Strawberry Jam

Saw this sign...

Jam Strawberries - who could resist?

A few hours later they looked like this

The kids were my able assistants

And by that night...

3kgs of Strawberry jam

:)

~~~~~~~

Have you liked my Caitlyn Nicholas facebook page??  I post all the odds and ends that don't make it onto the blog there... like photos of hubs in a turban at last night's Bollywood thing :)

Preserving Olives

A few months back Dad gave me a bag of fresh olives.

Following one of the recipes in the sublime Preserving the Italian Way (a book I cannot recommend highly enough if you are into preserving your own stuff at home), I have pickled a kilo or so of olives.

Olives ready for eating

They taste wonderful.  The lot in the sieve are back in brine and will be used in the next six months.  The lot in the jar (well Maggie Beer Ice cream container) are in fresh water in the fridge with some oregano and garlic.

Rather chuffed actually.

:)

Pesto update

So back at the end of March I posted about my bulk pesto making efforts.  Instead of freezing the pesto, I elected to keep it under oil in the fridge.  And three months later this is what it looks like.

Mmmm, so very very yummy

Yes, bit of a mess, and this is after I'd scraped off the brown crusty bits on the top.  It had gone brown down the sides of the container as well.

So, lesson gleaned; Pesto keeps beautifully for about a month under oil in the fridge.  If you are planning on keeping it longer my advice is to freeze it.

I picked out the still green bits, smeared the over the base of a veggie pizza and fed it to hubs.  Thus far he has shown no ill effects, but I am watching closely for any adverse reactions.

:)

Strawberry Guava Jelly

Mumndad have a magnificent strawberry guava tree/bush/plant.  Right now its loaded with ripe fruit which is just begging to be made into jelly.  Strawberry guavas have lots of really hard little pips, so they'd be awful as a jam.

As always my greatest challenge with making jams and jellies is getting the damn things to set.  You see I refuse, I just REFUSE to use jamsetter.  I see it as an additive, and if my English Grandmother could do without it, then so can I.

Strawberry guava jelly is notoriously difficult to get to set.  Being a life long adherent of Doing Things The Hard Way, for my first batch I ignored all the people on the internet and made the jelly in the usual jelly making way with just the guavas.

It did kind-of set, and it is delicious, but you sort of have to fold your toast in half and eat it in one mouthful if you don't want it down your front.

Batch 2 set like a dream because I added apples (so its strictly guava and apple jelly).  Adding apples sets almost anything because of the high amount of pectin they have.

Strawberry guavas about to be transformed

Ingredients:
Strawberry guavas
Apples - half the amount of guavas you have (eg 1kg guavas then 500g apples)
Lemon zest
Sugar - 3/4 to 1 cup of sugar per cup of juice you end up with (eg, 4 cups juice needs 3 - 4 cups sugar)

Method:

• Wash guavas, chop apples
• Put in pan, cover with water
• Boil until fruit is mush, squishing with spoon
• Strain juice through two layers of muslin, or a teatowel or whatever, just make sure it doesn't let any bits through
• Give left over fruit mush to chooks
• Add sugar
• Boil until it reaches 105 degrees celsius - this could take a while, and don't stir too much
• Let cool slightly
• Pour into warm sterilised jam jars and seal

Ready for afternoon snacks on toast, and gifts for friends

Total cost: $1.97 for the sugar, $1.50 for the apples

:)

Post number 802: Pesto

YAY this is post number 802!!  Was planning on doing a bit of boasting when I got to post 800, but then forgot about it. sigh.  Story of my life really :)

We've got a bit of basil about the place at the moment, so I decreed this weekend to be pesto making weekend...

I used Stephanie Alexander's recipe in her Kitchen Garden Companion.  We ended up with about 3 cups of basil; picked, un-bugged, de-leafed and washed by hubs.

Being fundamentally lazy I fling it all in the blitzer - none of this mortar and pestle business, no siree...

Then I blitz it...

And then blitz it some more. We like our pesto smooth not chunky - well the kids do, and as they actually eat it, and it is green, I am happy to do it their way. 

Check out that awesome colour :)  That is around 600ml.  I was intending to freeze this lot, but then Ms Alexander said you can just cover the pesto with oil and keep it in the fridge and it will last until you get the next lot of basil in the spring.  So, with some trepidation, that is what I am doing.

Barring unforseen disasters (and oh yes, I'm sure there will be something) we should have enough basil in the next month or so to make another big batch, which I will freeze, just in case this lot starts to ferment on me.

We used the stuff that wouldn't fit in the tub to make homemade chicken pesto pizza.  This is easy to do, and to die for...
1. Make pizza dough, roll out
2. Cover with tomato paste
3. Chop raw chicken breast into small pieces, fling in bowl, stir through as much pesto as you think fit
4. Arrange artfully on pizza
5. Sprinkle with a little bit of cheese (mozzarella)
6. Bung in oven, cook until you are SURE chicken is cooked through - takes a little longer than usual we find
7. Guard your two teeny weeny slivers from voracious children and husband - use any means necessary, you have my permission.

I do have to say that I am now, officially, sick of pesto.

Well for today.