raspberry sorbet - a recipe

A dear friend dropped off a huge bucket of freshly picked raspberries today 

and my mind went straight to sorbet.  

Well straight after eating several bowls full 

and then realising that we could not possibly eat them all while they were still fresh!! 

 What a problem to have!!

My recipe is a very easy one, no cooking involved.  

The sorbet is not overly sweet and lets the flavour of the raspberries shine through.

Raspberry Sorbet   (makes 1 litre)

500g raspberries

juice of one lemon

50ml orange juice

1 cup white sugar

1. Blend all ingredients together to form a smooth puree.

2. Sieve to remove seeds.

3. Pour into an ice cream machine and process until done.
Or, pour into a shallow tray and freeze, stirring several times to break up the ice crystals.


What fresh produce do you have in excess at the moment?
What are you doing to preserve it?

ginger beer - a recipe

I honestly don't know why I bought ginger beer all these years.  After making the super quick ginger syrup, I was on a roll and had to make real ginger beer.  This is so good, tastes like the real thing and has nothing nasty added!!



Here is a really quick and easy how-to.  You will need 1 knob of fresh ginger, about 4 soft drink bottles with lids, 5c white sugar and some lemon juice.

Cut up a knob of unpeeled ginger and put it in a saucepan and cover with water.

Simmer for 15min.  Cool.

Fill your large glass jar with 4.5lt of warm water and 5 cups sugar.

Stir to disolve.

Add in the ginger and stewing water. 

Making sure the water temperature is about 38degC (body temp), add 1/4 tsp bakers yeast.

Cover and set aside for a few hours.

Pour into cleaned soft drink bottles, pop in a sultana or two and squeeze in some lemon juice.  Seal and set aside overnight some place cool.
Bottles should now be ready to drink.

Serve over ice!  Enjoy.

Have you made brewed ginger beer?  How do you do it?

Linking to Friday Food Flicks, Thirty Handmade Days, Make, Grow, Thrift

ginger syrup - a recipe

I was flicking around online today and came across several recipes for ginger drinks. 

I put two types of drink together today; a ginger syrup and a quick brewed ginger beer.  I would have started the fermented ginger beer but it takes about two weeks to get going and I wanted to finish something now!! 

The huge glass jar of ginger beer is sitting on the counter smelling lovely, waiting until tomorrow when I strain and bottle it.  I have just finished bottling the ginger syrup and it only took about 40min all up.  So easy.

I only have a pic of the final product but the method is really simple.

Ginger Syrup
1 knob of ginger (just what you see in the pic above)
800ml water
4c sugar
1c lime juice
Finely grate of chop ginger into saucepan. 
Add water and sugar. 
Bring to boil and simmer for about 20min. 
You could turn off the heat, close the lid and leave to sit overnight to really extract the flavour from the ginger.
But I strained the syrup through a cloth lined strainer into a jug.
Add the lime juice to taste.
Use a funnel to pour syrup into glass bottles.
Label and store in fridge for several weeks.

This syrup is great served with ice water like a cordial and I hear it is also good as a cocktail mixer, but I have yet to try a 'Dark and Stormy' with it.

This was so quick and easy to make, I don't know why I ever thought I needed to buy cordials in the past.  No artificial anythings in this and the sugar is not so bad when served to the kids as a treat.  And the ginger is so good for you.  How can you not make some??!!


How do you use ginger??

Linking to Your Green Resource Wk 24, Friday Food Flicks,

preserving pears with the fowlers system

Isn’t there just something wonderful about filling shelves with rows and rows of home- made preserves?

I have only recently begun my adventure in preserving.  With my organic produce garden growing well and living in a community surrounded by small and large farms, I am well situated to put away some of my excess produce and use the very cheap locally grown products.

We are coming into the apple and pear season here.  With my home grown apples, I have tried my hand at apple butter.  Absolutely delish and I recommend it highly!!  I processed them in mason style jars in a hot water bath.  I was really pleased with how the whole process went.  A long but easy process, only requiring attention in short bursts.  Just my style!!

