Rhubarb and Sultana Chutney

During the week at work, it was decided to vary the morning tea biscuits with some cheese on toast, it being winter and all. I volunteered to bring the chutney and fronted up with a jar of my Rhubarb and Sultana, which I later discovered was the last of that recipe in my pantry.  It was time it was used, having a date of some six years ago, but this is one of those preserves that improves with the keeping.

It received so many accolades that I was inspired to go out to the rhubarb patch to check supplies, and  finding it was growing well (not that it ever does anything but!) 20 stalks met with my knife.  (Just in case anyone is going to race into horrified comment, the knife only meets the stalk at the leaf end of course!  The other end is pulled from the plant to preserve the integrity of said plant.)

So today I made a new batch, not to be used for about three months if I can control myself!  This is the recipe:

RHUBARB AND SULTANA CHUTNEY 

1 kg rhubarb stalks​

250g onions​

250g sultanas

3 tsp mustard seeds​

1 tsp ground ginger​

½ tsp cinnamon

3 tsp black pepper​

750 ml white vinegar (or cider vinegar)

1 tsp salt​

750g white sugar.

Slice rhubarb and onions finely.  Add all ingredients except the sugar into a big heavy bottomed pot.  Bring to the boil.  Add sugar and stir until dissolved.  Simmer 45 mins or until thick.  Put into hot sterilised jars and seal.  Keep for a few weeks if possible to mature before eating.  Makes about 7-8 jars of varying sizes.

Washing windows

I'm not a fanatical window-washer, but every now and then I can't live with my dirty windows any longer, so it's out with the hose and long-handled brush and with any luck the streaks won't be worse than the dirt had been.

I've experimented with various recipes, and am delighted with this weekend's mixture -
¾ bucket warm water
½ cup Janola
1 teaspoon dishwash liquid
Juice of half a lemon

Brush on, hose off.

Sparkling windows!

Chicken stock

Roast chicken from the supermarket for a family lunch last weekend, and that always means chicken stock!  The used-up carcass goes into the freezer when the meal is being cleared way, and later on is reborn in a pot of water, boiled for an hour or two with salt, pepper, rosemary and sage and garlic from the garden, (or in the case of the garlic, from where it's been hanging from the rafters of the shed).

Later on I'll make pumpkin soup out of this lot, but for now I'm enjoying the aromas coming from the stock  pot!

Chicken stock - smells so much better than it looks!

Tidy up time!

Autumn, and the fruit has finished, the grapevine has died off and the rain falls much more frequently than in past months.

I have just pruned the blueberries, by taking out the whole of the branches that were too lanky during the fruiting season, and produced fruit only at the top.  Also the grapes, all ready for winter, tidy and cut back.

And today I read this, which I think will have to go on my mast-head somewhere....

“If you have a garden and a library, 

you have everything you need”

                                                                                       Marcus Tullius Cicero

Drying Herbs and Herbal Teas

Snipping the parsley heads

Decided to make some herb bread, which sent me out to the garden for herbs, which in turn made me decide it's time to dry some parsley! There's too much out there for me to use before it goes to seed, so I brought in some big bunches, washed it, snipped off the edible bits, laid them on a baking tray, and dried them in the oven on fan-bake at 75 degrees Celsius for 3 hours, then cooled and put into air tight containers.

Parsley ready to go into the oven for drying

When I'm drying smaller quantities of herbs, I do them in the microwave -
I place about ½ cup fresh herbs, washed and chopped, between paper towelling on high for 1 min or until dried. (Whole basil leaves take 1 ½ mins)

I make herbal teas from my herbs, by putting fresh or dried leaves into the teapot and pouring boiling water over. Adjust quantities to your own taste, and the following is a brief list of usefulness!
Bergamot​ - sore throats, colds, chest complaints – invigorating
Marjoram​ - nervous headaches, indigestion, bad breath, morning sickness
Mint​ - digestion, memory
Parsley​ - rheumatism, kidneys, gallbladder, digestion, circulation
Rosemary​ - headache, colic, colds
Sage​ - general health, stress, shock
Thyme​ - colds, coughs, catarrh, sore throat, flatulence

Lentil and Vegetable Curry for dinner tonight!

