Apricots

January 19, 2017 / sbaskitchen / Leave a comment

I still remember the joy of fresh bread, lashings of homemade apricot jam, and the cream! Fresh cream, real cream, not the homogenised, pasturised stuff from the supermarket shelf – just fresh, runny cream, no sugar, not whipped, just pure fresh cream dribbling over the edge of the bread.- Oh the memories …

We now have two apricot trees in our garden, a Moorpark – supposedly rich in flavour making it great for fresh fruit, jam, drying, stewing and juice, and a Blenheim, said to be one of the most flavourful of apricots around! However, like all of our fruit trees, they have only been in the ground for six months, which means that we must be patient, and wait until they grow before we see a nice crop.

We did have a tiny surprise though – just after Christmas I spotted one solitary little apricot. It had been hiding and growing out of our sight and, fortunately, out of the sight of the birds. I watched it carefully, trying to make sure that the birds did not beat us to it. Then early last week, when I checked on it, I discovered that a grub had made it’s mark – I hadn’t counted on that, so quickly whisked it off the tree, and took it to the kitchen, where it became a simple little sweet treat to finish our evening meal – A simple apricot pastry.

Given the lack of fruit from the garden at the moment, I am constantly on the watch for a good buy, and was delighted to read a little add in the local newspaper for apricots. I made a call and was able to pick up 10kg, which lead to a couple of heavy days in the kitchen! But from that 10kg, we now have 14 jars of apricot halves in a light syrup, 15 jars of Worcestershire sauce, and 10 jars of apricot jam in the store.

A few apricots!

Apricot Jam

Preserved Apricots (2017)

There were a few left over so whipped up an apricot and pine nut tart – gluten free.

Apricot and Pine Nut Tart – Gluten Free

You know, apricot jam is not only great as a spread, but it can also be used to flavour meat dishes too, and the apricot halves can be used to make delicious sweet treats such as clafoutis, charlottes, tarts etc, but will also used in savoury dishes, including a favourite – Spicy Chicken Tagine with Apricots, Rosemary and Ginger! As for the Worcestershire sauce, it’s always handy to lift an otherwise dull dish!

So now that the store is stocked up with apricot preserves, it is my plan to highlight some of them in recipes over the coming months.

Until next time…

Bon appétit!

Links:

The Vegie Patch – Six weeks later!

January 17, 2017January 17, 2017 / sbaskitchen / Leave a comment

It is six weeks since I announced that The Corner Patch had now become a Vegie Patch, and look at it now.

With the Christmas Festivities in full swing, I was struggling to find time to get out to work in it, but somehow managed to steal an hour here and there, and while most things have been planted much later than they should have been, they appear to almost be growing before our eyes.

All the fruit trees have now been trimmed and tied to the wires to train them for the espaliered fruit edging of the area, and, with much persistence, Duchess, for the moment, has been blocked from the area – every now and then, I’d hear a noise, or see a movement, and there she was, making her way along the edge totally oblivious to the fact that I was there! But letting her know she had been discovered and best leave, she would show me where she was entering thus giving me another job to do, in blocking her route!

Some of the plants in the patch have travelled with us, and are siblings of plants that my parents grew quite some years ago – rhubarb, strawberries and asparagus, I also continue to try and grow everything from seed. Having the plants from my parents makes the vegie patch an even more special place to be.

Boo!

All of the strawberries (except the three pretty pink flowering ones) are siblings of those that my beautiful dad, who is now with the angels, gave to me many years ago, and the asparagus, my gorgeous mum nurtured to what is now a good sized patch at our old family home.

It was so hard to leave the asparagus run up to fern – but if we want to have a bounty of this delicious treat we must be patient – hopefully next year!

The rhubarb, well, I think it’s from plants that we had growing when I was a child, and that is a long time ago! I still remember the bowls of rhubarb and custard our mum would put before us to finish a meal. We were very lucky…

The rhubarb patch.

I persist with growing almost everything from seed – unfortunately I had to admit defeat on a couple of fronts, although having planted more seed, maybe should not have caved so early. But I am so excited to say, that given I had a lot of seedlings ready to go, we are already enjoying the fruits of our labour at meal time – strawberries with our breakfast; salads using various leaves, edible flowers and fresh herbs; snow peas in our stir fries, rhubarb and strawberry compote with our yoghurt; and our one solitary apricot became a little dessert to finish an evening meal this week.

Pretty as a picture and ready for the plate!

