Sunshine

This post is inspired by Thimbleanna, who showed us her new quilt recently- after  playing in the snow taking photos of it...

over this side of the world, this is how powerful our sun has been...

 Dried apricots- picked off the tree, cut in half and left out in the sun to dehydrate for a couple of days

same goes for our white peaches

and these were the surprise package of the season, dried cherries. We haven't done them before, they didn't take as long to dry and they are amazing- intense little mouthfuls of flavour. We will definitely do these next year.

Mr. Apple did most of these (I claim credit for the cherries!) , he's great at preserving. He cut the fruit in half, literally left it on our picnic table outside- no netting, nothing. In other years we have had birds have a bit of a go at the fruit as it was drying, but not this year. Ants weren't a problem either- maybe 8 days over 40 degrees (104 F) was too hot for the pests as well as me!
The apricots are quite a brown colour, not that pretty. Commerical dried apricots have sulphur and other things on them to keep their lovely orange colour, we choose not to do that- they might not look that pretty but the flavour is all there! These will be used in baking and school lunches and I reckon we have done enough to last until next season.
Now it's all about nectarines and plums and the last of the peaches at our place. 

Produced

See those quinces in my last post? This is what they look like now...

Turned to jelly...in bottles waiting to be labelled. The white flecks are the old label that I haven't cleaned off well enough- funny how you only notice some things when you see them in a photo!

I took this bottle outside, hoping to catch the amazing red colour in the photo, but haven't quite succeeded. It's so pretty! I'm in love with quince jelly- it was so easy to make and its a bit of a 'win/ win' because you can eat it like jam, on toast or whatever, and serve it as a condiment. Tonight we had it with roast lamb- I was trying not to ration everyone's portions being the first day, and all (as in- NO- we don't need to eat the whole bottle in one sitting!) 
There are plenty more quinces where they came from and I'm thinking there will be more quince jelly as well.

Tradition, expansion!

As usual, the tradition continues...

I did a bake up for my neighbours on Good Friday...7 visits this year. 

The year the old man down the road wasn't home when we visited (me and Miss 9, who was keen on the 'dropping off') . So we left them on his table (it's the county!). He appeared in our driveway about 30 minutes later with chocolate easter eggs for us. I think he's about 93...he's lovely- he said 'you're a very kind lady Karen' (my names not Karen!). I told one of my other neighbours that he'd dropped in eggs, and she smiled and said he'd mentioned looking forward to my hot cross buns! Gosh (lucky it IS a tradition!)- I felt chuffed, but also sort of, confronted- if he looks forward to my yearly hot cross buns, well, I could be alot 'kinder' than that. I resolve to visit him more than annually with home baked treats. 

The helpers chipped in again. I love having a tradition that they are so willing to participate in. This year I also baked an extra 5 dozen and gave my workmates some too, the helpers were happy to join in the delivering of these ones as well, fussy around with brown paper bags.

I reckon we did 11 dozen 'wheaties' and 2 dozen 'gluten frees'.
And guess what happened to me this morning?
My 'down the road' neighbour, who had just come off night shift got busy making hot cross buns when she got home and brought some up for me for morning tea- I tell you, that was the nicest hot cross bun I have tasted this Easter! She uses my recipe, but hers taste better, which is a little bit rude, I think!


I hope whatever you've been up to this weekend, you've had some nice things happen to you.

Many hands...

On the weekend (allow me to interrupt myself and say I feel like I am doing a grade 4 piece of 'reflective writing'  and that it should be Monday morning...but it's not)...as I was saying, on the weekend we had a crowd here and boy, were we productive.
Between us all (12 adults, 2 kids and 2 babies) we:

• picked two wheelbarrows full of butternut pumpkins
• picked and bottled about 40 kg of apples

• turned 13 1/2 litres of milk into feta cheese

• turned 7 litres into another soft white cheese 'queso blanco' (the link is not the recipe we used but similar, it's an easy peasy cheese that needs no special cultures or rennet, it's coagulated with vinegar. We experimented with both a basic white vinegar and apple cider vinegar- the latter worked better, I thought). Apparently it cooks quite well, I'd make it again as a cheese for ravioli, I reckon. The kids were happy to hook into it 'as is'.
• turned 3 1/2 litres into a soft white cheese called 'fromage blanc'. We added this one to a ravioli filling with roasted pumpkin, roasted garlic and sage. Ravioli is a great 'bang for your buck' pasta to make at home, I reckon. it's just flat sheets you make but add little tasty morsels, cut them out and they look just smashing (unfortunately eaten before a photo was taken!)

• Made bread- 3 loaves wheat flour, 1 loaf gluten free
• Made pasta- wheat flour ravioli and fettuccine, gluten free ravioli and fettuccine
• Vanilla ice cream

I had other 'big ideas' but I had a friend who was more sensible than me saying 'let's just see how we go'! I arrived at work yesterday and a colleague said 'gee, you look tired!'...I've been to bed early the past two nights and I'm planning to do the same tonight. I am not known for my ability to 'pace myself'! 

