Fruit pies

Long time no blog, not even a Zucchini Tuesday, I have been busy.  I have been away from hearth and internet doing courses on being a farmer, grazing cattle, keeping chooks and  building soil and have come back with my head swirling and full of ideas (and just think, some of my workmates thought that I'd be bored here).

On my way home I couldn't resist a little gleaning. Whizzing down the Hume I saw many trees laden with fruit, very few of them with a handy spot to stop close by. But on the Sydney side of Goulburn there was a perfect spot for gleaning. There were two apple trees dotted with rosy fruit near a handy layby so in no time at all I had collected a large basket full.

On arriving home I found that we had 4 enormous bowls of peaches waiting for me. Beautiful orange skinned ones  -  all cling stone and with very little blush. Despite nightly wallaby raids, there was still ample fruit for the wallaby and us.

My immediate thought on dealing with the glut? Fruit pies, so I got skinning the peaches and stewing them,

and stewing the apples, and with the assistance of the Lad's masterful pastry hands I had made 12 beautiful fruit pies - 6 peach pies with stars,

and 6 apple pies with flowers.

They have a rich shortcrust on the bottom and flaky on top. They are pretty good...

Now my problem is, how to eat them all.

Oh and now the Wallaby visits in daylight hour as well as in the evening. He is quite an old male wallaby with tattered ears and a fat tummy!

So that's 2 of the 4 bowls full of peaches dispatched, not sure what to do with the remainder. You can't eat that many peaches fresh.... I have lots of jam put away already and don't need any more and I have already a stash stewed in the freezer for winter eating and a jars of peach chutney -  any suggestions?

And I also have 3/4 of a basket of apples  to dispatch!

Gleeful gleaning

I have been at it again - gleaning fruit. On the way back from a trip to the 'Waste Recovery Centre' (such a polite phrase), I spied it  - a tree with yellow-orange fruit.  Hmm, ripe apricots I thought and we did a 'u-ee' and climbed the steep grassy slope between the tree and the roadside. There on the side of the road was not an apricot, but a lovely yellow plum. Again the hat was deployed as picking bag.

The fruit were tiny again, just like the last glean of plums. They were totally ripe and a wonderful combo of sweetness and tartness.  I picked only a small amount - the tree was quite small and this is enough anyway, leave some for others and the birds I say.

But what to make? - they needed to be cooked right away so ripe they were. I decided to stew them but, because they were so small, I decided to stew them right down into a purée.

Normally I like chunks in my stewed fruit but cooking it right down made it easier to remove the pips and the skins. I  now have about 3 cups of this golden essence of yellow plum now tucked away in the freezer for an upside-down pudding  for winter warming.

Now I know I should be very grateful for whatever fruit I find on my gleaning trips, but I am looking forward to finding an apricot or a nectarine soon -  I have to keep looking.

Pilfered plums

Today we pilfered plums. Well, maybe not pilfered - gleaned.

Along the side of public roads in our area and on no-one in particular's land, there are a multitude of different wild fruit trees. They are stoic souls - they sit un-tendered, un-fertilised and un-pruned, un-watered and survive droughts and neglect and produce. So far, on our occasional journeys to the local little smoke, we have spotted figs, apples, plums, apricots and others we know are fruit trees but right now we are not sure which type. All results of a little stone tossing from the car window?

Today we came across a plum tree loaded with ripe fruit. The fruit was small -  so small in fact that at first glance I thought we had happened upon a cherry tree. On closer inspection we were equally delighted to find the tree laden with ripe, red, tart plums. I like my fruit tart.

We gleaned about 3 kgs in my hat partly (which thankfully happens to be plum coloured), but also in one of our shopping bags. We left plenty for others and also for the birds.

On return home, I contemplated the options - eating them fresh?,  plum jam?, a spicy plum sauce to eat with cold meats? stewed plums for stashing and having hot  in winter? I went for a spicy plum sauce and pretty much made a recipe up.

It was a crazy day to make anything hot let alone a jammy sauce - it was 35C here today and is still at 7pm, 30C. I didn't take note of quantities (except for the weight of the plums), but here is what went in it.

Spicy pilfered plum sauce
plums
sugar
onion
garlic
tomatoes
apple grated
lemon rind grated
cider vinegar
a few over ripe peaches that needed using up
pepper corns
coriander seeds
mustard seeds
ground cumin
ground ginger
ground cinnamon
dried chilli flakes
cloves

The plums were so small that it was best not to try to extract the pips before cooking, rather I put it all ingredients in a saucepan and cooked till the fruit fell off the pip then laboriously took the pips out of the cooked mixture - I suspect I have missed a few -  take care teeth.

Here is the result.

That's a lot of spicy plum sauce so some of it might become post-Christmas gifts.

Do you know the best thing about today's adventure? I couldn't find a fruit fly maggot - perhaps we are fruit fly free here.

Do you glean? What are you gleaning at the moment? What trees are you eyeing-off for a future raid?