I came across this video about 2 or 3 years ago and started making my own butter (every now and then) because of it.
I always though butter churning was a laborious task, but really it’s a piece of cake!
Make sure your cream has an expiry date with in a week of purchase. Some cream will have like 3 weeks on it. If it is, it’s over pasturised and will NEVER be butter.
Recipe - Foolproof Lemon Curd
This is someting I remember as being the only thing from my childhood that my Mum could make really well, consistently!
Unfortunately, I am not as gifted. I end up with lumps of cooked egg all through it.
Then I found this:
http://www.finecooking.com/articles/foolproof-lemon-curd-method.aspx
I am so trying this next week!
Recipe - Mays Pumpkin Curd
This is a recipe from a book that I have posted a picture of before (last week) called The National Trust Book of The Country Kitchen Store Cupboard.
(This one):
This recipe has intrigued me since I got the book, and I’ve been dying to try it ever since. Well, this week I finally got my wish!
Ingredients:
450g (1lb) chopped (cubed) pumpkin
450g castor sugar
2 or 3 eggs (depending on size)
The juice of 2 large lemons
Method:
Boil the pumpkin until soft and mash til smooth. Beat eggs and add to the pumpkin with the sugar. Juice the lemon (and grate the rind if you want to add it. I didn’t) and add to pumpkin mixture. Stir continuously over a low heat until the curd is thick, and pour in to warm jars.
I didn’t really know exactly how thick ‘thick’ was, so I went by guess work.
This recipe only makes 1 and a 1/2 jam jars of curd, so I made 2 lots, but will probably make more! It has a pumpkin-y texture but a really nice light flavour.
I really like it anyway. =).
Beetroot Bottling (easy recipe)
I found a couple of recipes on the net and crossed them over. This is what I came up with.
Boil your beetroot until soft enough to stick a fork tine through, strain into a colander (saving the liquid), and leave for about 15mins.
Remove the skins (this ‘ll be easy, they come off in your hands pretty much).
Slice them (1/4 inch thick-ish) or dice them, and roughly measure them before you put them in really, really clean jars (you need to know how many cups of cooked beetroot you have).
Then, for every cup of cooked beetroot you will need:
1/3 Cup Vinegar
1/4 Cup Sugar
1/4 Cup Beetroot Water (the water you saved from boiling them)
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
Bring them to the boil in a good sized pot, and keep it boiling for about 5mins.
Take it off the element and ladle carefully over the cooked beetroot in the jars.
Place the seal and ring on firmly, and turn the jars upside-down to cool over night on a tea towel. If the seal is depressed in the middle in the morning, label it and put it away. If not, take the ring and seal off and re-heat everything anyway you feel like (you can microwave it if you really want) and leave to cool upside-down again.
Preserving- (the easiest way I know)
Early last week I bottled some black boy peaches. I have the easiest recipe ever for bottling fruit and I’d feel mean not sharing it.
I used half sized jars this time, but I used full size (1 litre) jars last year and the year before.
Prepare your fruit how ever you like it (halved, sliced, skin on or off),
Pack your jars (I pack them quite tight),
Put an 8th of a cup of sugar in each jar (a quarter of a cup or large jars),
Fill each jar with tap water up to the base of the screw rim and try to get out as many bubbles as possible.
Place the seal and ring on your jars and put them in the preserver,
Fill with cold water, put the lid on, and bring up to boiling,
Let them boil for 45 mins,
Take the jars out and let them cool on the bench (on a dish towel) over night.
Label and store for at least 3 months.
If you don’t have a preserver, don’t despair! I didn’t use to either. Place a dinner plate in the bottom of a good size pot so your jars don’t come in direct contact with the pot base. Put your jars on top of the plate, and process as in recipe. The likely hood of your jars cracking and breaking will be lessened by LOTS AND LOTS.
When you take the jars out you may see sugar sitting on the bottom of the jars. Don’t worry about it, by the time they are fully cooled off it would have dissolved.
=).
The Jam
Last week I posted a really easy jam recipe. Well…. It’s awesome! I couldn’t wait to make more!
I’m still not sure what the butter does in the recipe. I don’t know if it has some vital role to play, or if it’s a conspiracy to make me buy more dairy products!
The first one I made was what I eventually called “Homeberry Jam’, since all the berries that went into it were from our garden. (I made the labels from vintage wallpaper (2x3 inches) and ordinary blank paper from the computer printer (1.5x2.5 inches) and a glue stick).
Then I made plum jam out of a whole bunch of plums that a friend of Bry’s gave us!
And today, I made peach and rhubarb jam! (Still too hot to put labels on)!
We have 4 peach trees on the property. 2 yellow type peaches, and 2 Blackboy peaches. With the heavy winds in Christchurch this summer/autumn, we’ve lost almost all of the yellow peaches. The ones that were on tha ground and not too yucky I cut the good parts off and used in this jam. I was determined to get something from those peaches!
The jam family to date:
The Garden
Some of the things I’ve enjoyed in the garden were the beans. They are easy to grow, can be pretty prolific, and are easy to dry and store.
These are some of the Blue De Coco, Green, and Borlotti beans out of our garden. I tied them in bunches of 3 about 2 inches apart on a piece of string, and then just hang them somewhere dry (these are on my lounge wall).
When the pods are dry, they look like this only even more so and they feel really papery.
After that you can pod them (which is really easy), and store them in a jar. This is what I have so far from what has fully dried already.
You can dry chillies the same way!
(Sorry for the bad photo’s. It’s a really bad day outside).