Last night on MasterChef NZ, Sushil created a Fijian curry that made me wish I was able to taste some, and so it was a no-brainer that it would be curry and rice for dinner tonight. It's simmering away at the moment, and is is the recipe:


LENTIL AND VEGETABLE CURRY - 4 main course servings
1 ½ cups red or brown lentils​
2-3 cups water
​2 bay leaves
2 tblspns oil
​2 onions​
2 cloves garlic
1 teaspn ginger
​1 teaspn turmeric​
1 teaspn cumin
2-3 cups chopped vegetables​
1 teaspn salt​
1 cup hot water
½ cup coconut cream​

Cook the lentils in the water with the bay leaves until tender, adding more water if necessary. Red lentils should take 20-30 mins, and brown lentils 40 mins. Heat the oil in a large non stick pan with lid, add the chopped onion and garlic, and the spices. Cook without browning for 5 minutes. Prepare and cut up the vegetables into evenly sized cubes or pieces, starting with those that take longest to cook. Add each vegetable as it is prepared, tossing it with the onion, and covering the pan between additions. Add the salt and water after the last addition and cook until all vegetables are barely tender. Add the cooked lentils and coconut cream. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Serve with boiled rice, and yoghurt.

Lentil and Vegetable Curry

Blackberry pruning time

My thornless blackberry vines have been running all over the ground, and now that fruiting has finished I've taken the opportunity to tidy them up and prune them.

Messy vines before pruning

I followed this advice - cutting them back to the main canes and shortening the runners substantially.
I had such a great crop this year, I'll do what I can to encourage more fruit next year too!
A bit more work required to tie them up to the trellis, but they're looking better than yesterday!!

Apples by the bucket!

I have three Ballerina apple trees, developed to grow upright and produce apples in a small space.  The 'Bolero' variety produces green eating apples and is the first to crop, my 'Polka' and 'Waltz' are reddish and ready for picking now.

 I have just picked a bucketful and there are probably two more bucket loads out there.  Am off to visit the grandchildren in the next couple of weeks, so will take one with me.

The birds had great fun pecking the apples off the trees, so I had to net them, which worked well.  I also planted garlic around them to keep off the moths that lay eggs in apple trees, providing their newly hatched larvae with a plentiful food source.

The apples ripening in the sun

Soup Weather!

Mmmmm the house smells so good! It's raining and I'm feeling like soup for dinner, so it's on the simmer.

My favourite soup is made from the carcass and left overs of a roast chicken, and I've had these bits in the freezer for a couple of months. Each time I make this soup it's different, depending on what's in the garden or freezer, but this is today's soup. I always make a great big pot of it, and freeze it in lunch lots for work.

Lunch sized containers of soup in the freezer

MARIE'S ROAST CHICKEN SOUP
Put the carcass and left overs of a roast chicken into a big pot, add plenty of water, a bit of salt, and herbs to make stock. I've added sage, rosemary and basil, and a couple of deseeded chilli peppers. Bring to boil, and simmer for about 30 minutes.
Take off heat and allow to cool. Strain, making sure you keep any bits of chicken flesh, but discarding bones etc.
Return to the pot and add half a cup of lentils (soup mix type), stirring as it comes to the boil. Add lots of chopped vegetables - today I've added
4 onions,
6 carrots,
1 parsnip,
3 stalks celery
2 tomatoes
1 bell pepper
2cloves garlic
Just what was available in the garden and fridge.
Oh and a container of cooked pumpkin I had in the freezer.

Simmer gently until everything is cooked and the house smells wonderful!
Put through a blender or use a stick blender. Taste and adjust seasonings. And voila!

Hot Cross Buns Day

Good Friday has traditionally been Hot Cross Buns day at our place.  I would get the mixture made and leave it proving and go off to the community Cross Carrying around the streets, in commemoration of the events leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus.   By the time I came back it would just need the last rising and it would be yummy hot cross buns for lunch.   These days I use the bread-maker to do the work for me, so am sharing both recipes.

