held the jar with one hand, making sure my thumb was over the lip, and then stretched the rubber ring across with the other hand.  Going over my thumb seemed to stop the ring twisting. Next, it's just a matter of putting all the jars into the preserver (making sure you've put in the false bottom first because that stops the jars breaking), filling it with enough water to cover an inch above the jar and turning the gas on.  Make sure you put the preserver on the stove before you place the jars in and fill the water. It's way too heavy to move once it's full.  Then leave them on the stove until the temperature reaches 92 degrees Celsius on the thermometer and for another 45 minutes after that.  

                           

Once the 45 minutes at 92 is up, turn off the gas, remove the lid and carefully remove the jars.  It is important to take the jars out of the hot water straight away.  If you don't have some jar tongs, I recommend getting some as they make taking the jars out of the preserver way easier. If you're very lucky your preserving pan will have a handy tap on the side so you can remove the hot water and leave the jars in the pan to cool.

                                                        

It takes a bit of time to preserve fruit but just look at the end result.  Yum.  Plums to last the winter.

Satsumas are R's favourite plum and he is really looking forward to eating them right through Winter until the tree produces more next Summer. 

Now, what to do with the next ten kilos of Satsumas. And the strawberries. And peaches. And cucumbers...

Great Excitement

After two years of baking in this benchtop oven......

...which was too small to accommodate many of our baking pans (imagine no muffins, cup-cakes or slices, alarming!!), we've finally had a new kitchen installed in our little patch of paradise.  It's not quite finished (I will post some pictures when it is) but the ovens (yes, that is two ovens) and cooktop are both up and running.  

Why two ovens I hear you ask?  So we have more flexibility and don't have to heat up a large space when we don't need it.

It's fair to say that after two years of constrained baking we went a wee bit silly with all this new space.  Our freezer is now stuffed full of baked goods because we baked way more than we can actually eat or share with others. Between us we baked stuffed chicken thighs, gingerbread cup-cakes, mango muffins, buttermilk scones, sourdough bread, bread rolls, an apricot cheesecake, puddings and a pear and brie tart.  

The first thing I made was chicken thighs stuffed with pistachios and apricots.  This was for a a dinner party we had with our good friends, J and G on NYE.  I served it with a couple of salads. The asparagus and avocado salad was definitely the star of the entire meal but the chicken thighs were pretty good too.  Many of the recipes are from Dish magazine (I love their recipes, you'll see a theme) like this one for the chicken:  https://dish.co.nz/recipes/chicken-thighs-pistachio-and-apricot-stuffing.  

The asparagus salad is also from Dish but I couldn't find it online, probably because it's in their latest magazine. Being a retired person I have a bit of time on my hands, so I've typed it out for you. It's a seriously good salad and worth the effort to share.

Asparagus and Avocado with Sesame Dressing

2 bunches of slim asparagus, stem ends snapped off

1-2 avocadoes, thinly sliced (I used two)

2 tablespoons kewpie mayo (I didn't have this and used a whole egg mayonnaise instead)

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds

Dressing

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 1/2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon maple syrup

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon chili flakes (I used 1/4....it wasn't enough if you like chili)

1/4 -1/2 teaspoon sea salt flakes

To make the dressing, put all the ingredients in a jar and shake well.

Cook the asparagus in a well salted pot of boiling water for one minute. Drain and immediately place into iced water (this will keep them nice and green) then dry on paper towel. Layer the asparagus and avocado on a nice platter. Drizzle generously with the dressing.  Mix the mayonnaise with the sesame oil.  Place in a small plastic bag (or you could use an icing syringe if you have one), snip off the corner and drizzle over the salad. Then....enjoy!! 

The brie and pear tart is one of Belinda Jefferie's recipes.  If you've not already discovered Belinda's recipes I recommend you give them a go.  They're all really easy to follow, always work and taste amazing.  My lovely Mum loved this tart.  I miss being able to share it with her but it is lovely having the memory of having done so.  I've not included a link to the recipe but it's pretty easy to find online, albeit not on Belinda's own site.  It hasn't photographed all that well and was way tastier than it looks. 