So on to the pears.  I don’t have fruit ready on my pear trees yet (I have Beurre Hardy and Nashi) but I was able to pick up Williams pears for $1/kg from a local orchard.  It is so much more economical buying direct, even compared to the small local fruit and veg shop.

I have been collecting vintage Fowlers Vacola jars from local thrift stores and have amassed quite a collection of mostly size 27 jars.  This size holds about 900ml and is a good size for my family of 6.  We easily use the whole jar on the day it is opened.  As for cost, all up for my 80-ish jars, I have shelled out about $60!!  For a resource that will be used again and again, I think that was a pretty good price!  (Don’t tell hubby, but I spent way more than that to complete the outfit with rings, lids and clips, bottle tongs and wide mouth funnel!!  It’s an investment!!  Shh…!!)

The first time I tried preserving pears, I peeled and cored about 4kg.  Some I halved, some I sliced and some I diced.  I packed them in heavy syrup made with raw sugar. 
Lessons learned from this experience. 

• Dicing is a much more efficient cut to pack the jars with. 
• Heavy syrup makes the fruit float in the jar - not good. 
• Raw sugar gives the fruit a brownish tinge.  Ok to eat, but could look better. 
• I did not fill the jar full enough with the syrup, did not pack the fruit in tightly enough and did not poke the bubbles out with a skewer.  I need to do these things as they help the fruit not to float and removes air pockets which can spoil the preserve.
• I also broke a jar from excessive heat!! I placed warm jar into boiling water.  What did I think was going to happen??  Next time place warm jars into warm water and bring to boil slowly.  Glass, pears and syrup floating in the water bath is not fun to clean up!!

We are now eating those pears and not storing them as I don’t think they will last too long.
Consider the lessons learnt!
Even so, with all of these mistakes - learning experiences,

Preserved pears in syrup
Dice all the fruit, pack it in tight and pack in some more. 
Prepare jars.  Wash, dry & place rings on jar.
Fill to top of jar with warm light syrup (2c white sugar in 2lt water). 
Clip lids on jars.
Place warm jars on trivet in large saucepan.
Fill to cover jars with warm water.  Set on stove and bring slowly to boil.
Simmer size 27 jars for 30min.
Carefully remove jars with bottle tongs and leave to cool for 12hrs.
Remove clips.  Wipe jars.  Label with food and date.  Store in cool, dark place.

It is that easy!!


How do you preserve summer fruits?


Linking to Your Green Resource - Wk 24, Frugal Days - Sustainable Ways Wk18

passata di pomodoro - a recipe

Late summer is a busy time in the kitchen, with all the excess garden produce that needs to be dealt with.  I seem to be making, cooking, bottling... every day!  But it is worth the effort when I pull something yummy from the freezer or pantry later.

Today's kitchen adventure began with a box of gifted tomatoes from a friend of mums.  They arrived on her doorstep while she was away for a couple of days so I decided to process them all and have them ready on her return. 

Something easy to do with little hands on time is a basic tomato pasta sauce or passata di pomodoro.  All up about 30min processing time and then stirring every so often.  I freeze this sauce in meal lots and can do heaps of variations with it later.  It can become a base for lasagne, shepherds pie, tomato soup, spaghetti bolognaise, pizza sauce or anywhere you would otherwise use tinned tomatoes or tinned pasta sauce.

Wash tomatoes in sink.  Cut out green stem and any bad bits.

 Pulse in food processor until...

 ...it looks like this.  Pulse a couple of onions and maybe some garlic too.

Throw all into large pots and simmer on very low, for a couple of hours, until liquid is reduced.  Add seasonings according to your end use, italian herbs, salt, pepper...
Cool overnight in fridge. 

Pack into freezer containers in meal sized lots.  I packed mine into snap lock sandwich bags and fit about 700g in each.

