Lemon, dill and pepper

It's been a lemon, dill and pepper sort of week.

I've been on a mission to use up a stash of lemons kindly given to me by a neighbour and I also have a good crop of dill. And the pepper?  Well of course I don't grow my own pepper (although I wonder if it's possible here?), but it's just one of my favourite spices, no, it's my favourite spice -  the only one I can't do without.

What have I been making? I'm making limoncello,

Lemon peel steeping in vodka

I've made a lemon cake,

and I've marinated some home-made feta in lemon, dill, pepper and olive oil.

 I'm making pecorino cheese, unfortunately the pepper seems to have clustered!

Curds before being weighed down

 and tonight's dinner is a lemon, dill and smoked salmon pasta dish.

Yum.

Old citrus and new

Those who know of my Sydney garden via this blog will know that I am in mourning, in mourning for my fabulous citrus trees that I had to leave behind. My Sydney garden had a large lemon tree that kept us supplied year round and two wonderful espaliered Tahitian Limes. When we left Sydney for our bush life, the only citrus I could take with me was my finger lime, Colette, who was in a big pot.

So what's the citrus situation at the new patch?

First my 'old' citrus, Colette (that's her variety) the finger lime. After many false starts where flowers appeared and fruit set but soon fell off, I finally have fruit that has stayed on and swelled.

There are about 8 fruit forming now, there would have been 9 but the wallaby ate one (yeah, yeah, the dog ate my homework... but it's true, it's true!).

Finger limes are Australian natives and are typically under-story shrubs in the rainforested areas of northern NSW and further north.  They come in all sorts of wonderful colours, Colette has dark green to black skin with lime green citrus bubbles inside. I can't wait till these fruit are ready to pick.

My biggest worry with Colette is that she is totally unsuited to our climate which is a Mediterranean climate with frosts through winter (I need to get a frost cloth or keep her on the verandah when it gets cold).

And my new citrus? Well, I have only just started buying the plants I want to put in but here are my first three new citrus babies.

This is a Minneola Tangelo. Tangelos are a cross between a mandarin and a grapefruit.  Fancy that, been buying the fruit for years and never knew that. This kind of tangelo has a 'neck' to the top of the fruit which gives them quite a distinctive look.

Apparently they are more cold tolerant than grapefruit but they are not frost tolerant... hmmm, maybe I have made a mistake in buying this one?   However others living around the area  all say that they grow citrus of many sorts successfully apparently once they are established they don't 'feel the cold', so the trick appears to be nursing them through the first few winters.

They do need long hot summers to allow the fruit to ripen  and we certainly have those. They have about the same drought tolerance as oranges which is quite high.

Underneath the bagged baby citrus is some of my rocket crop.

This is a  Seedless Valencia Orange.
Apparently they are later fruiting than many oranges but otherwise similar to Valencias.

Oranges of all sorts can cope with really hot temps over summer (we can provide that!), but vary in their cold tolerance.

Tucked underneath and also in pots are two blueberries, a comfrey plant and in the ground a baby Drum head red cabbage.























And my third baby new citrus is an Imperial Mandarin. Here she is standing imperially in her bag over the Drum head red cabbages and the tiny recently emerged sugar snap pea babies. It has much thinner leaves than the other two citrus.

Apparently mandarins tolerate the cold a lot better than oranges, apparently Ellendale is the most frost-tolerant and I might go on the hunt for that variety too.

I have been waiting for the weather to cool down a little before putting them into the ground, but am really confused about where to put them. Citrus will do better when warmed by a north-facing wall so I might wait until some of our sheds are installed, or I could tuck them around the protection of the peach trees...

Anyone out there have experience of growing citrus in frosty areas? Any advice?  Do you use frost cloths or  do the food forest type of thing to protect them? Do you load them with seaweed solutions?

And when it comes to lemons, which variety from your experience is most frost -tolerant?  I have heard conflicting accounts that Eureka is best or that Meyer is best.

Hoping that your citrus are doing well.

