Tag Archives: mulberries

Birthday Lunch & Harvest Time

2 Comments

I mentioned in my last post that I had been cooking.

We hosted lunch on Sunday for GMan’s birthday. There were 17 of us altogether and I did almost all of the preparation beforehand.

Here is a list of what we ate.

NIBBLES

Raisins
Spiced peanuts*
Dips – beetroot, tzatziki, hummus*
Cheese – brie
Biscuits – water crackers, GF crackers, pita chips

HOT SNACKS

Mini meatballs*
Kofta balls*
Potato wedges*

Sour cream
Tomato sauce*

MAINS

Green chicken curry*
Beef casserole*
Rice

DESSERT

Mulberry and apple crumble*
Ice cream
Cream

The spiced peanuts and tomato sauce are homemade pantry items and wedges were made on the day but everything else that I made was prepared in advance and either refrigerated or frozen. This made for relatively easy catering.

There are very few photos, however, here are a couple from when I was making the dessert.

I retrieved about 1kg of mulberries that had been in the freezer since December. I think we picked and froze about 6kg. It is great to have them to use at other times.

The mulberries and apple combined and ready to be refrigerated. I made the crumble topping and froze it. I assembled the crumbles and popped them in the oven on the day.

It is great to eat seasonal produce but it is fairly easy to store some things for a treat in the off season. It is difficult to imagine this mulberry tree laden with fruit but that is exactly what it will be like in another 4 months. It is in a public space in our town and the fruit is appreciated by many.

Meanwhile, there is abundance of citrus everywhere at the moment. These grapefruit were being given away.

So, I made more marmalade. That should keep GMan supplied with breakfast condiments until next winter.

Christmas Crumble

Leave a comment

Fruit crumble is one of my favourite desserts but is not usually on the Christmas menu.

This year I am preparing lunch for 3 adults on what looks like being a cool and rainy day despite the fact that it is the middle of summer.

I have plenty of cooking apples and an abundance of frozen mulberries so we will be having apple and mulberry crumble with ice-cream for dessert on Christmas Day.

CRUMBLE TOPPING

Ingredients

1 cup coconut
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup plain flour (I use gluten-free flour)
1/2 cup flaxseed meal
2 teaspoons golden syrup
2 teaspoons powdered cinnamon
2 teaspoons powdered ginger
2 teaspoons powdered mixed spice
90g butter

Combine all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the syrup and mix through. Finely shave the butter and rub through the dry ingredients using your fingertips.

Spread the crumble mixture on top of your favourite stewed fruit and cook in oven or airfryer until the topping is lightly browned and crisp.

NOTES: This is a large quantity as I freeze any excess for future use so you may wish to halve the amounts. I only use real butter as it needs to be very firm (not spreadable) for this recipe.

Berrylicious

Leave a comment

We have grown raspberries in two previous gardens. In South Australia we had a few canes but barely managed to pick any fruit as our dog at the time loved fruit and would help herself. Even the prickly stems didn’t seem to slow her down. At our last home in Queensland we did pick some fruit but the biggest problem was the actual bushes which spread rampantly and were a lot of trouble for the relatively small harvest.

When we moved here there was a small clump of raspberry canes against the back fence. I honestly wondered whether they would be worth the effort after our previous experiences. We had not made any decisions when, a couple of months ago, we suddenly noticed that the canes were absolutely laden with small green fruit. A couple of weeks ago we tasted a couple of raspberries but they were not quite ready. Today we picked the first decent harvest. 560g of fresh ripe raspberries.

Ice cream and raspberries for dessert tonight.

Raspberries are not the only berries around at the moment. There is a massive mulberry tree on council land in the middle of town so we and others have been collecting mulberries. It is a messy business and my hands have a distinct purple hue but it is worth it for the 5kg I have picked so far. About 800g went into making a mulberry and apple crumble for a BBQ dinner we had on the weekend. We got 12 serves from it and it was very well received. The remainder of the mulberries have been washed, destalked and frozen in 250g bags. I will check the tree again early next week and see if there are any more ripened.