relish the relish

Well, not EVERY post can be about Queen Atalia.

Thought some of the southern hemisphere folks might like a peak at Jay's Nanna's Relish recipe. Now us folks at the princess castle LOVE our relish - and I can honestly say, this is THE relish recipe - you can throw away all the others.

Tomato Relish

12 large ripe tomatoes ( the riper the better) raw, unpeeled

4 medium onions

570gms (20 oz) sugar

2 tablespoons Keen's Curry Powder

1 teaspoon Keen's Dry Mustard Powder

6 dried chillies - chopped - with seeds

Brown (malt) vinegar - almost enough to cover

Cut tomatoes in smallish chunks (ie less than quarters) and throw into colander, salting as you go

Slice and chop onions, throw into a second colander salting as you go

Stand colanders in bowls, cover with plastic or tea towels and let the tomatoes and onions sweat overnight. (Quite a lot of water comes off the tomatoes especially - so use a large bowl)

Place sweated tomatoes and onions into large saucepan. Just cover with malt vinegar. Bring to boil. Boil for 5 minutes.

Mix curry powder and dried mustard in a little liquid from the saucepan, add this mixture and thee sugar and chillies to the pan.

Boil, stirring fairy constantly for somewhere between 45 minutes and 1 hour.

The time depends on the size of the tomato chunks, the ripeness of the tomatoes, the amount of vinegar used, how hard you boil.

To tell when it is ready:

1) it has to reduce

2) the bits of onion should no longer be white

3) non of the tomatoes should look fresh or uncooked

4) the colour should be reddish brown - more brown than red

5) the consistency should not be as sticky as jam, but it should have reduced enough to feel "dense" when you stir with the wooden spoon. Like jam, the tomato and onion should stay on the spoon when lifted.

6) The surface should have a slight sheen.

Pour into clean warm jars. Sterilise as per your favourite method.

Serve with: Anything.

Oh, and here is my latest dishcloth.

Oh, and I almost trod on a brown snake today at the community garden. oops.
Oh, and some $#@#*& #^@&* cut the fence of the community garden to break in overnight. Sucko kiddo - we don't keep the mower there anymore. Hope you get tetanus from the fence buddy.

Oh, and here is my Zuc Bread. We are living on this stuff atm. Yum yum. I want some RIGHT NOW.

relishing the garden

First things first. Tomato Relish made - tick.

Zucchini Bread in oven - tick

So like, I was at the checkout buying some malt vinegar and keens mustard and curry powder and the woman in front of me said "Looks like you are going to be busy - what are you making?" "Tomato Relish" I said. We god talking and she got so excited when I said i boil everything up in the vacola to preserve it - no mucking about with sterilizing bottles n all. It seems her grandmother used a vacola and we talked about preserving fruit and jams and relished and the like. Well, she is off to search the internets for a vacola RIGHT NOW. Very cool. She said THANK YOU for INSPIRING ME.

Another friend said to me the other day "You know, food is getting so expensive - I think we will have to be like you and grow our own food" "HOORAY" I replied. But it got me thinking.

On the one hand, I am not sure we SAVE money by growing our own food. But on the other, there is no way we could AFFORD or even BUY the beautiful luscious food that we eat. What price for nutrient dense, pesticide, fungicide and herbicide free food? Mr Duck Herder and I EAT LIKE KINGS

You can't even BUY an organic, freshly picked, loved and sung over Black Krim or Brandy Wine tomato - no matter how rich you are. Our tomatoes are so fresh and delicate and huge they have to be picked so carefully and not even BREATHED on unless they split.

I have probably picked and processed 5kg of blackberries, and snacked on another 2kg while out running or walking each morning. Our raspberries are so sweet and luscious. Last night, at my MILs house for dinner, I tried some commercially grown frozen raspberries - they were inedible - sour and tough. Who wants to eat those?

And what about the dirty dozen? They are a good reminder that pretty much ALL commercially grown veggies and fruit contain chemical residues. They are also grown in sick soil. They can not be in any better health that the poor soil they are grown in. Who wants to pay to eat those?

For an interesting list of foods in descending order of chemical residues, see here. It is certainly a good place to start in terms of thinking about which foods to grow or source organically.

