Lemon Butter

I had my second go at making lemon butter today, and luckily it turned out much better than my first go. Not that I didn't eat and enjoy all of that first attempt, but this time, when I tasted a little of the spills, I was transported instantly back to eating my grandmother's lemon butter as a child. This is how lemon butter is supposed to taste!

I made up double the recipe this time, since I have plenty of eggs to use up. The chooks are laying 4-5 eggs a day now, and even though we are selling extras to friends and family (for $2 a dozen, to cover chook food), we still have more than we can eat. Double the recipe calls for a dozen eggs, so without your own chickens, this could be quite a costly recipe (although still probably cheaper than buying it at the store). And I think that the eggs from our free range chooks is what really made this special. Look at the colour of it! Most lemon butter you see these days is a kind of washed out yellow, not bright and vibrant like this. That is the actual colour of the lemon butter, no added colours, and no photoshopping the picture (well, not to alter the colour anyway).

By my calculations, this recipe probably ends up at about $1 a jar. All up, the eggs were free, the butter - 225g, about $1, the sugar - just under a 1kg, $1 (I buy it in bulk), and the lemons were $2 a kg, I used 5, not exactly sure what they weighed, but lets say 1kg, so $2. $5 for the 5 jars. I have no idea what lemon butter sells for in the shops, but I'm guessing that it's at least $2 a bottle, saving me 50%.

It's now sitting in the fridge with the remainder of my last strawberry jam. Hopefully, it should last me six months or so before I need to make more.

Berry Nice

Yes, I know, lame title. That is what happens when you over plan a blog post. This is my 'berry harvest' from yesterday (with a few peas thrown in). Mulberries and strawberries. This is the mulberry tree's second year (first year it was still in a pot though, poor thing, while we waited to get out here to plant), and we're getting a nice taste of mulberries this year. Many of these were picked up from the ground after the recent rain and accompanying wind. Tasted nice, but could be a little sweeter, probably because some of them could be a little riper.

The strawberries are doing well too, but they taste Soooo yummy, that I am beginning to wonder if we're going to get many to make jam. I'm afraid I'm the worst culprit for strawberry eating, I keep eating them as I pick. They are so totally unlike the strawberries you buy in the shops, or even at the markets. These are the old variety, from my Grandmother's plants (Grandpa used to have a farm, and I have feint memories of going there and picking strawberries from their huge strawberry patch). These haven't been bred and modified to travel well, or be huge, or extra red, they are just the way they are, and you can taste the difference. Not even a hint of bitterness, just as sweet as can be. I'm not even going to bother trying to buy any newer commercial ones (the last ones I tried died anyway, oops), just keep making more and more and more of these.

Anyway, as I was saying, I was just beginning to wonder yesterday if we were going to get enough to make jam, and we were down to our last jar of jam... when I found a bargain at the markets this morning. A whole box full of strawberries, for the bargain price of $5!!!! So I bought them home, diced them up, and here they are in my pressure cooker! None of the saucepans were big enough to hold them! There is still at least a punnet load of the nicer ones left for eating and, more likely, juicing (have to post about my new juicer soon...)

I don't think I've posted about making jam before? We make all our own jam these days, and it's really easy. Basically, just dice up your fruit (and there are lots of options other than strawberries, pineapple, apricot, rosella, raspberry, etc etc). Put it in a saucepan with equal parts of sugar (I often put slightly less sugar, and it hasn't affected the eventual outcome). If it's a low pectin fruit (which strawberries are), add some lemon juice (about one lemon to 2 cups of strawberries), and boil it up. After a while (time seems to be dependent on the temperature of your stove) it will 'gel'. You should be able to see the change in the pot once you get used to it. The jam seems to go darker, it doesn't boil as quickly, and it 'feels' thicker. Then pour it straight into sterilised jars (I just rinse mine in hot water from the tap), and put the lids on quickly before it cools. If you have 'pop-top' jars, the tops will pop down as it cools, and seal the jars. I keep mine in the fridge, but I think it is OK to keep sealed jars in the cupboards, though I'm not sure how long.