Number 1 daughter made the buns the traditional way for her family this year, so I have pirated her photo, and this is the recipe for these delicious handmade buns:

​

HOT CROSS BUNS 

3 ½ teaspns dried yeast

1 cup warm water​

1 tblspn sugar

¼ cup sugar​

50g butter​

1 teaspn salt

1 cup milk​

1 egg​          

3 ½ cups flour

1 teaspn cinnamon​

1 teaspn ground ginger​

⅔ cup currants

1 tblspn sugar​

1 tblspn water

Sprinkle yeast on to first measure of water, containing the first measure of sugar.  Mix 2nd measure of sugar with butter and salt in a bowl.  Heat the milk and pour over this.  Stir until dissolved.  Allow to cool until lukewarm, then mix the yeast mixture into it.  Lightly beat the egg and add to this, then sift in 2 cups flour.  Beat well.  Sift the remaining flour with the spices and add sufficient of this to form a soft dough.  Add the currants and beat thoroughly.  Cover and set in a warm place to rise until double in size.  Turn on to a lightly floured board and knead well. (or use kneading hook in Kenwood).  Divide into 24 pieces.  Roll each piece into a round and place in well buttered patty tins.

Cover and leave to rise until double in bulk.

Crosses:

½ cup flour​1 tblspn melted butter. ​5 tblspns water

Sift flour, stir in butter and add enough water to enable dough to be piped.  Using a fine nozzle, pipe crosses on each risen bun before placing in oven.

Bake at 220° for about 12 minutes.  Take from oven and brush the tops lightly with sugar and water (or milk) which have been mixed together.  Return to oven for about 1 minute to glaze.

Number 4 daughter has most conveniently blogged about making hot cross buns in the bread-maker, so rather than repeat the recipe, I suggest you pop over to her lovely blog and check it out there. She also designs stunning knitting patterns that you might want to admire and/or knit too!

Happy Easter everyone!

More uses for left over cooked rice

Following on from my post yesterday, there was more left over rice, and so more ideas for its use.

To take to The Ancient One for Sunday lunch - 

QUICK QUICHE

½ cup self raising flour​

3 eggs​

1 chopped onion

1 ½ cups milk​

1 cup grated cheese​

1 cup cold cooked rice

2 tblspns chopped parsley

1 tblspn oil​

Pepper & salt​ to taste

2 rashers bacon 

capsicum​, peas, beans, tomatoes​, courgettes, asparagus -about a cup in total of any combination of vegetable

Beat eggs and milk, add cheese, onion, rice, oil and about a cup of vegetables.  Fold in flour.  Chop bacon and sprinkle on top.  Bake ¾ hour at 180°.

I used sliced tomato instead of the bacon.

And for Saturday dinner, I shall treat myself to

KEDGEREE

½ Onion

1 clove garlic 

knob of butter

1 teaspoon curry paste 

2 cups cooked rice 

200g tin of fish

2 hardboiled eggs

coriander leaves

Slice the onion, crush the garlic and fry them in the butter with the curry paste.  Add the rice, and the drained fish which has been broken up with a fork, and heat through.  Add the quartered eggs, coriander and salt to taste and enjoy!

Using left-over cooked rice

Every year at the school where I work, we have a day of solidarity with the poor and with refugees, which we call "Rice Day".

For this one day, the students - aged from 5 to 13 years old - have as their lunch, a handful of cooked rice. The little children are allowed their two mid-morning breaks with "brain food" but the rest of the school - staff included - have no other food than the lunch time rice.

The children line up with their hands cupped to get their lunch, in much the way we imagine they would do at a refugee Aid Station.

I have to say too, it's jolly good rice, donated and cooked for us by one of our parents, the proprietor of the authentic Indian restaurant "Kiwi'n'Kurry"! Children also bring a gold coin donation which goes to Caritas an international aid organisation.

This year there was some rice left over, so I brought a container of rice home, and this is what I had for dinner!

VEGETABLE FRIED RICE

As the pan was heating, I beat an egg with a few drops of water, poured it in and spread it out so it cooked like an omelette. When it was set I removed it. Into the hot pan I tossed garlic, onion, soy sauce, fish sauce and sesame oil, and when that was cooked nicely, a couple of cups of my cooked rice, and from my garden, some chopped butter beans, chopped silverbeet, tomato and grated carrot. I tossed it often until it was all nicely cooked, added a splurt of oyster sauce and then added the omelette which I had rolled and sliced. Heated it through and enjoyed it immensely!

Saturday in the 'burbs

A sultana cake for a friend whose brother died -
and the recipe, because this is one of my all time faves. Easy to make, easy to take, yummy to eat. Back in the day, I used to double the recipe and make two every time I made it.