And if you think this doesn't apply to Australia - remember the choice magazine study that found banned fungicides and residues far in excess of allowable levels in strawberries? This one in particular upsets me - I never eat strawberries from the shop, how can you once you have tasted home grown ones, but so many folks feed them to their children, understandably thinking they are healthy.

Can't afford to grow our own food? Well, I don't think I can afford not to.

29 bottles of jam on the wall...

So if your gunna get hot, you may as well get REALLY hot. This morning I got up early and picked almost 3 kg of blackberries and spent most of the day (after a most enjoyable airconditioned brunch with da family at A Bite to Eat) cooking up two batches of blackberry and one batch of plum jam.

All in all 29 bottles. It looks like 3 didnt vacum seal, so I will rebottle and then put them through the vacolla again tomorrow. The rest are all fabulous with little sucky down lids.


The biggest hippy found me a whole basket of second hand jars with perfect lids at revolve and I ended up buying some lovely ones over the internets.






While on the one hand the temperature got to 34 degrees inside today before dropping to 33, outside the temperature was over 40 so I guess we can't complain too much!



Does anyone remember Michelle Shocked's Strawberry Jam song? Get out the giutars (YEE HAAA)



Saturday morning found me itching

To get on over to my grandma's kitchen

[And what you gonna do, honey]

The sweetest little berries was cooking up right

And then we'd put them in a canning jar and seal them up tight



We were making jam

[What kind?]

Strawberry jam, that's what kind

[Aw, the good kind]

Yeah, if you want the best jam

You gotta make your own





We have Smucker's, Welches, Knotts Berry Farm

But a little homemade jam never did a body no harm

A little local motion is all we need

To close down these corporate jam factories





We'll be making jam

Strawberry jam, mmmm-mm

If you want the best jam

You gotta make your own

(Make that jam Doc, show 'em how it's done)





Yeah, we have a little revolution sweeping the land

Now once more everybody's making homemade jam

So won't you call your friends up on the telephone

You invite 'em on over, you make some jam of your own





You'll be making jam

Strawberry jam

If you want the best jam

You gotta make your own



(Go on Jerry, let the jelly roll)

(Jerry's makin' jam)

(That's Mark O'ConnorHe likes jam too)

[Aw yeah, as sweet as strawberry jam, honey]

(Uh-ha)



Saturday morning found me itching

To get on over to my grandma's kitchen

Where the sweetest little berries were cooking up right

And then we'd put them in a canning jar and seal them up tight





We was making jam

Strawberry jam, that's what kind

If you want the best jam

You gotta make your own





Aw, one more time

Oh, makin' that jam

Yeah, Strawberry jam

If you want the best jam

You gotta make your own

I love blackberries

One nice thing about all this hot hot hot weather - the blackberries are coming along nicely. My picking rate has increased to 2kg / hour as more and more berries ripen.

The love affair with blackberry jam continues. Call them a weed. Love 'em or hate em. But I LOVE 'em. Today I made almost 2 liters of jam using a new recipe. Easy peasy not too sweet chunky cooked in a few minutes and processed in the vacola.

Blackberry Jam

Ingredients:

1600gm blackberries

24 grams citrus pectin**

800 gm sugar*

Method:

Wash and sort blackberries.

Place in large saucepan. Mush up a little with wooden spoon.

Add pectin

Bring quickly to boil.

Add sugar, bring to boil again and hard boil for 1 minute while stiring

Pour into clean jars

Seal and process in vacola. ( I process EVERYTHING in the vacola for one hour starting with cold water)

Yum.

But I am out of jam jars and there are still so many more blackberries out there.......

*basically half the weight of whatever fruit you have.

**Pectin quantities as per instructions on packet (in this case, 8gm for every 500 gm fruit)

currency of the neighbourhood

So, like, the biggest hippy gives me two huge bags of santa rosa plums. Sue next door turns these into bottled plums and plum and cinnamon jam while I am away. Sue gives me 6 bottles of plums and 3 bottles of cinnamon plum jam, and a bottle of apricot jam and two bottles of elderflower cordial - one for the biggest hippy to say thank you for the plums.

Sue and the duck herder spend last monday bottling my rhubarbd rhubarb and we split the bottles.

I give Ma and Pa Duck herder some of my plum jam and Sue's apricot jam.