R has had his sourdough starter for at least ten years now. It was gifted to him by our good Scottish friend, E.  The starter definitely improved when we moved from the city to the country and sometimes blows the lid of its container because it is so active.  The bread has also improved.  Plus, R has been tweaking his recipe along the way, seeking that perfect loaf.  He was able to bake a loaf in the benchtop oven, but the temperature wasn't reliable so the results were a bit mixed.  His first loaf out of the new oven was a corker.  I love a slice of bread from a still warm loaf with lashings of butter and sometimes some homemade jam.   

 

These are Walnut, Herb and Parmesan Brioche rolls I made using a recipe I found in Dish Magazine:  https://dish.co.nz/recipes/walnut-herb-and-parmesan-brioche-wreath-pull-aparts.  This recipe included a technique called tangzhong which I'd not heard of before.  So naturally I had to try it.  Basically, tangzhong is cooking a flour paste which gets added to the dough when you start kneading.  Pretty easy.  You'll see in the recipe that the balls of dough are rolled in olive oil and then dukkah before the final proof. I didn't have any dukkah on hand so I made my own.  These rolls are seriously tasty and reheat from frozen really well.  

I had some leftover fruit mince from Christmas and didn't want to make another batch of fruit mince pies.  So I made Chocolate Fruit Mince Puddings using this recipe which I found online:   https://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipes/chocolate-fruit-mince-puddings-custard-strawberries-recipe/n9wabpvp?r=baking/ig340uqk&h=baking.  I did have to tweak the recipe a wee bit because my fruit mince was already made and the recipe uses dried fruit that gets soaked.  They turned out very tasty but rich. Oh, and they stuck to the non-stick muffin pan even though I greased it really well before hand. So not the prettiest but hey, it all goes down the same way right.  Oh, and as it's mandatory in our household to do so, I served these with custard and ice-cream.

There are plenty of butter milk scone recipes online and we've found this one from Taste to be pretty reliable:  https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/buttermilk-scones/fe8b5646-f2f5-4443-98f1-09709ad5d163.  We had these with butter and homemade mulberry jam.  When we lived in Greenmount, we had a fantastic mulberry tree that produced kilos and kilos of fruit.  This is our last jar of the jam I made using the fruit from that tree.  We sure do miss that tree.  We have planted a cutting from the Greenmount tree here but it is likely to take a good ten to fifteen years to be as productive.   The one in Greenmount was about 25 years old when we moved down here.

We picked about twenty kilos of apricots this year, which was very exciting, and I wanted to make a nice dessert for R's Mum using them.  I know she loves cheesecake so I found this recipe in Dish Magazine :  https://dish.co.nz/recipes/mascarpone-apricot-tart.  The filling is really light and not too sweet and the apricots are a little tart.  A really nice, balanced dessert that J really enjoyed. 

We're still not over the excitement of the new oven and no doubt will be trying out lots more new recipes and some old, cherished ones as well.  Roll on winter when we can do some slow roasting!!

Rose Mallee

One of the first plants we put in our garden here in our little patch of paradise was a rose mallee. We both love them but just didn't have room to put one in when we lived in Greenmount.  We really love the form of the mallee and the incredible flowers.  So, you can imagine how excited we were when buds formed on the tree this year.  Super excited.  But that tree sure makes you wait to see the flower.  The mallee is planted in the bottom paddock, and we've been going down every week to see if the flowers have opened.  For about the last three months!! Finally, we got to see some of the buds open.  It was definitely worth the wait.  I'm not sure the photos do the flowers justice, but it will give you an idea at least.

This is the bud.  They're huge and impressive to look out. Who needs flowers to show off!!

                                                    

If the parrots and cockatoos don't get to them first, this is how the flower opens:

                                                    

Once it's shed its cap, it takes few days for the flower to full open.

                                       

We also have a grevillea in the bottom paddock which has flowered nicely this year.  Its flowers are on the end of a very long stem, which is unusual.  I can't remember what type of grevillea it is.  But I love it.  Like all grevilleas.

We have lost about a quarter of the plants we've put in over the last four years. Overall I'd say we're pretty happy with our progress though.  We've still got plenty of room to put more plants in.  And now we've plenty of time to do planting too.  We just need to be patient and wait until Summer is over.