Cooking other people's gluts - lemons

A pleasant surprise was waiting for me the other day when I returned from a trip into town. On the verandah sat a HUGE bag of lemons provided by the alpaca people up the valley - thank  you so much!  How did they know that I was in mourning for my lemon tree? How did they know that I think the kitchen is a lesser place without a full bowl of lemons? How did they know that I am sort of protesting against  buying lemons after having so many for free for years?

It sounds silly but I decided to count the lemons they had so kindly left, just to thoroughly enjoy the unexpected bounty.  There were 45 beautiful big fat lemons. Three big bowls full of lemons promptly decorated the kitchen making it a much better place.

Yesterday I started to work the glut down. First made was my favourite lemon cake. It's been somewhat munched already.

And then Lemony BBQ sauce that I will use on some chicken tonight. Its the first time I have made it. The recipe comes from a Good Weekend - the magazine that accompanies the Saturday Sydney Morning Herald. I cut it out ages ago so don't have a date for it.  It was the lemons that drew me to it! It's pretty delicious. I didn't have mustard powder so I used the same quantity of black mustard seeds.

Off now to make Lemon and Mint cordial, a recipe courtesy of Liz.

The best thing about this gift of lemons is that it proves that our climate is suitable for lemons (and other citrus). I thought  it might be too frosty in winter for a such a kitchen essential like lemons.

Got a favourite lemon recipe to share? A suggestion on how to use up the 41 lemons still to use? I am not a huge lemon curd eater - it's delicious but uses so much butter and eggs it hardens my arteries just thinking about it!  What have you been making with your lemon glut? Got a favourite lemon recipe?

Potting up, moving out

My patch is pretty empty now. I have harvested the last of my savoy cabbages and beetroot and now the only things left in the patch are some herbs (mint, Vietnamese mint, thyme, chives, parsley), some flowers (poppies, lupins, the end of the violas and pansies) and some self-seeded tomatoes from last year's crop. I hope that the new residents will like what is left and feel excited about planting up their favourite things into the patch.

Everything that I would have in the ground at this time of the year has been raised in pots ready for the move.

I have these vegetables ready for the move:

• eggplants
• tomatoes 
• chillies 
• fennel
• spring onions
• zucchini

and these herbs:

• parsley - Italian and curled
• mint - Vietnamese and just mint
• basil
• sage
• dill
• thyme
• chives
• garlic chives
• marjoram / oregano - I never know which -  do you?
• rosemary
• lavender
• bay
• yarrow

and then there is some fruit:

•  Collette the finger lime (this is probably overly optimistic as I am not sure how she will handle the frosts!)
• the blueberries

I have cut some right back -  the chives and bay have received a big haircut today. Others have been staked, well watered and mulched over some time so they might be more tolerant of the drive. I hope that it will be a mild day the day we move.

I am hoping that they all survive and that the vegetables will settle into a new, no-dig  raised bed  which will be hastily constructed soon after arrival. The herbs I am likely to keep in pots for a while. And then there will be other things to get started  as soon as I get organised at the new place - beans, corn, pumpkin, rock melon, cucumber ...

I will be leaving behind my special, special espaliered lime trees and my fabulous lemon tree. These citrus plants have given such pleasure.

This final picture is of my last harvest - 3 savoy cabbages and some baby beetroot.

Bye my Sydney garden - friend and comforter.

Harvest Monday - 15th October 2012

I was silly... I posted about much of my harvest this week last Friday.

It was a Friday thing... a post work stroll thru the patch and the sort of ritual of picking that helps to soothe the working week away  - and it was such a good picking that I had to post about it then and there so plenty more produce shots there.

But to cover off  the whole week, last week I picked quite a nice stash of produce. Here it is.

• 1 main head of broccoli
• lots of broccoli side-shoots
• 2 big heads of cauliflower
• several bunches of new baby radishes
• the last of the snowpeas
• lots of herbs - oregano, thyme, parsley, basil, mint and bay
• 1 fennel bulb
• lettuce leaves
• rocket leaves
• celery leaves
• a solid bunch of celery stalks
• a bunch of young sweet beetroot
• a big handful of  lemon leaves

I also raided my stashes of the chillies from the freezer from last summer's glut, opened  new jars of my rocket fuel chilli sambal and my sweet chilli and tomato jam and dug into the home made strawberry jam and lemon marmalade.

