Final Summer/Autumn Harvest Update

261kg over summer - that's not too bad really :-)

More preserving and some good neighbours

This morning I cleared out one of the tomato beds - which left me with 10+ kilos of green tomatoes to deal with - so I'm making the first of many batches of green tomato chutney...although it might be ripe tomato chutney by the end of the week! I also made a batch of honey pickled jalapenos - I'll be interested to see how they taste in a few months. There are still more jalapenos on the chilli bushes too.

 A few kilos of ripe tomatoes went into the dehydrator

Last weekend our new neighbour bought over one of his many toys - an hydraulic log splitter. What a great toy!!  In about 1.5 hours we had split and stacked 2 trees worth of wood. Genius!

 Some of this years pumpkin harvest. Yum

Been busy

and this will give you an idea why - 175 kg of produce so far this year, not including leafy greens and herbs

The apples are all from the tree that the parrots normally eat bare, but there were so many this year we actually have a few! I've been working the steam juicer overtime making a range of apple jellies. Apple and mint, apple and ginger, and apple, ginger and chilli - using home grown thai chilli powder. It's hot but lovely. Made 8 jars of that yesterday, along with 6 smallish jars of apple purée plus 4 jars of roasted tomato purée. The pantry is starting to really fill up now!

Basic Apple Jelly Recipe

Once you have your juice (either via steam juicer or the normal cook with some water then strain through muslin overnight method - or even bought pure juice) add 450g sugar to every 600ml juice. I also added in a 7-8cm piece of ginger (grated), and a sprinke of chilli powder. Other alternatives are just ginger, or mint (add in near the end of boiling time) or even just plain apple. Stir over a low heat until sugar is fully disolved, then boil rapidly until setting point is reached, pour into jars and seal via your preferred method and seal.

Last but not least we got our first double yolker a week or so ago - from a massive 88g egg!

Recent kitchen capers

Been flat out working and gardening, so not much energy for blogging - but enough for some kitchen adventures.

Our first harvest of plums from our 2 trees (mariposa, L) and satsuma . I'm pretty happy with the 4.5 kg of plums we harvested from our 2 trees this year. It's the first year they have fruited in 4 years - although in fairness they have been moved 3 times in those 4 years (!!)

An immature red kuri pumpkin. This vine fell off the vine early, but is still tasty! Today I'm also making some ginger syrup,

 some bread  (wholemeal/rye/spelt), and a roasted red onion and (homegrown) tomato soup

Roasted red onion and tomato soup ( from the Covent Garden soup book)
Put tomatoes (I used about 3 kg), red onion (I used 2), basil (loads cause I love it!), and 2 fat cloves of garlic squished and roughly chopped into a roasting dish, and sploosh (technical cooking term) over olive oil to coat. Season with salt and pepper (I also used a good few grinds of Oxfam's harissa mix) Roast for about an hour until tomatoes are soft. Leave to cool a bit while you make come caramelised red onions  (melt butted and a tablespoon or so of brown sugar in a pan, and fry onions until caramelised - add a splash of balsamic vinegar.

Puree the tomato mix with a bit of water. You can pass this mix through a sieve if you like but I never bother. Add this to the caramelised onions and add more water if you like a thinner soup. Reheat gently, toss in a few torn basil leaves and serve.

Lovely!