SULTANA CAKE
450g sultanas​
225g butter
​3 eggs
1 ¼ cups sugar​
350g flour​
1 teaspn baking powder
lemon, vanilla and almond essence

Cover sultanas with water and boil five minutes. Drain, add butter while still hot, stir. Beat eggs and sugar together with essences and add to sultanas. Beat together and mix well. Add flour and baking powder. Bake 1 hour at 160°.

Oscar enjoying his ice cream

My celery is ready for harvesting, but it's still summer and I will mostly use it for winter soups and stews, so into the freezer it goes. Celery is great to freeze - just wash, chop and free flow freeze! (And as we're in the middle of a drought here, the water used for washing the celery gets poured over a wilting cape gooseberry plant.)
The container I'm using for the celery - well last week, there I was with my son and grandson, sitting in the sun in Napier having an ice cream, when the shop owner came out with these two empty 5 litre ice cream containers and lids, (the sort the ice cream is in, in shops that sell cone ice cream) and asked us if we wanted them. Son didn't, but I could see they'd find a use, and they have! My method of free-flowing celery in bulk is to wash and chop, and put in a container in the freezer, making sure it's no more than three-quarters full.   I set the timer for 20 mins, and every time it beeps, I give the container a good shake until the celery ends up free flow frozen! (You'll notice also that I use the leaves as well as the stems - they're full of flavour and goodness too!)  My freezer is pretty full at the moment, and there isn't any room for trays. This is easier and works well!


And a loaf of bread.
This is my "regular everyday bread". Delicious and healthy!

100% WHOLEMEAL BREAD
320 ml water (1 ¼ cups)​
1 teaspoon salt​
2 tblspns milk powder
2 tblspns oil​
1 tblspn treacle​
3 cups wholemeal flour
3 teaspoons Surebake yeast

Regular wholemeal setting.

My 100% wholemeal bread

And now for those apple muffins....

A couple of days ago, I posted about making apple sauce, and mentioned that I was going to make apple muffins.  You'll find that post here.

In that post I gave the recipe for my spiced pickled oranges - one year the entire crop of oranges fell off the tree, ripe, perfectly formed, but little.  It seemed such a pity to do nothing with them, but they were too small to eat by the time they'd been peeled.  So I pickled them, and I'm still using them!  They've gone more brown in the jars since then, but are still a fabulous accompaniment to ice cream, or as an ingredient in my apple muffins.

The secret of making good muffins is not to overmix the batter - there should still be signs of flour.  Beat them, and they will be tough and small.  As you would too, if you'd been beaten!!

As I use homemade apple sauce if I have it, I don't stew apples just prior to making these muffins, so I measure out the apple and add the orange, and then pop the butter in with that and warm in the microwave for a minute.  I should also say that I use raw sugar, and half and half wholemeal and white flour.

APPLE MUFFINS 

1 ½ good cups flour​            ½ teasp salt​             ¾ cup sugar

1 tblespoon mixed spice​1 teasp baking soda​1 cup stewed apple

1 cup sultanas​                        125g butter       ​1 egg

Stew the apples and while hot add the butter to melt.  Add to dry ingredients together with the beaten egg.  Mix lightly and quickly.  15 mins at 200°C.  A lesser amount of apple may be made up to 1 cup with stewed rhubarb, spiced orange preserve etc.  I use about  2/3rds cup of stewed apple and make it up to a cup with finely chopped Pickled Oranges.

I have to say that every time I've given a basket of these muffins as a thank you to my mechanic or other bloke-y blokes, they have been received with rave reviews, more so than any other muffins I've ever made! It's the secret ingredient, that pickled orange!

Wholemeal, carrot and wheatgerm bread

I threw this together yesterday before I got stuck into the apples. I haven't made it before, but have carrots in the garden, and it's a healthy 100% wholemeal loaf so was worth a try.
It's another from George Dale's "More Daley Bread".

Tastes great, and I'll make it again!

Apple Juice, Apple Sauce, Apple Muffins and Pickled Oranges

I was given a bag of apples, and decided to turn them into juice and sauce.

I use apple juice in some of my bread recipes, and apple sauce in all kinds of things, especially my Apple Muffins. These also use a preserve I make with little oranges - I sense some recipes will be called for here, and I'm going to have to make a batch of these muffins JUST so that I can take a photo for you!  But probably not tonight!