These ingredients have gone into all sorts of food:

• broccoli oreccietta 
• lamb kofte with mint and wrapped in lemon leaves
• roast beetroot and mint salad - one of Suburban Tomato's recipes that is now a regular on my menu
• fresh green salad with loads of different leaves, herbs and fennel
• radishes dipped into hummus
• vegetable juices with quite peppery celery
• piles of steamed snow peas

It's a nice time in the garden and on the plate. I am contributing this to Daphne's Monday Harvest list, there will be plenty of produce to look at there soon, when the earth turns a little more.

What are you enjoying eating at the moment with your home growns?

Cooking other people's gluts: lemon marmalade

My lemon tree has all but stopped  providing fruit. It is a very productive tree, I have had constant lemons all year. But right now my lemon is happily producing its next crop. Thankfully lemons are really cheap at the moment, so its a good time to use other people's gluts. So yesterday I made lemon marmalade.

I had never made marmalade before, but have made lots of jam in my time. I took a recipe in the Commonsense cookery book  - Book 1 ( pg 235) as my starting point. This number is a staple (oops - I guess that's a pun?) of Homescience teaching at High Schools in NSW (or at least it was the hundred-million years ago that I was in High School). Here is the recipe and below shows the way I wrangled with it.

Marmalade
1 kg fruit (I used 1.2 kgs)
1 kg sugar (I used 700 gms)
2 litres water
(I added the juice and zested rind of an additional 2 lemons)

The recipe calls you to "wash and slice the fruit thinly, remove the seeds, centre pith and thick ends". I did exactly as it said for two of the lemons and then I changed the way I wanted to approach it.  I did wash and remove seeds and pith but I decided  that instead of relatively thick knife-cut rind, I would prefer thin rind so got to on the rest of the fruit with the zester.

The recipe calls you to "place in a container cover with water  until rind is soft and let stand overnight". But I figured that seeing as my rind was so finely zested that the rind didn't need softening (and I am an impatient sort of person...) so I got cooking.

Then it says to "boil fruit and water covered until rind is soft - about 1 hour". I tossed everything in at once, sugar and all and added the juice and rind of 2 more lemons. I used only 700 gms sugar, in part because from experience the Commonsense cookery book has quite a sweet tooth. However I also thought that if I took the sugar down too far then it might be too bitter.

I guess I cooked it for about an hour?  Not sure, but it reduced quite a lot and turned a lovely golden yellow/orange colour. I kept testing it to see if it had set by placing a small amount on a cold plate and pushing it around when cool to see if it wrinkled, but it wasn't really wrinkling. But I felt like it might have been set enough and so put it into hot jars. It made 3 jars and a ramekin. The ramekin made it easy to check if it had set.

To be honest I was quite conflicted - would it set? It didn't react to the wrinkle test like jam does? But then again, knowing that citrus has high pectin levels, I thought it probably would.  I left it on the bench to cool overnight. In the morning I took a look at it, it certainly had set! Yay for instinct.

It's such a lovely colour, the balance of bitter to sweet is quite good, although still a little too sweet for me. Next time I will take the sugar down further.

So in the last week or so I have  made strawberry jam and now this lemon marmalade. I have more than enough home-made jam for our household but I could be persuaded to make some plum jam when other people's gluts mean that plums are plentiful.

Cooking other people's gluts - strawberry jam

I don't know about where you live, but the strawberries are incredibly cheap at the moment.  I don't have any strawberries in my patch, but seeing as there is a glut of Queensland strawberries at the moment, I have decided to cook their glut.

I decided upon strawberry jam - funny, cause I don't usually like strawberry jam, I find it too sweet.  But  I figure that home-made strawberry jam tastes better than shop bought any time and I can make it less sweet than the shop bought variety, even if the strawberries have travelled a long way to get to me.

I got 6 large punnets for the price of 5 of strawberries  - a discount becasue I bought so many and it was the end of the day, at $2.50 each.  I decided to make my own recipe up, cause I like things a litle tart, I used half the sugar to the fruit (most recipes call for equal sugar to fruit) and added lemon juice and some tart apples. The rind of the lemon and the apples assist with the thickening as strawberries on their own have little pectin.