My blog 'by-line' is "crafty fun and the goodness of home economics".

I tell you, this weekend was all about the goodness of home economics. 

Good food (our food!), happy times, hard work, laughter, chatting  and a cider at 4pm on Sunday arvo with friends, tired but satisfied friends. They headed back to the city with cheese, apples, a fruit tree if they were lucky, herbs to pot up, garlic and memories of stars and lovely fresh air. 

I'm planning on heading down for my 'city fix' of lovely coffee, quirky cafes,  interesting sights, tram trips, city noises next week. I love Melbourne.

Pud

Christmas baking has commenced. I made over 50 of these for the volunteers at my work, boiled fruit cake made in muffin pans decorated to look like a pudding... not my usual kind of baking but they were well received. I also made gluten free mince pies, the filling was good (apparently, I don't eat the stuff) but I need to work on my gf sweet pastry. I have more to bake and sew before Christmas...I need to start a list! Sent from Yahoo!7 Mail on Android

Making

Mondays and Wednesdays are my usual 'work outside the home'days. It can mean that I get over excited about Tuesday and try and cram too many things in. I will initially think, ahh, Tuesday, I can take it easy abit, and then, I will start 'taking it easy' and that will lead to me creating a massive list in my head about all the things I want to do.

Take today for example, today is the first day we have a pretty decent crop of apricots to pick- so I think- 'great idea, I'll make jam'. The apricots are now picked (not by me, I probably should mention, in the interests of full disclosure!). They are now waiting to be washed, cut up and made into jam.

And then I remember that the fruit I have soaking in (3 different types of) grog is ready to mince and go on to the next step of my fruit mince tarts for Christmas. So I have made the pastry and minced the fruit...and walked outside and realised it's really hot (and look up the forecast and it's going to be 36 degrees). So that's as much of that as I am going to do today because I am NOT putting my oven on in this weather.

The natural thought progression then moves onto hot weather, inside, creative pursuits and I think, yep, today I will make progress on my list of things to make before Christmas. That might involve; a library bag, 3 more toiletry bags, 3 nighties,, and a few other things. There has been action in the sewing room, not of which I am ready to show because they are all presents and I forget which relatives read or know about my blog and don't want to pre-empt the gift giving. 
What I can show you though, is the 'was going to be a gift' dress, I saw the intended recipient on the weekend and I think it will be too small. This is the second Oliver and S 'Ice Cream Social' dress I have made.
I vaguely remember a few years ago there was an ice cream dress bloggy sew along, well, not out of character for me I am a late comer to this pattern. I really enjoyed sewing it, it was the first Oliver and S pattern I have made and I have just bought two more I liked it so much.
I liked that I understood what it was  telling me to do (sometimes took a few reads, or me to clarify it with my sewing 'help desk', but, for example once Karen cleverly advised me that I was looking at the wrong page and a good trick she finds is to follow the instructions in order!). When I had to match up notches, there they were, in the right spot.

I enjoyed the detail of the 'v' on the pocket, not too tricky at all (amazing what following instructions can do for you!). I hadn't done that before. 

These are not my preferred choice of fabrics and colours, but that's okay, because I wont be wearing it. I did it with the intended recipient in mind she likes butterflies, pink, yellow, girly, pretty things. I do find it much easier to sew with fabric I love though, colours I love. I mean, this was okay but wasn't my favourite.


On that note, I might go and get on with all the days 'making'...I possibly should include- make the dinner, make the clothes clean and dry and folded, make the place abit more presentable generally- but I don't find that making half as much fun!

Paddock to plate

I love those particularly abundant times of year when the garden is offering plenty. Especially when the plenty has a relatively short season (eg. asparagus) so we never feel the weight of 'what are we going to do with all these...insert name of vegie'. The short season means the produce isn't taken for granted. Berries and cherries are always pretty special too. If you ever wonder why raspberries can be expensive, spare a thought for the picker- and hope they are getting a decent cut of your money. They a little, fragile and tricky to pick compared to many of the larger most robust fruits. Paddock to plate in under 10 minutes. Nice. Sent from Yahoo!7 Mail on Android

Citrus season

Our citrus trees are full on at the moment, one particular orange tree is my favourite. 
Ages ago, I got a bit inspired to make marmalade

 and this lot of mandarins, tangelos, lemons, and oranges turned into quite a few of these

there are considerably less jars now than when I first made them, two people in this household are particularly fond of marmalade, it would seem!
I like making jam and preserves, I like that the abundance of the season can be spread over the year. I still have quite a few blackberries in the freezer from Summer, I have been adding them to cakes, muffins and smoothies throughout the year. This year we didn't bottle enough tomatoes to last us the whole year and now we've run out. I don't like having to buy tinned tomatoes, doesn't feel quite right.