While I can't take credit for the fruit trees themselves, my first foray into garden cooking was to make jam. I'd always wanted to give it a try and when I found the plum and apricot trees here covered in fruit I knew it was my chance. With a borrowed extra saucepan (my kitchen arsenal is still pretty meagre) and a whole lot of sugar I set out for a few hours of peeling fruit followed by a few more hours stirring the molten mixtures over the stove. I had two and a half pounds of plums and three and a half of apricots, which ended up making two 300ml (about 10 oz - you really get used to flipping between metric and Imperial when using foreign recipes and resources!) jars of each flavour.
I followed instructions from Northwest Edible Life on making jam without adding extra pectin - mostly since I have no idea where to obtain anything other than the most basic of supplies. The site extra helpfully includes a chart of compatible flavours so you can add an extra something to your jam, and picking out my combinations was a lot of fun. I settled on rum and vanilla bean for the plum, and split the apricots into two batches - one almond and vanilla bean and the other cinnamon and earl grey tea. I can tell you from experience that the almond flavour was super strong, so if you use almond yourself you'll want to go easy on how much you add. The earl grey flavour was added as a syrup: I found directions at House of Bourbon (don't worry, it's super easy).
We've since been blessed with a literal windfall - some apples from a neighbour's tree fell into our yard, and rather than let them go to waste (especially since I'm not set up for composting just yet) I decided to make some hand pies with a recipe I'd been waiting to try out. Sent to me originally by my mother from a group she follows on Facebook, these Salted Caramel Apple Hand Pies are impossible to resist. The first batch disappeared almost immediately after cooling enough to eat, and every time I walk past the container of leftovers I'm tempted to grab one out.
The dough does take a lot of work to prepare and I'm sure they would still be great with bought pre-made dough, but it really is worth the work. The butter and folding make a dough that's super rich and flaky. While I'm not a huge fan of the salted caramel thing in general (and it seems to be all the rage lately) it goes great with the slightly sour apples. I noticed that I had a lot of apple mixture left over, though, so keep that in mind when chopping yours up. Oh, and if you don't have any eggs on hand, you can glaze them just as easily with a little milk.
Finally, with summer drawing to a close and my tomatoes way overflowing their designated area, it was time to harvest the basil before it was totally smothered and I missed out on using it at all. I ended up with a huge bunch (about two cups once the leaves were picked off and roughly chopped) that I doubled with some of my excess spinach so that I could make a double batch without heading out to the store. The recipe is one given to me by a friend who I'm sure would be happy for me to share it with you all.
Unfortunately for me my food processor is a teeny thing that barely fit a third of the ingredients at a time, but once it was processed it took up enough less room that I was juuuuuuust able to squeeze it all back in together for a final mix together. I've been told that pesto freezes well so I'll have to get back to you on how it goes - the double batch made about two cups worth, more than enough to split over two pots of pasta.
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| Does anything smell as good as fresh basil? |
You will need:
- a bunch of basil (if you're a coriander fan you can sub in some of that, too)
- half to a cup of cashews or pine nuts
- 100g feta cheese
- two to four tablespoons of lemon (or lime) juice
- a generous tablespoon of garlic
- half a cup of olive oil (with extra if needed)
- a pinch of salt
Roughly chop up the basil and then process the whole lot together. If it's a little dry you can add more olive oil, and a little parmesan can add to the flavour. I would probably love pesto just as much if it was a pain to make (it tastes so darn good) but the fact that it's also really easy makes it so much more appealing when you can't be bothered to put in too much effort!
The tomatoes are turning yellow and I spotted my first tiny little green bean just a few days ago, so there's still more produce on the horizon. I don't know yet what I'll make with them but I'm looking forward to it all the same. Does anything taste as good as home cooking?
The author makes no apologies for the title pun. Puns are great.
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