Label well with food name and date made.  (This is the step I always miss and then have heaps of mystery packs months later!!)

Enjoy homegrown tomatoes in your winter meals.

Do you have excess tomatoes to preserve?  What do you do with them?


Linking to Thirty Handmade Days and Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways. and Butter Believer and Fat Tuesday
Check out the great ideas to be found there too.

apple butter - a recipe

Apple butter is delicious!  If you have not made it at home, you should, especially if you own a slow cooker.  Easy... and delicious!!  We think it will mainly be used for topping porridge, spreading on toast or being the bottom for fruit bottom yoghurt.  Either way, yummy.

What follows is not really a recipe as such, but a how-to guide.  It does depend on the size of your slow cooker and how tart and how jucy the apples are.  This is what I did.

Peel and core apples.  These are the first apples of the season off our trees!!
I used my fancy peeler that sucks to the bench.  I wind the handle and the apple is peeled and cored.  It cost me about $20 at a homewares store a few years ago now.

Place apples into crock pot.  Add about 1 cup of water, turn on high, cover with lid and leave for about an hour, until apples are mushy.  Add brown sugar to taste, a glob of butter (I used about 50g) and about 2Tb dutch cinnamon.  Leave lid off,  stirring every so often.  Keep cooking until reduced to a thick paste.

Bottle in clean, warm jars with a tight fitting lid.   Make sure they seal well as they cool.



Apple butter should keep well for a couple of weeks in the fridge or if you want longer term storage you will need to process the jars in a water bath.  I didn't bother with this.





Hope you have fun making and eating apple butter. 
I know I did!!

Have you made apple butter?  How do you do it?



Linking to Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways and Sorta Crunchy's Green Resource. and Fat Tuesday
Check out the great ideas over there.

lacto fermented green beans - a recipe

Let me first start by saying I am no expert in lacto-fermentation,

but when has that ever stopped me!!??  Here we go!

What is lacto-fermentation?

Lacto-fermentation or culturing, is the preservation of foods using lactic acid.  Lactic acid is produced as a by-product of the growth of good bacterias present in food.  The growth in acidity, makes it difficult for bad bacteria to survive and so preserves the food.  Lactic acid and the good bacterias are encouraged by the addition of either salted water or whey.  The food product is prepared, packed into jars and the starter is added.  Left at room temperature for several days the lactic acid builds up and the food is preserved.


Why use lacto-fermentation instead of canning, bottling or freezing?

Lacto-fermentation is a low energy form of preserving food.  It does not require energy consumption for heating or cooling or a great deal of other resources.  Also, the fermenting or culturing of the food, produces a different flavour, the food is more easily digestible and has increased nutrient content.  It all sounds good to me!


I still have more questions than answers.  Like, how can you be sure the food is properly fermented?  How long will the food products last when fermented?  Are they safe to eat in pregnancy?  What types of foods can be fermented?  How do you ferment fruits?  What do they taste like?????

The best way of finding out, is to give it a go myself.  I picked a 'recipe' based on a few that I had read around the web.  I have plenty of green beans in the garden and I started from there.

This is what I did...

Cut up and blanch the beans for 2min.

While the beans are blanching, slice a clove of garlic and drop in the bottom of a clean preserving jar.

Remove the beans from the boiling water and place into iced water, until cool.  (I didn't have any ice, so I used the kids frozen bottle coolers as ice blocks!)

Pat dry the beans.  A two year old helper may be necessary!

Pack the beans into the jar.  It's good to lay the jar on it's side to do this.

Fill the jar with a solution of 1 and one half Tb unrefined sea salt in 2c filtered water.

Add another sliced clove of garlic to the top of the jar.

Cover the jar with the screw top lid and leave at room temperature for three days.  After this time the beans should be properly cultured and ready for storage.

I'll let you know how it turns out in a few days.


Have you ever used lacto-fermentation?  Can you recommend a good recipe or site?