This lot of strawberries made 11 jars of jam! So for $5 for the strawberries, and maybe $2 worth of sugar (I buy in bulk, 15kg at a time, works out at a little less than $1 a kg if I recall correctly), about $1 worth of lemons, that's about 70c a jar. Hopefully that will keep my family in jam for a while, although I won't hold my breath, we go through a lot of jam. So long as it's strawberry anyway. The pineapple and apricot have been sitting in the fridge for months. While I was at it, I poured a little into a bottle before it hit the gel stage, to see how it works for strawberry sauce.

I wonder if they'll have more boxes next week?

Rosella's!

We harvested our first real lot of rosella's today. This is the first time we've had more than a few of anything, so I'm pretty happy with them. DD got a teapot at a second hand store recently, and has been really wanting to make tea. Figured she wouldn't like the real thing, but rosella tea might be just the ticket. Luckily Rhonda over at Down to Earth recently talked about making rosella tea (I hadn't heard of it before), so we thought we'd give it a go.

First job is to pull all the exterior red bits off the rosellas. These have a lot of very fine hairs that can stick into you, but they aren't too serious. DD gave up pretty quickly, but I persevered, and got about a litre jug full of bits (calyx I think they're called?)

This leaves you with all the little seedpods. There really is no excuse for not saving your rosella seeds, it's so easy. Leave any green seedpods until they've dried out.

The brown, dried out ones just break apart, and the seeds fall out. Put them away in a jar or envelope to plant next year.

The calynx we put on a sheet of greaseproof paper in a slow (about 100 degrees) oven for an hour or two till they were dry and crumbly. Then just crumble them up, and put in some tea. You only need a small amount (about a teaspoon for a cup), but do let them soak for a while so that the flavour has a chance to come out. We didn't do that the first time, and DD wasn't impressed with the resultant brew. The bit left in the teapot was much nicer about half an hour later. Not sure if DD has been put off by the initial failure though, will see if she wants to try it again tomorrow. Maybe a tea party in the cubby house will entice her.

I only used a small amount for the tea, being unsure of it's reception. The rest of the rosella's became jam, which I think I'm almost ready to prefer over strawberry jam. It's also been accepted as a strawberry jam alternative, which is great in a house where strawberry has been the only option up until now. As rosella's are much easier to grow (and less likely to get eaten before making it to the jam state), this is a good thing. I only got one small jar out of that lot, but still one less jar we have to buy. And it's all organic too! I even used frozen lemon juice from lemons picked from my sister's tree a few weeks ago.

We also harvested this pumpkin the other day when we built the chicken pen. It's only small, but still should be edible. I'm thinking this one will become pumpkin soup, if only I can find time to make it!

I'm a little heavy on the planned projects right now, and feeling a little overwhelmed and can't decide what to do first, so I'm going to take it slow. I may (or may not) take a blogging break for a day or two while I think about it. Stay tuned...

Peaches

Yep, I'm really inventive on the titles today!

At the markets on Sunday, peaches were $2 a kg, so I figured this was my last chance to get some preserves before the season was over. DD loves tinned peaches, and while at that price it probably is only a little cheaper to buy them this way, at least I know what she's getting. I bought $10 worth, or about 5kg. That is a LOT of peaches.

Before starting actually cutting up the fruit, I wash all my jars and lids (even if they were already clean, it's best to give them a wash in soapy water, then a rinse in clean). It's always a bit of a guess as to how many bottles of what sizes. This time I just washed ten jars, which was all I had lids for!

Here are the bottles. For once, I remembered to soak the rubber seals, and put them on the jars before I started putting fruit in! Preparation is good, and makes for a much smoother preserving session.

Then I added the sugar syrup to the jars. You don't fill them up, or there won't be any room for the peaches. In fact, I find this much is plenty of syrup, I rarely have to add more after packing the jars.

Then it is time to start cutting the fruit. This is the tedious bit. Thankfully though, these were freestone peaches, so easy to separate from the seed, and because of this made much cleaner slices. They actually look quite artistic, don't they? They were as delicious as the look too. I'm not a huge peach fan, but I couldn't stop eating these. They were the nicest peaches I'd tasted in a long time, sweet and juicy.

Then you do all that boiling and watching, and of course, getting the very hot jars back out of the boiling water (I really do have to buy some bottle tongs!). And then you end up with this...

Eight jars of peaches. The smaller jars in the front are 600ml, the larger ones at the back are 1 litre. That should last DD a little while at least. Maybe a month or two...

Then I made up some labels on the computer, so that I know how long they've been in the cupboard. I just stuck them on with clag glue, hopefully they will come off easily that way.