So firstly, preserved oranges.  For the muffins that I'm not going to make tonight..... Maybe things are not quite in the right order, but there you go.  Some days are like that.

SWEET PICKLED ORANGES (Yummy with ice cream)

2 ½ kg oranges (can be windfalls)​ 1 litre white wine vinegar

1.3 kg sugar.           ​1 ½ sticks cinnamon​                    13g cloves

2 teaspns mace

Cut oranges into ½ cm slices, lay them in a pan and just cover with water.  Simmer, covered until the peel is tender, about 1 ½ hours.  Put the spices into a muslin bag.  Put the vinegar, sugar and spices into a pan and boil well for a few minutes.

Pickled Oranges

Drain the oranges carefully, reserving the liquor.  Lay half of them in the pan of syrup, making sure that they are covered.  Simmer with lid on for 40 minutes until the oranges are clear.  Lift out with a draining spoon, put the rest of the oranges into the pan and, if syrup does not cover them, add a little of the reserved orange liquor.  Cook as before.  Put all back, cover and leave overnight.

Remove the spice bag.  If syrup is not thick enough, pour it off and boil until thick.  Then add the orange slices and reboil.  If the syrup is already thick and well reduced, heat slowly to boiling point with the oranges.  Arrange carefully in warm jars and screw down.

If there is not enough syrup to cover the fruit in the jars, make fresh syrup – cup to cup of vinegar to sugar – boil till thick and fill up the jars.  The oranges must be covered by the syrup during storage, otherwise they will discolour.   Any remaining syrup can be bottled as an ice cream sauce.

Now, the apples - - - 
So I washed the apples, cut them up (without peeling or coring them - as I was going to strain the resulting mush) added a small amount of water (probably about 5 cm up the side of the boiling pot), brought to the boil, turned right down and simmered for about an hour.

Then I strained to get some juice - I didn't filter it, as it doesn't need to be clear for my recipes or for drinking.  This is the result:  

Then I pressed the rest of the mash through a sieve to get out the pips etc.  It's fairly hard work, and not my usual way of making apple sauce.  Usually I core the apples first, then stew them and whizz them in the blender.  But that way doesn't give you juice as a separate product.

Letting the juice drip through

 I have to admit I helped the juice dripping through by pressing it with a spoon, as I wasn't too worried about getting cloudy juice for this lot.

And that's enough for this evening.  I've got a lovely supply of juice and sauce in the fridge and freezer, which will be used in all manner of recipes yet to come!

Now it's dinner time.....  Hmmmm..... what do I feel like?
(StoneSoup's chickpea frittata was the answer to that!  With grated carrot as I grated too much for the loaf of bread I'm making, and served with beans fresh from the garden.)

Rye, Molasses and Wheatmeal Bread

I had some molasses that needed using up, so the latest loaf from my kitchen is another of George Dale's, from his book "More Daley Bread".

I'm not going to copy the recipe in, being respectful of George's copyright, but here's a photo of the egg sandwiches being made for lunch today. Organic pullet eggs from my friend Steph's very free-range chooks, and fresh bread. Nothing better!

The molasses is a stronger taste than I'm wanting in my bread, so I won't be replacing it now I've used it up.  I'm thinking that treacle would work as well in this recipe, although this bread would be good with sardines and was nice with egg.

Ugly Myrtle's glory time!

The New Zealand Cranberry (myrtus ugni or Chilean guava) is a wonder of productivity at this time of the year and I treated mine to their first pick today. I have two bushes, one in the bird-proof blueberry cage, the other between the apple trees and benefitting from the hammock of netting between them. Having said that, I'm not sure that the birds go for this fruit, but am not about to find out by experimenting!

It's a funny little fruit, you eat the little leafy bit on the end as well, it's sweet and absolutely delicious as a snack or in the breakfast bowl with cereal, or with ice cream! The berries are ready when you can roll them off with your fingers and when they taste so sweet you could happily sit and eat them as you pick!

First pick of the cranberries with the last few blueberries

Gutless grapes

My bunches of grapes have been looking great! Big heavy bunches - all that was missing was a bit of ripening. Trouble is, as soon as there's any colour on a grape they are sucked dry. Prof Google suggested wasps, and indeed a friend also said "wasps". Well I haven't seen any wasps, but apparently that doesn't mean they aren't - well, anywhere! Seems they can even nest in the ground! The same thing happened last year, and I just gave up.