Rhubarb and Strawberry Compote – perfect for breakfast or dessert.

Pretty sorrel leaves liven up a little salad for the anitpasto platter.

Rocket and chives add the finishing touch to this little starter…

Fresh salad and edible flowers add colour and flavour to the plate.

Freshly picked oregano ready for drying.

They say that gardening is wonderful for your health – how true. You can exercise, relax and wind down almost simultaneously! You are providing flowers to fill your vases, food for your table and nutrition for your body! What a wonderful and giving hobby it is…

Until next time…

Bon appétit!

Links:

Rhubarb and Strawberry Compote

Sustainable Gardening Australia

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We have a vegie patch!

December 9, 2016December 9, 2016 / sbaskitchen / Leave a comment

It is safe to say that there has been a lot of hard work going on in the Corner Patch, particularly over the last week or so, and I can now, with much delight, tell you that the Corner Patch is now the Vegie Patch! Yes, on Monday of this week at about 6 pm we finished making the last of 12 garden beds. While we were both exhausted, we are both really pleased with the end result and all being in order, are looking forward to enjoying the fruits of our labour for many years to come. The fun now begins with planting up the beds, nurturing the seeds and seedlings into food for our kitchen and store, family and friends.

Just a recap on how we got to this stage:

Trees were cut down, cut up and removed.
Stumps were dug out
Plans were drawn up
31 fruit trees were planted
A slab was put down for the garden shed
The garden shed was erected, and everything that belonged in it, relocated accordingly
Holes were dug for posts
Posts were purchased and concreted in
Holes drilled in the posts
Wires strained accordingly
An old gate that we found behind the garage was cut down and given a lick of paint before being hung.
Timber and pegs for the garden beds arrived
A bit of creative use of old posts, rescued from the pens on our family farm, before it was sold, have been put in place to stop the beautiful Duchess (border collie) from entering.
Careful measuring, cutting, nailing and screwing of timber into place to box each bed.
A mountain of soil was moved from one place to another and finally into each of the boxed beds.
Well rotted manure worked in
Seeds sown in anticipation
One inexpensive archway erected to train fruit trees over the entrance

Left to do:

Plant out the seedlings.
Plant seeds
Espaliering of the fruit trees
Three inexpensive archways to be erected, one more for the fruit trees over the entrance and two for the runner beans to trail up and over.

Click here to see some of the activity leading to this point

While all of this hard work was going on, we did have a little reprieve with a visit from our son, Chris and his family, to celebrate his birthday. It was a quick visit, just one night, as they had to return home for his work. But while they were here, we enjoyed two meals together. I can tell you that seeing our little grandson, Cooper, enjoying picking strawberries, and eating blueberries straight from the bush was a real treat.

Don’t you love it when the little ones are around, it also meant we could have cake before our main course, because he had to go to bed and he made sure he got to take a bite of almost everyone’s cake – Nana’s Chocolate Cream Cake of course!

When we did get to sit down to our main meal we enjoyed the beef brisket that I had had cooking in the smoker all day – another one of the Old Fat Guy’s amazing recipes, adjusted somewhat as the brisket I had was considerably smaller than that called for in his recipe. I also slightly changed the rub, given that I did not have any onion salt – I used a combination of home made porcini mushroom salt, together with celery salt. There was plenty left over, so we were able to send a container full home with them, together with other goodies. The rest has been sliced, vac packed and frozen for quick meals when we need them.

Smoked Beef Brisket

Until next time…

Happy Gardening & Bon appétit!

Links:

The Vegie Patch

Chocolate Sponge – AKA Nana’s Chocolate Cream Cake

The Old Fat Guys Beef Brisket

The Grand Old Dame

The Magnolia Bed

The Humble Hock

November 21, 2016 / sbaskitchen / Leave a comment

It has been a really busy week in the garden, so not to much time in the kitchen. Gary has been working tirelessly to get the trellising done for our fruit trees in the corner patch, and I have been helping him when needed, but also getting on with other jobs in between.

The two blueberries and the mulberry have been planted,

and the bed around the magnolia

has been weeded and mulched. Seedlings for the vegie patch are being nurtured in readiness for their new home too. There have also been trips to the timber yard to collect more posts, and order the timber to edge the garden beds with, and a few to the local hardware as well.

With this all going on we still need to eat, but it needs to be quick and simple., so some of the pre-cooked meals from the freezer have come in handy. However, I have still managed to cook up a few things too. One morning, before breakfast , I quickly made a batch of mini banana & walnut muffins (gluten free) – they have been a welcome sweet treat.

