glut of produce | organised castle

When choosing this title I noticed that I had used it before in 2021 – except that it was in early November. It is now late summer here and everything seems to be ripening in abundance so we are fully occupied making sure that none of it goes to waste.

Here are a few of the things we have been doing in the past few days.

When we moved here we inherited two espaliered nashi pear trees which have borne prolifically. We did not net them so the parrots have enjoyed quite a feast but we have still managed to pick several hundred fruit. Once we discovered that we really like the fruit stewed, GMan has made it his mission to peel and slice the seemingly never-ending supply and the freezer is full of containers of stewed nashi which we will enjoy in the coming months.

It is now about 6 weeks since I picked the first of our zucchini and I been managing to use them at pretty much the same rate as we were picking them until the last few days. So, today I made zucchini slice. I have been trialling making them in individual serves in the airfryer for some time now and am happy that I have finally got the amended measurements and cooking times right. I will post an amended recipe in the next blog post.

I also grated several extra zucchini and have them packed in bags of 200g in the freezer for future zucchini slice making.

Meanwhile, the tomato sauce was simmering on the stove.

This was the result.

I made another of my experimental versions of basil pesto and am pretty happy with this one. Almonds instead of pine nuts. Some grated zucchini mixed with the basil makes it milder flavoured. Nutritional yeast rather than cheese makes it dairy-free, vegan and reduces the cholesterol. Yes, minimising the cholesterol intake is going to be more of a feature of my cooking in the future. I also add the juice of half a lemon as it makes it a bit less oily.

The bumper harvest has not been confined to just our garden and our neighbour’s. I picked up a bag of plums from a roadside giveaway earlier in the week. I stewed these and have some each morning on my cereal.

Processing gluts of home-grown, gifted or foraged produce can be time-consuming but it is a worthwhile activity which helps to minimise the amount of food going to waste.

Six months ago, while we were overseas, our housesitters bought a small pot of basil as it was actually cheaper than buying a bunch of basil. When we arrived home I planted it in the ground. It is now doing its best to take over the garden!!

I took this photo yesterday morning. The rain had finally stopped and the sun was shining. You can see the ‘lake’ in the background.

I knew it was collapsing everywhere so I had intended to cut it right back and use as much of the leaves as possible. When I got closer I discovered that the bees were loving the flowers so I could not destroy their fun so I have left the flowers and just picked lots of leaves. Mind you, it is hardly noticeable where I picked them from.

I could afford to be picky so I chose only the best leaves and rinsed them thoroughly.

Then spun them in the salad spinner. As an aside, I only bought this quite recently as I had never really seen the need for one. After seeing my sister use hers, I realised that a salad spinner could be quite handy and I was delighted to find one at Aldi soon after. It cost the princely sum of $6.99.

Next step was to chop the basil in the food processor.

I had about 2/3 can of chopped tomatoes in the fridge so that was added to the mix.

Then I used a small spoon to fill ice-cube trays with the basil and tomato mixture.

Finally, I double-bagged the trays in re-used bread bags and sealed them tightly before putting them in the freezer. The basil blocks will be useful for when there is no basil growing.