You may remember this post from about a month ago. I bought 3 rather large tins of crushed tomatoes. I made sure that I had a plan for how to use/store nearly 3kg of crushed tomatoes once the can was opened. This is important to make sure that nothing goes to waste.
I opened one a couple of days ago and used 2 cups of it in a dish I was making. The remainder are now frozen in quantities which are a similar size to a regular 400g can of tomatoes.
Basil grows easily here during the summer and sometimes I am organised enough to make and freeze some pesto for use throughout the year.
However, I bought a large (800g) can of basil pesto a few weeks ago when I spotted it at Cheaper Buy Miles when were in Melbourne. There are several of these stores, predominantly in inner suburbs of Melbourne, where you can buy an amazing array of short-dated items.
Here is an image from their website.
You never know quite what you will find so it is quite an adventure. They often have a good selection of gluten-free and vegan foods, too.
Anyway, back to the basil pesto. I bought a 800g tin for $6 and based on the average price per 100g of basil pesto at Woolworths it is worth about $20!!
Of course, it can be quite daunting as to what to do with this kind of bulk quantity. I used some to make a creamy basil pesto and mushroom pasta dish for dinner the other night then I portioned the rest up in ice-cube trays and froze it.
I now have a bag of frozen cubes of basil pesto which will thaw quickly and easily for a multitude of uses.
The last week of May ran away while I wasn’t looking so welcome to a new month and the first official day of winter here in the southern hemisphere.
Towards the end of last year I picked a good crop of garlic that I grew. In fact, I harvested 1.7kg of garlic. I have replanted some, given some away and used it as required for the past 6 months. There was still a substantial quantity left so I decided to make my own garlic salt.
I spent a good few hours carefully peeling and thinly slicing the cloves.
Here they are laid out on the racks and ready to go in the dehydrator.
15 hours later the pieces were dry and crunchy. Here is some of the results.
I then ground the dried garlic pieces to a powder and mixed them with an equal weight of salt.
This is the 300g of garlic salt which I now have ready to use in cooking as needed.
Although it was a fairly time-consuming project, I feel that this was definitely worthwhile.
It almost 2 years since I wrote this post with a recipe for pumpkin soup. After a long, hot summer we are finally experiencing some slightly cooler days.
Like all of my cooking escapades there is plenty of room for variation. A couple of days ago GMan was baking a couple of loaves of sourdough bread so I decided to make use of the oven being on to roast the pumpkin while the oven was heating up to the temperature required for the bread.
Pumpkin wedges brushed with a mix of balsamic syrup and olive oil.
After roasting the skin peels off easily.
A pot of deliciousness.
We had soup for dinner and there were another 10 serves to go in the freezer for future meals.
It was a productive kitchen day as I had also made a new batch of spreadable butter, deyhdrated the pumpkin seeds and some root ginger which had been in the freezer for a couple of years and GMan made the bread.
I have been occupied with some non-blogworthy business so not a lot to share at the moment.
However, the dehydrator has been working overtime as I dried a couple of lots of sliced nashi pears. This has been a raging success and I will definitely be some more over the next few days. The pile of fruit spread on the dining table is gradually reducing.
This is what they look like.
More importantly they taste absolutely delicious.
We went out to lunch with friends today and had our main meal so didn’t need too much for dinner. I did not take a photo but we had a small platter of crackers, dip, camembert cheese and the dried pears which was very tasty indeed.
It is that time of the year when everything seems to be ripening at once. I have a nectarine tree but no other stone fruit, however, there are plums aplenty around town and I have received some from 3 different sources in the last week so today I made jam using 3.4kg of plums.
This is the result.
These were the first batch of plums I was given. They don’t look much but have a lovely flavour and beautiful deep red flesh.
Since having an airfryer I have discovered that it is a relatively quick and easy way to sterilise the jars and lids rather than having to turn the oven on. That is definitely a consideration on a day like today when the forecast temperature was 37C (98.6F).
However, it was not all plain sailing as I had a calamity with the second batch of jars. Thankfully there were only 4 of them but they came to grief when I managed to catch the handle of airfryer with my oven mitt and send the contents flying across the kitchen floor. One jar broke but that was all. GMan kindly swept up the broken glass while I retrieved the remainder and the lids, re-washed them and started the process again.
The other job was somewhat simpler than jam-making as I had some gifted oranges to juice. It is the first time I have had fresh orange juice since we moved here which has been a bit of a shock after having what seemed like an endless supply from the 3 trees we had in our previous garden.
Finally, we were delighted to record 42mm of rain in a series of thunderstorms overnight. It has given the garden a welcome soaking during what has been several weeks of fairly hot, dry weather.
Late autumn is well and truly upon us and in fact the apparent temperature at 7am this morning was -0.3C. This is the first time I have seen it dip below 0C this year. However, it is beautiful and sunny with a forecast maximum of 18C today so it seemed like a good time to head out to the garden and get stuck into some jobs.
First up was planting the sweet peas which I had nurtured from seed. They had been outdoors overnight for the past couple of weeks to acclimatise and harden off before planting.