Mini Banana & Walnut Muffins (Gluten Free)

Then yesterday I just couldn’t get my head around what to have for dinner. I had put one of the smoked ham hocks, that I had brined and smoked a couple of week’s ago, into a pot with some water and aromats to simmer away, thinking that I would just can the stock and freeze the meat because I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it – it wasn’t exactly pea and ham soup weather, and I wasn’t so sure about making choucroute.

I finally decided that we’d have a mushroom risotto, easy to make, and delicious… However, while working outside, I started to play with the idea of making a risotto with the meat from the hock that was gently simmering away on the stove inside. Then it came to me – use similar ingredients to the traditional pea and ham soup, but freshen it up using some frozen peas and lovely fresh mint from the garden – so that’s what I did . I made Pea and Ham Risotto with Mint, it worked and it was delicious, and it gave me another way to use the meat from the humble hock.

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After another hectic week at Tranquility…

Bon appétit!

Links:

Smoked Ham Hocks

Pea and Ham Risotto with Mint

Mini Banana & Walnut Muffins – Gluten Free

The Corner Patch

Magnolia Bed

Glossary

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Scotch

November 15, 2016November 15, 2016 / sbaskitchen / Leave a comment

Just over a week ago I took delivery of a couple of kilograms of pork Scotch fillet from Coltish Pork. Unfortunately I neglected to say that I wanted my Scotch in the piece, and so received it in steak form. They offered to take it back, but no, I wanted the challenge, so what to do. Again it took a little while, but given the fun I had doing the “Herbs & Spices” cooking class recently, plus my wonderful husband had added a coffee/spice grinder to my cupboard of appliances, I just had to make an Indian Curry.

I dragged out all my Asian/Indian cookbooks and started pouring over them for the right recipe, and this is what I decided on – Mangalorean Pork Bafath from The Food of India – a journey for food lovers. This recipe is from the South of India and uses Kashmiri Chillies of which I had none! So I re-jigged the recipe for our taste, without 20 Kashmiri Chillies and 6 green chillies that their recipe called for !!!! It still has a bit of a kick to it allowing us to enjoy the beautiful blend of spices together with the delicious pork. While curry is normally served with rice, I chose to serve it with smoked sweet potato, a simple yoghurt and mint raita and oven baked tiny tomatoes – surprisingly the flavours went really well together.

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There was plenty of the curry left over, so portioned it out into vac bags, sealed them and we now have curry in the freezer for when we are going to be very busy on other jobs and there is no time to cook.

With the preparation for the curry, I decided to keep the pork in largish pieces as the steaks weren’t very thick, but I did trim most of the fat off (probably a little too much in hindsight). Not wanting to waste the trimmings, I cut them up into small morcels and dragged out my weary old Kenwood Chef – still going, just, after more than 31 years! I have a mincing attachment for it, so the lean off-cuts were put through the course cutter, vac sealed and frozen for another day. The fattier off-cuts were mixed with sage, garlic, cracked pepper, salt and red wine and minced twice, first through the course cutter, then most of it was put back through the finer cutter. Both grades of sausage went into the bowl of the Kenwood, and with the K beater in place, was mixed for a few minutes until it was well combined. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with this sausage mince – Scotch Quail Eggs.

I like my finished Scotch Eggs to be the size of a normal hen’s egg, so use either quail eggs or small pullets eggs, when I can get them, and while I used my own sausage mince, you could use some of your favourite sausages and just remove the casings – pure pork or pork, sage and onion would be delicious, but there is no reason why you couldn’t use beef or chicken either.

Wanting a different way to serve my Scotch Eggs, I hit the net – how boring. I know they are quintessentially picnic food, and that was pretty much all that I saw – tomato, lettuce, cucumber! So this is what I did…

Scotch Quail Eggs served on a bed of pureed pumpkin with beetroot two ways (pureed and thinly sliced), parsnip chips and a little carrot top pesto to finish it off.

Yes, I also made more than needed, so have three waiting in the fridge for a light lunch or picnic this week.

Now for outside… Great excitement! Finally, the posts have arrived for the espaliering, so poor Gary is hard at work measuring, sawing, leveling, etc.

Soon we will be able to train all the fruit trees accordingly and big foot – AKA Duchess, will not be running all over my carefully prepared garden beds. The frames are also going up for all things climbing! I even picked our first three strawberries yesterday – and we have another resident in the garden!