Then they went into the preserve cupboard with the others. It's lucky I've run out of jar lids, as I'm fast running out of room!

Valentines Day

We don't make much of a big deal about Valentines Day in our house. If we have the time and energy (sadly lacking since having a child!), one of us will get a card or flowers for the other, but more often it's just a nice meal at home together, and sometimes a DVD after DD has gone to bed. This year, we had sweet and sour chicken on rice, one of our favourite meals. DD had chicken nuggets and chips. All home made of course. For the sweet and sour, I'm afraid we buy bottled sauce, Kan-Tong. They're the only bottles we get anymore, and as you'll see later, they all get used. We like to breadcrumb the chicken, fry it up, pull out the 'nuggets', then add the sauce. For chips, we steam the potato for about 10-15 minutes, then put them on trays in the oven, sprayed with some olive oil, and cook until crisp. Not quite as good as fried, but passable, and a lot quicker and healthier.

For desert, I made apple crumble! I had some apples that had been sitting in the cupboard since last market day, and a couple of them were starting to go bad, so I figured I'd better get it done before they lot was wasted. There were about 4 bad ones, but plenty that were still good. I grabbed the extra apples out of the fridge too, and all up probably had about 20 or so apples. Now you would think they would take hours to peel and cut wouldn't you? But I have this REALLY COOL apple peeler, peels, cores and slices all in one. I don't happen to have any good pics of this, so check out this video of how it works. (I'm sorry, I don't have sound, so I hope there is nothing offensive said, but I don't think so.) My sister liked it so much she went out and bought one on her way home the day I showed it to her.

Lots of apple peel later, I had a full saucepan of apples. I think maybe a little too full, as it boiled over while cooking. It reduced a little as it cooked though. I added 2 cups of sugar to the apples, but probably could have done with less. This is a decent sized saucepan too, about 20 inches or so!

Once the apple was cooked, I ladled it hot into recycled glass jars (those Kan-Tong ones I was talking about earlier!), and put the lids on while it was still hot. I sit them on the wooden cutting board while filling them, and haven't had one crack yet. I used one of those grippy rubber mat things, the ones that you can use to get bottle lids off, to hold the hot glass jar while tightening the lids. As the apple cooled, it shrinks, creating a vacuum seal. You know you've got a good seal when the 'pop tops' of these bottles pop down. I'm keeping it all in the fridge to be certain though, and don't expect it to last above a month or two. Out of my saucepan of apples, I got 3 (500ml) jars of apple, and enough for tonight's apple crumble.

I don't bother with a pastry base, it's a huge hassle, and isn't that easy gluten free anyway. I just pop the stewed apple straight into the pie dish (this one is Pyrex), and then make up the crumble. I use a recipe in "Day to Day Cookery", which was my home economics textbook in high school! Yes, more than 10 years on, I still have it, and use it often. That and the old W. M. U. (Presbyterian Women's Missionary Union) Cookery book are my standby. That, and all my mum's old recipes that I have copies of.

Crumble for Apple Crumble recipe:

1 cup plain flour

3 tablespoons of sugar (more if you have a family of sweet tooth's)

3 tablespoons of coconut

3 tablespoons of butter

Mix butter through flour with fingertips until breadcrumb consistency

Add sugar and coconut and mix together.

Sprinkle on top of apples, and cook in a medium oven until lightly browned.

Here it is ready to go in the oven. We didn't have any coconut, so I just left it out, and it turned out fine.

Served with some still warm home made custard, and it didn't last long!

A long day

It has been a long day today. First up, up at 5 to drive DH to the train by 6, then DD and I went on to the markets for our fruit shopping. The specials weren't quite as good as they have been the last few weeks, but we did get some nice grapes, and it looks like the apples are coming in. Bought a whole heap of tiny red delicious for DD, figure they're about her size.

Then we came home to rush around doing our morning routine, before heading off to visit my sister before it got too hot. We had a great swim in her pool, and DD was determined to try to 'swim' on her own, which meant bouncing around and needing someone to grab her periodically. I think she had fun though.