There was a fish pond in the back garden when we moved here last year. Actually, our first year anniversary in this house was last Friday. Anyway, the fish pond has been dismantled and the area is going to be a herb garden. However, I have seconded a strip at the back for the sweet peas. The main reason is because there is a paling fence with chicken wire on the inside which will be a perfect trellis for the sweet peas.
Next were the lettuce seedlings which had come up self-sown from some plants that went to seed last year. I have about 30 of varying sizes. I will keep some and plan to sell some punnets of lettuce seedlings at the next LETS market.
Last weekend I bought a large pot containing several rhubarb crowns from LETS. I divided them today and added to the single rhubarb plant which I have had for several months. This bed will hopefully become an abundance of rhubarb in time.
Finally, the brassica seedlings seem to be almost doubling in size overnight. I have now covered this bed with fine netting to keep the would-be predators away.
I am happy with what I achieved in a couple of hours this morning and look forward to reaping the rewards of food to eat and beautiful flowers in the coming months.
I recently encountered a new ‘problem’. Here in central Victoria the weather had definitely turned quite cool. Summer is well and truly behind us and I was left with an abundance of green tomatoes. This never happened in Queensland as tomatoes literally ripened all the year round.
It was time to remove the tomato bushes so that we could reuse the garden bed so I harvested the tomatoes and found that I could use them to make chutney.
The first step was to wash them thoroughly.
I then sliced the tomatoes and layered them with the diced onion and sprinkled with salt. Then I covered the bowls and left them to stand overnight.
This morning it was time to make the chutney.
GREEN TOMATO CHUTNEY
Ingredients
2.5kg green tomatoes, sliced
500g onions, finely diced
1 tablespoon salt
500g sultanas
500g sugar
500g apples, peeled, cored and chopped
1100ml vinegar, I used half white vinegar and half apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
30g ground allspice
30g ground cloves
Combine all ingredients in a large stockpot/preserving pan. Simmer gently for about 3 hours. I used a stick blender sparingly to mash the tomatoes a bit more. I kept the pot covered for about 2 hours and then removed the lid for the final hour.
The mixture should be rich, thick and caramel coloured.
Spoon into hot, sterilised jars. This recipe yielded 12 jars so the pantry will be well-stocked.
A couple of weeks ago I successfully made baked beans which GMan declared were better than the ones out of a can. Some years ago I had attempted to make them but they were really not that great. This time I was armed with more experience and a video I had chanced upon as a starting point. However, I did adapt it somewhat to suit myself.
I have made another batch and made notes of the quantities and method as well as taken several photos so that I can share the recipe with you.
BAKED BEANS
Ingredients
1kg dry white beans
Olive oil
3 medium onions, finely diced
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 capsicum (pepper), diced
700ml tomato passata
250ml water
1 tablespoon treacle
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
3 – 4 teaspoons smoky paprika
1 – 2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
Method
Place the beans in a large bowl and cover with boiling water (about 5cm above the level of the beans). Soak for several hours or overnight. The beans will swell but will still be quite hard. Transfer the beans and water to a slow cooker and add a bit more water. Cook on high for several hours until tender but not mushy.
Saute the diced onion in a little oil in a large pan. Cook gently on a low heat so that they soften but are barely coloured. Add the garlic and capsicum and continue cooking. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer gently until well-cooked and the desired flavour.
Add the drained beans to the sauce and combine thoroughly but do not break the beans up too much. Allow to stand and cool so that the beans absorb the flavour of the sauce.
Heat, eat and enjoy.
I choose to freeze the prepared beans which works really well. This is the results from the recipe above. The small dish will be my lunch today.
Notes
This is a large quantity – you can reduce the amounts.
I used Great Northern beans but you could use navy beans, canellini beans or whatever you prefer.
You could used canned beans if you wish. I prefer to use dried beans as they cost less and there is the added benefit of minimal packaging, especially if you buy them from bulk bins.
The tomato mixture could be pureed fresh or canned tomatoes or whatever you have on hand. You can also include some tomato paste for a more intense depth of flavour.
The original recipe used bacon but I choose to use smoky paprika to replicate the flavour and keep this recipe meat-free.
Add the seasonings gradually to account for your personal taste.
I used a couple of capsicums from the garden but regular red ones are fine, too.
I substituted rosemary salt for half of the salt.
I also added 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce and 1/4 cup of my homemade tomato sauce to make it a little spicier.
In other words, this is a basic recipe and you can adjust it to suit your personal taste.
After my previous post it is back to the things we do ourselves.
Today I picked up a couple of large grapefruit at our local LETS market. I have sliced them finely and am soaking them overnight and I will make some marmalade tomorrow. Grapefruit marmalade is GMan’s favourite so another jar or two is always a welcome addition to the pantry.
In the past I would have draped a tea towel over the bowl to cover the soaking fruit but I am using this cute fabric bowl cover which is simply a circle of fabric with an elasticised edge. It was a gift from a friend in Maleny and was made by one of the members of WAM (Waste Action Maleny). I was part of the group when we lived there so it was lovely to receive this gift.
Marmalade goes on toast and GMan was particularly proud of his latest loaves of sourdough. We have been here for almost 12 months and in that time he has been unable to replicate his best efforts but we both think that these are as good as any he has made.
The satisfaction in cooking, doing, making, building or repairing something yourself is immeasurable.
organised castle 