Davidson plums | organised castle

We arrived home from holidays last Friday afternoon and in next to no time we were back into building up our food supplies.

Our kitchen overlooks the vegetable garden and I could a sea of red cherry tomatoes rambling everywhere. This, coupled with the fact that we had almost entirely depleted our stock of tomato sauce (ketchup) meant that this was a high priority on my ‘to do’ list.

The recipe for the sauce is here.

I made another batch of gluten free pizza bases. I make 6 at a time and freeze them ready for an easy meal.

Recipe for the pizza bases is here.

GMan got in on the act and restocked his homemade sourdough bread.

Finally, I picked a bucketful of Davidson plums from our tree (indigenous tropical fruit) and made what I regard as the best jam in the world.

I have included links to the recipes for the tomato sauce and pizza bases.

I will do full posts about the jam and sourdough in the not too distant future.

Also, don’t forget to check the recipe index on the blog. The link to the page is ‘Recipes – Food’ at the top of the blog.

I have a large stainless steel stockpot that lives in the back corner of the pantry on the floor. It usually gets dragged out a few times a year.

Yesterday was one of those days as I decided to make a large batch of pumpkin and celery soup. This may sound like an odd combination but I find the sharpness of homegrown celery that has been growing for several months provides a nice balance to the sweetness of our pumpkins.

I ended up with 18 serves of soup – 2 for dinner and the rest to go in the freezer.

Today I continued with my bulk food preparation by making jam with the 3kg of Davidson plums which I had picked over the past few weeks and stored in the freezer. I ended up with 3.95kg of jam. Davidson plums are a relatively rare Australian native fruit which grows on a rainforest tree in a fairly narrow distribution in northern NSW and south-east Queensland. Therefore, the jam commands a premium price. I compared 3 different brands online and found that the average price per kilo is about $81 which makes my haul worth over $320!!

I also boiled up the seeds and then strained them to make cordial. A splash in a glass of soda water makes a refreshing drink.

Finally, I raided the freezer again for some cherry tomatoes and made a batch of tomato sauce (ketchup). While nowhere near as valuable as the jam, the sauce is a whole other level beyond the commercially produced tomato sauce. The recipe is here.