Yesterday I picked blackberries and make blackberry jam, and blackberry/plum/necterine jam. This morning I picked more blackberries (my picking rate is 1 kg / hour....sigh) and there are 5 more bottles of jam boiling away in the vacola. One of these will go to Sue next door, one to Eilleen from the community garden in return for the marlalade, and one for the biggest hippy in return for the plums and another bottle of apricot jam. With luck there will be one left for the Cougarnaut next week, just because he is so appreciative and if I get it together tomorrow morning before the temperature hits 30 degrees, perhaps a few more spares for the pantry and a bottle for the Northern Pickle.

There are no beginings or ends to the threads of these transactions. It is a cycle of gifting and reciprocity for no other reason than the love of sharing fresh produce and wonderfull food. Who knows how many times some of these old jars have changes hands.

Fresh produce and preserves - the currency of my community. The threads that weft and weave my community together. Amen.

winter harvest

Spring has sprung!
The grass has ris'
I wonder where the birdies is?
The bird is on the wing
... but that's absurd!
I always thought
The wing was on the bird!

Author? who knows - but my sister and I used to sing this poem over and over again on long car trips - Dad thought it was hilarious, but I bet my Mama wished he'd never taught us!

Just in case you were worried this was turning into a crocheting blog, we return to the main focus of my duck herding existence - the growing of vegetables, and the celebrations, jubilances and joys associated with said growing ons.

What does a late winter ONC garden have to offer friends and family of the duck? Apart from nettles, parsley, coriander, silverbeet and Chinese cabbages, we have enormous leeks, humongous beetroot and resplendent carrots.

What's that you said?.......

Yes, CARROTS!!!!!!!! Finally the 38 year carrot drought is over, and I can declare loud and proud that finally the duck herder has been able to grow CARROTS! Danvers to be precise. And how beautiful, sweet, flavoursome and HUGE they are. All bums and no tops - what perfect little carrots they be.

This lot went into a lovely big pot of soup with a hock bone, some garlic, onions and potatoes, bay leaves, parsely, corriander and of course, NETTLES.

And who came for lunch? Why the Mountain Man, his beautiful family, and the Rocketeer and her new beau. A loaf of freshly baked bread, a batch of muffins, and voila - lunch is served!

.....have I mentioned how much I LOVE my garden?

Winter Veggie Soup

This is my very simple quick but delicious winter veggie soup. The secret is the fresh tumeric - nothing like the powdered stuff, and a lovely thing to keep in the cupboard with the ginger and garlic. The other secret is having one of those groovy "v-slicer" julienne things that make chopping up stuff really small super quick.

You need:

• 1 potato


• 1n onion


• 1 carrot


• fresh ginger and tumeric


• 1 bay leaf


• 2 chicken stock cutes


• Nettles and coriander - or other fresh greens

Method:

• Julienne 1 onion into a saucepan


• Add a generous slosh of oil (I use macadamia but olive or anything would do)


• While heating up, add some grated fresh ginger and tumeric


• Saute gently until onion is soft and translucent


• Julienne the potato and carrot - add these too


• Add hot water and 2 x massels "chicken style" stock cubes and bay leaf


• Bring to boil and simmer while you go outside to pick greens


• Pick a big bowl of nettles, fresh coriander and anything else out there


• Chop or snip these into the soup just before serving

Voila!

(yes, still with the nettles!)

ode to nettles

This post is for nettles. Once more for the people at the back, I LOVE NETTLES. I introduced them into the garden especially. I love how they come up by themselves in winter, and how I have something yummy and green and super healthy to put into all my dishes all winter long.

When the parsley gets low from over picking, my lovely lovely nettles are still there.

I use them in cooking almost every night, I use them for making face cream and hair conditioner. I love them!

Did you know nettles are INCREDIBLY high in iron?

How do you harvest nettles? With washing up gloves of course. I have it down to a fine art:

• put on gloves
• grab scissors and a container
• walk up to veggie patch - being careful not to step on any fluffy chickens or ducks.
• with bowl in one hand, snip nettle stalks so that they fall into the bowl.

Eating nettles:

• Wilting the nettles - by cooking them gently or pouring boiling water over them - will take the sting right out and you are left with a sweet and most delicately flavoured green.