But this year I thought I'd make an effort to achieve some edible grapes. They're a Japanese dessert grape and worth saving!

In an attempt to protect my grapes I netted them but no, still more damage.

A friend's husband who works with grapes suggested wax-eyes, and that I make sure the bottom of the netting is secure. Hmmm, frankly it wasn't, so I went out to tie it to the plants - and out flew three little birds. Wax-eyes. Bugger. Well, probably easier to protect the grapes from birds than wasps, but the grape vines are against a tin fence, and last year when they died back I was quite fascinated to discover a birds' nest, between the tin and the vine, sitting on the horizontal fence supports. What a clever Mama Bird I thought! What a safe place to build a nest!

Well it was also a nest with an on-tap food supply if it was a wax-eye nest! I went looking for it but the vine is too thick in places, so I gave up (again! - this really IS a great place to build a nest!) and decided to concentrate the netting on the half of the vine I have some chance of controlling. Time will tell whether I've been successful! Watch this space!

More preserving of summer's bounty for the winter!

Those apple cucumbers have just kept on coming, so another batch of Alison Holst's Bread and Butter Pickle was on the to-do list today. The recipe is here.  Didn't have quite enough mustard seed or celery seed, so mixed in a small amount of curry powder, because, let's face it, tasteless pickle is an oxymoron and complete waste of time and space. I think it's got quite a kick, this batch!

Also roasted up another pan of tomato sauce, with onion in this lot. The freezer is now looking quite jolly! The small containers are blackberries, blueberries and tomato pizza sauce, and the ice cream containers behind them are full of free-flow cauliflower and broccoli. I'm hoping there will be apple sauce to add to this soon!

Oat Bran & Wholemeal Bread

This week's loaf of bread is one of my favourites. Great whole food healthy loaf!
From George Dale's book - "More Daley Bread", which contains great recipes for breads which are low-salt, high fibre, low sugar/sugar-free, high protein, or multigrain etc.
 
George Dale is a bit of a hero in the bread-machine baking community.  He is a bread-maker technician,who found that most of the machines brought in for fixing actually had nothing wrong with them.  It was the recipes, or the inaccurate measuring of ingredients which were the problem, and he has published several books of great bread-maker recipes.  He's a Kiwi and offers an advice service if the cook is still having problems!


I've got three of his books,
Daley Bread : making the most of your breadmaker
More Daley bread : hearty wholemeal and special diet loaves in your bread machine
Traditional Daley bread : a selection of classic recipes for your bread machine


And now for the recipe:
Oat Bran and Wholemeal Bread

1.5 cups water
3 tablespoons milk powder
3 tablespoons honey
1.5 tablespoons lecithin
.75 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons oat bran
3 tablespoons gluten flour
3 cups wholemeal flour
3 teaspoons yeast

This is a 750g (1.5lb) wholemeal recipe, and on my machine, it is a Regular Wholemeal.

Planting for beneficial insects

There's no doubt that bees bring plant health into a garden - they pollinate, feed off flowers, and a garden without bees does poorly in terms of vegetable production.

Bees favour blue and purple flowers, so I allow my mint and rosemary to flower especially for them. I hope they appreciate this kindness! Certainly the herb garden is abuzz with them at the moment - here they are on mint....

And rosemary...

I also plant tansy, a herb that in times past was rubbed on food or placed in coffins to delay "spoilage", and has been shown to protect potatoes from beetles, and houses from flies. My herb garden is by the back door and I have every spare spot filled with tansy. Am hoping it protects the tomatoes from bugs as well as the kitchen from pesky flies. Does it work? Well I do still get the odd fly and it would take a scientific experiment to determine whether I'd be dealing with more flies without it. Just hope they aren't coming inside to escape it....

First corn, more berries

Picked the first cob of corn today!


Froze blackberries - haven't done that before, but laid them out on a lipped baking tray in the freezer until they were solid and then packed them into air-tight containers. Picking more than I can eat!

Made another batch of tomato sauce - freezer's getting full!

And my sunflowers are past their best, but I have enjoyed them amongst the grapevines. Grapes looking good too!