Strawberry Jam (* from the patch)
1.5 kgs hulled strawberries - cut chunky
750 gms sugar
rind cut from 1 lemon*
juice of 1 lemon*
2 Granny Smith apples grated - skin and all

Choose a heavy-based saucepan, tip strawberries in and add lemon rind and juice, cook on for a bit until strawberries soften a little. Add sugar and apples, stir and 'bloop' on a medium heat, stirring occasionally to make sure it isn't sticking.

The jam kind of tells you when it's ready - it changes colour and consistency.  To test, take a cold bread and butter dish and spoon some jam mixture onto the plate. Let it cool and push it with your finger. Does it wrinkle and sort of hold the wrinkle? If so your jam is done.

Remove the lemon rind and spoon into hot sterilised jars and seal. I got 5 jars from the 6 punnets.

Nice dark red in the jar, hey?

The jam is not exactly tart, but it is delicious and  much less sweet than the shop bought, much better for you per spoonful given it has less sugar.

But tell me if you know - how low can you push the fruit /sugar ratio?  I'd like to go lover than 1/0.5. What have proportion have you used with your jam making?

Winter wrap - '12

Winter here in Sydney has been a season of two halves.  The first part of winter was decidedly wet and the second half quite dry -  a harbinger of the return of the little boy  El Nino? The last part of winter has also been unseasonably warm - I am not complaining....

Here are some of my observations from this winter.

Harvests

• cabbage - mine have been savoy
• cauliflower - these were fabulous
• broccoli
• snow peas
• spring onions
• lemons, lemons, lemons
• limes
• fennel
• rocket
• herbs - rosemary, thyme, oregano, bay and mint towards the late part of winter
• some chillies in the early part of winter
• some sunflowers in the early part of winter

What I have learnt

• lime your brassica patch lest you get mini caulies
• broccoli is less fussy liming-wise than caulies
• snow peas are heaven on a stalk
• my mint needs more winter sun
• never take your parsley for granted - it can lure you into a false sense of supply cause it lives for two years, but when it's time is up, it's up and you are left without even a sprig
• fennel loves lots of water - it will grow well without it and produce lovely bulbs, but when it gets water a plenty, the bulbs are fat and white and juicy
• plant more fennel in succession
• late winter chives are incredibly flavoursome 
• bok choi is pretty and easy
• brassicas planted in winter avoid the cabbage moth when they are babies but get the moth visiting in late winter - but by that time they are growing strongly and are little affected
• this year I was rubbish at having something to pick in late winter - I still have my second crop of brassicas in the ground and only now forming heads!
• prunning your citrus in late summer and again when the growth re-awakens is a good thing to do
• the beans you dried in summer are fantastic for winter meals
• baby rainbow lorikeets have black eyes and beaks
• lemon trees are sacred

Pleasures

• lemons all winter
• the beauty of a cauliflower
• seeing my first blueberries flower and form fruit
• thyme flowers
• the glut of lime flowers and miniture forming fruit
• the birds that visit my garden - rainbow lorikeets and currawongs especially
• Half-tail would be a comedian if s/he was a human

Harvest Monday - 27th Aug

Pickings are slim at the moment. To make it even worse, this week I picked the last of my spring onions, fennel and snow peas.

As ever, the snow peas have been a delight. They have supplied greens every second day for 4 months.  Most of the time we eat them just steamed and sometimes in the yummy Chinese-inspired  meals that the lad makes.

Very often the snow peas don't even make it in the back door.  Standing and the crop eating them as picked is a special pleasure.

As for the citrus, the lemons are still coming  but I also picked the last of my limes - some were very small.

Herbs are fairing better. In the last week I picked loads of thyme and rosemary  for all sorts of dishes.

I also got stuck into the mint which is starting to wake up again after the winter slow down.

Next year I really must plan better so I don't have such a hungry gap. Bring on spring!

More harvests are over at Daphne's place.

Wordless Wednesday: Waiting...