Easy ways to eat nettles:

• snip nettles - stalks and all, into soup just before serving. Stir briefly to ensure nettles have wilted.
• snip nettles - stalks and all, into eggs for scrambled eggs.
• Use nettles in place of silver beat in quiches and tarts.
• snip nettles into boiled potatoes prior to mashing. The heat from the potatoes is sufficient to remove the sting.
• Use nettles whenever you would use spinach or silver beet - except raw!

The stalks are very tender - not like silver beet at all.

Growing nettles.

They seem to be pretty tuff. I transplanted my plants from the community garden (where they grow wild in winter) a few years back. I think sometimes you can find them in paddocks where sheep have camped, or self seeding from bags of sheep poop. The little ones I have don't seem to be very high- maybe 30 -40 cm, and don't really sting very much - which is lovely!

They love moist soil. They seem to do OK with shade. The seem to self seed and reappear each winter. So I can not really take much credit for them at all!

I dun these!

preserving the harvest

Busy weekend! Mr Duck Herder and I went farm hunting on Friday - back in time to whip up another batch of Juzzy's Grandmother's Relish (previous post). Yesterday neighbour Sue and I bottled two batches of Roma tomatoes and a few bottles of Apple Brandy Blackberry Apples in Syrup (our own recipe!) These were not so successful - the bottles lost liquid - perhaps because the apples should have been stewed a little in the syrup first? SO, happily I scoffed down one deliciously alcoholic bottle, and then somewhat tipsily used the fruit and apple brandy syrup from the other in a batch of muffins.


Half of these will become morning tea en route to Condobolin tomorrow, accompanied by some work colleagues and Stanley the thermos. The other half, for my beloved to eat while I am away.


And finally, I whipped up a batch of pickled cucumbers. This is a first for me too. They are cheats ones really - mustard, dill seed and garlic flavoured (my own cucumbers, dill seed and garlic!) doing their pickling thing in the fridge after a day of sweating it out in some salt - but if these work, then perhaps next year I will be brave enough to do the whole fermentation thing.

relish the relish!

Well, the BRANDYWINE tomato harvest has been good, DELICIOUS even, but not really prolific - although that could be because they are too delicious to let stock pile enough for preserving.

Which was turning out to be a bit of a shame, seems as next door neighbour Sue and I had lashed out and gone halves in a preserving kit during winter.


But then yesterday, as I was watering my carrot seeds en route to work at the community garden, fellow gardener Phil suggested that I might like to raid his patch of ROMA tomatoes as there were too many for him to eat and they were going to waste.

Well, ALRIGHTY!!!!

This whole preserving thing is very new to me. Luckily one thousand clever women have gone before, and I have drawn inspiration from my Nana, for her wondrous pantry lined with jar after jar of apples, peaches, pears and buttons, and instruction from the lovely and relentlessly wondrous Rhonda Jean from Down to Earth, as well as a couple of books on the subject.

So, above, is today's batch of RELISH, cooling after a little hot bath in our new vacola preserving kit. Sue (and probably my Nana) and her mum tut tut at the extravagance of bathing relish - believing very strongly that if the jars are hot then it is unnecessary. But I really wanted to practice using the preserving kit, and also, this is the second batch of relish this season - I would like these bottles to last through the winter if possible.


So if ANYONE around here dies of botulism over the next 6 months, it wasn't my relish ok!

AND later today, when it cools down a little, I will go back down to Phil's patch and steal a few more ROMAs, and then Sue and I will spend tomorrow drinking beer and bottling tomatoes.


In other news, I have learnt a little lesson in chook psychology and the perils of anthropomorpology. Remember the last red egg laying chook? Well, she SEEMED lonely - spending her time up on the back deck - gazing longingly at her reflection in the mirror and wandering off to bed alone every night - refusing to make friends (or stop attacking) the fluffy chickens. Well, we got her a friend - a little point of lay leghorn/new hampshire cross. And Charlotte - HATES her - is violent and TERRORISES her. She has been hiding in the nesting box for two days now.

sheesh. never a dull moment with feathered friends. I thought I was doing the right thing getting her a friend to shnuggle up to before winter, but alas, it seems she would rather be alone than make space in her life (and chook run) for a new friend.

Oh well.