The onto my real purpose of the trip, the hobby store. Here I have to say I grossly overspent. Nearly $200 for doors, windows, and a staircase for the dollhouse. I hadn't planned on spending that much. In all honestly, if I had thought about it, I would have realised that these wouldn't be cheap, and might have planned things a little better. I didn't want this dollhouse to be an expensive project, it was supposed to be cheaper than buying a new one! I guess I'm still stuck in wanting to do everything I wanted to do to it as a child, and couldn't afford to. I want it to be beautiful, which I'm sure it will be. And realistically, I couldn't have made those windows myself.

OK, so I've comforted myself by searching on eBay, and they had a similar house to mine, only NOT as good of course, for $400 new. So maybe I'm not doing too badly. Most of the cheaper kids are either much smaller, or simple barbie style houses. So in other words, I probably shouldn't have spent the money, but it wasn't excessive for what I got for it. Really.

On a good note, we had homemade gluten free pizza for dinner, with my homemade tomato sauce, and homemade bottled pineapple (for DH, I prefer just bacon and cheese on mine). DD had some bottled peaches for desert (but before dinner funnily enough).

I'm very very tired now, so I think I'm going to have an early night, and hopefully be more bright and cheery tomorrow.

A Productive Day

Today's Harvest

We've had a lovely day today. Hubby was on days off, so first thing after we got up (slept in till nearly 8! Bliss! Unheard of with a 3yo.) we headed off the the Caboolture markets. I try to go every weekend, the fruit and veg there is great, and very cheap. We're eating far more and better quality fruit and veg than we ever did, and it's costing us less!

This morning, I scored, getting the last box of apricots for $4! Picked up a couple of pineapples for 99c each, and granny smith apples at $1.50/kg.

These were destined for the bottle, and I spent all morning cutting them up and pushing them into little bottles, LOL. Before I get carried away with explaining that, here is the rest of the fruit from today, all washed and divided into snack sized bits into the fridge. My daughter can help herself whenever she wants.

All up it set me back about $35, and that includes the large bunch of bananas in the cupboard, half of which were eaten before we left the markets, a whole pumpkin, corn, carrots, and probably other stuff I've forgotten. I also spent $50 on fruit trees, and now have a peach, tropical nectarine, and meyer lemon tree. I'll have to plant them out tomorrow. While we were there, DD was searching around everywhere for something to buy with 'her money', and not finding much. Then we found a stall of toys, with a whole bag of wooden railway lines, the same size as the ones we already had at home. $5 later, our railway collection was doubled.

Once we were home, I quickly did my morning routine, and then got into bottling. About a month ago, I found an old stovetop Fowler's Vacola unit for $20 in a second hand shop, complete with over 70 bottles of varying sizes. Cost me another $100 for the thermometer, lids, rings and clips, but now I'm slowly building up my stockpile of summer fruits to tide us through the winter months when it's far more expensive.

Here's the unit sitting on the stove, boiling away. I'm still not an expert on bottling, so I'll leave you with a link to Forrest's post "Getting started with home preserving" on ALS. It's what I use all the time, and is a wealth of information.


It took a couple of hours to cut up all those apricots, but it paid off, I now have 7 bottles of apricots of varying sizes, and 2 bottles of pineapple (for use on homemade pizza, DH's favourite). I also have enough bruised and soft fruit left over to make apricot jam tomorrow, should get lots, which is good, because we used the last of the strawberry jam up a few days ago. I haven't done the apples yet, I'll do those tomorrow, along with the harvest from our tomato plants.

That took until after lunch, and I just had time to get it all cleaned up and sit down for a few minutes before DH's parents arrived in the afternoon for a BBQ. It had been raining on and off, but we still managed to get enough of a fire to cook on, albeit using lots of newspaper! I will have to take a photo of our BBQ some time to post, it's very rustic. I actually had some lovely conversations with MIL about all the things we're doing here with producing our own. As we haven't always gotten on too well, it was very nice to have a day where things were easy and friendly.

We also used my own bottled tomato sauce for the first time, and aside from being a little sweet, it actually tasted like tomato sauce! I was most impressed, and feel like I might be able to do this after all. It's the only sauce we have left now, having finished our last store bought bottle, so I guess we'll have to survive on it! Must buy some more tomatoes next market though!

The day ended wonderfully, with my beautiful daughter coming up to me and saying "Mummy, I have a surprise for you," then pulled out a beautiful bunch of 'buttercups'. Aren't kids imaginations wonderful?

Personally, I think they look like fireworks!