Feijoa Chutney!!!

What to do with all that fruit? As winter deepens and the fruit becomes expense it’s nice to have a little bit of fruit tucked away in the cupboards for warm winter deserts and breakfasts!

A couple of weeks ago I set about turning the 10kg  of Feijoas (minus the frozen ones nabbed by my flatmates for smoothies 🙂 ) into something preservable!

I settled for Feijoa Chutney!

I fiddled around with the recipe and unfortunately I didn’t record the exact recipe, next time I will though, promise!

Here is the recipe I based it off though and it’s Edmonds so it’s tried and true!

2kg apples/tamarillos/plums/feijoas peeled, cored, stoned and chopped.

500g onions

2 cups raisins

1 clove garlic – crushed

4 cups brown sugar (I quite severely reduced this)

2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cloves or mixed spice

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

4 cups malt vinegar (I also reduced this to taste)

Put fruit, onion, raisins, garlic, sugar, salt, cloves and cayenne pepperinto a perservingpan. Add enough vinegar to almost cover. Stir well. Boil gently with frequent stirring for 2 hours or until chutney is thick and jam like. Pack into sterilised jars.

Makes about 6x350ml jars.

Hooray!

Baking with Boys

Kia ora beautiful nanatech followers!

Okay, so two things. Baking doesn’t always have to be sweet, and baking doesn’t always mean You bake and Boys eat it.
A firm believer of both, (having baked with my little brother loads) this week it was my mission to make Amazing savoury muffins! And I was lucky enough to enjoy this with a boy too!

So! I highly recommend this recipe, with a few adjustments:

¾ cups grated cheese

2 cups plain flour

4 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

pinch cayenne pepper

1 tsp mustard powder

1 egg, beaten

50g butter, melted

½ cups milk

1 zucchini

½ pepper (red green yellow or mixture)

couple of mushrooms

couple of brocolli florets

1) sift dry ingredients into bowl and stir to combine
2) add cheese and vegetables
3) stir in egg, butter and milk just to combine
4) spoon into greased muffins trays
5) bake 200°C for 15 mins or until golden

Improvements that the boy and I decided could be made:
Bake for longer (or make them smaller than normal muffins)
Add cheese on top near the end of the cooking to melt (mmmmm)
Add half an onion
Add 2 spring onions
Add sliced sundried tomato
Make sure you use Red Capsicum (cause its more colourful and sweeter!)
Add a cup of corn
Add your favourite spices 🙂

And of course, you can make them dairy and gluten free really easily by buying gluten free flour and using marge instead of butter and soy milk instead of milk.

Mmmmm, perfect for a winter time treat!
Definitely worth trying this one!
Aroha, warm socks and a gush of hot oven air from your nanablogger
Chelsea

Autumn’s a coming

Autumn is on it’s way…and that means preserving time again!

I have been busy away in my kitchen, working for 6 hours straight some days to preserve cheap fruit from the market.

So far we’ve got

Pasta Sauce

Plum and Apple Jam

Strawberry Jam

Black Doris Plum Jam

Savoury Peach Chutney

Bottled Peaches

Bottled Apricots

Lemonade

and we have big plans for more bottling, tomato sauce, pickles and blueberry mead!

In tune with the season, this posts recipe is for Black Doris Plum jam, the BD plums will be just finishing now so it’s the best time to get the last of the season.

2kg Black Doris Plums, halved and stoned

1 1/2 cups water

7 cups sugar

Put plums and water into a preserving pan. Boil until soft and pulpy. Add sugar and stir until disolved. Boil for at least 15 minutes but most likely more. Pour into sterilised jars.

To test if the jam will set:

Once the sugar has been added to the mix, place a saucer in the fridge, after 15-20min take the saucer out. Using a spoon dollop some mix onto the plate and leave near an open window to cool slightly, run your finger through the jam mix, when the mix parts cleanly and the surface wrinkles, the jam will set. If the jam doesn’t do this then rinse the plate and put back in the fridge to try again in 1o minutes.

To sterilise jars:

Rinse jars in hot soapy water, place in the oven at 120degree C for 20 minutes, leaving the door ajar to let them cool slightly (put hot hot jars in a cold metal sink will cause them to shatter). Boil the lids for 5 minutes to sterilise.

Makes 6-8 jam jars full.

* Basic recipe care of Edmonds Cook Book.