A Grove of Grass Trees

 My adorable husband and I took a drive across to Tutunup to pick up some pine poles to make a trellis to grow grapes on.  Google maps took us along the Capel-Tutnup road (or CAPel-Tootunup Road as she called it) where we came across a grove of grass trees, all in flower.  Neither of us have seen this many grass trees in flower at the same time.  So we were super happy to see them.  We had to stop and take pictures of course, to share the love.

Simple pleasures that make one happy. 

Clever Sister

I'm really lucky to have a wonderful family who are always happy to lend a helping hand when one is needed.  I'm even luckier to have siblings who are actually talented at a whole range of things.  One of those, my clever twin, recently sewed some new cushion covers for our cane seats.  She's exceptionally good at sewing (her soon to be born grandson is one lucky child!!) which is fantastic from where I sit (pun intended) because I can't sew to save myself.  Below are some before and after pics so you can see the difference some talent makes.

I hand sewed these cushion covers from faded doona covers that I no longer used.  It took me hours and hours and I ended up with very sore fingers.  And cushions that were permanently encased in their new covers.  They looked okay (as long as one didn't look too closely) and did the job, but they were impossible to keep clean. 

                                                            

                                                                

After sewing covers for the two-seater and two singles, I ran out of oomph, and the third single didn't even get sewn.   The cover was just thrown over the chair.

                                                                    

My lovely sister on the other hand, has used a sewing machine and sewed in zips and buttons so I can take the covers off and wash them.   

Don't they look amazing now.  All neat and tidy and matching.  I love them and, even though they have the same foam in them, I'm sure they're way more comfortable to sit on now.

The Summer House

When we moved into our new home, back in April 2020, we inherited a structure which we call the Summer House.  It might be overstating it a wee bit to call it a Summer House.  It was basically a three-sided shed with a pitched roof and a dirt floor which had the property's only clothesline in it.  It did have a little bit of detail in one corner which suggested it was intended for greater things.  So, we added a cement floor.  That is, we got someone who knows what they're doing to add the cement floor for us.  That was about two years ago.  Since then, we've used it to dry our washing and house a growing cluster of spiders.  Our best intentions have been sidelined by, well, life really.  

It's been a project waiting to happen for too long so, while my lovely husband was off on a boys own fishing trip to Exmouth with his best mate (I know, who'd have thought he'd ever be up for that??), I decided to keep myself busy and paint the Summer House.  I managed to get some paint tinted to match the colour scheme that is already used on the gables of our house.  Great start.  I then set about cleaning the walls so they'd be ready to paint.  I really, truly thought this would be maybe a one-hour job.  Turns out it was an entire afternoon job.  Apart from brushing the walls down, and chasing the spiders out, I had to wash them three times.  

 

There sure was a lot of dirt on those walls and loads of spider's homes (sorry spiders).  It look heaps better just being cleaned.  I was tempted not to paint it. 

But given I had six litres of paint, tinted a lovely shade of pale green, and no idea what else I could use that for, I forged ahead and put on a first coat.  My goodness, did it improve that space.  When he got home, R helped me put on a second coat.  The Summer House now looks like just that, a nice place to hang out in Summer. And we have already done just that.  We had breakfast out there this morning.  Lovely. 

It was definitely a lot of hard slog but I'm more than happy with the end result. It still needs a few things just to finish it off but it's very useable. 

Long live the Summer House. 

What a Difference a Floor Makes

It has been just a wee bit noisy and stinky in our little patch of paradise over the last two days.  That's because we've been getting new jarrah floors laid in our home.  They've not been sanded and finished yet and already they have transformed the living area of our house. Now it looks like it was always part of our home and not an afterthought that was added on later.  And, we're both so excited to be rid of the awful tiles that we had before.  Even the cement pad was an improvement on those. 

Anyway, here are some pics.  We're super happy with the work that has been done. They've created a lovely frame around where the fire place will be put back in.  That's to allow for the tiled hearth that we will need. 

The boards look way better in real life than in the photos.  They contrast in colours isn't anywhere near as dramatic and the tones are lovely and warm.  I can't wait to see it completely finished. Unfortunately, I have to because they won't be back to do that part of the job until mid-December. Bummer.