Category Archives: Fruit – Growing

Puffball

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One can benefit greatly by living in close proximity to a keen forager with an eye for mushrooms. The mushroom season in Dunedin has been exceptionally good and boletus are plentiful should one know where to look for them.  Mushroomers may share their haul, but will never, ever tell where their mushrooms are found! Our generous benefactors have shared their bounty with us and some of the most thrilling mushrooms, the puffballs, grow right here in their garden!

Recipe for fried puffball mushroom

1 Good sized puffball, firm and pure white right through when sliced. The inside has a marshmallow like texture

2 to 3 Eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup dried breadcrumbs with a pinch of salt and pepper added and mixed in

Use a cast iron or heavy based pan big enough to fry the mushroom slices in 2 ot 3 batches

Enough pork fat or vegetable oil to come up to about 2.5 ml up the side of the pan. Apart from the great taste, pork fat can be heated to a very high temperature, ideal for frying

I have written about puffballs before, and this one was prepared by again slicing it into ‘steaks’ about 15 mm thick, dipped in egg wash and coated in dried breadcrumbs. This time the slices were fried until golden in pork fat, processed in our kitchen from a delicious home grown porker. I highly recommend frying in pork fat but those that fear animal fat can use vegetable oil. We ate the mushroom, dressed with a few drop of fresh lemon juice and ground black pepper, for dinner along with fresh tomatoes that ripened in Dunedin’s first hot summer since we moved here. The tiny lemons are from the tiny tree planted in our front garden 2 seasons ago.

Only flour for making the bread to produce crumbs and salt and pepper were purchased to produce this lovely meal.

 

ABSOLUTELY SHOCKING!!

2015-02-26 - Sick Giraffe

Do yourself a favor and allocate 15 minutes of your time to read all three articles.

We are trying at all costs to stay away from purchased products.

http://www.sportsground.co.nz/Article.asp?SiteID=10563&ArticleID=3809

http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary.php

http://www.eco.org.nz/news/43/15/Pesticide-residues-in-most-food-samples-shows-need-for-organics.html

 

Drunken Apricots

2015-01-26 - Dronk Appelkose

We had the good fortune to be invited to pick apricots near Dunback. The day was clear and sunny and this year the trees were laden with sweet, ripe, pink cheeked fruit. The orchard is organic and amazingly free of bugs, wasps, birds and the like and the taste of the fruit was the best we had ever eaten.

Sheep roam the orchard and once we had explained the difference between sheep poo (ok) and dog poo (not ok) to the city kids, everyone got stuck in, munching and chatting as they picked in the shade of the trees. The baby grazed on whatever fruit he found on the ground until he announced “I don’t NEED apricots!” . When I commented on the meagre contents on Mrs BYF’s bucket she claimed to have eaten at least one tree’s worth and that it should be factored in to her harvest.

We had a great day out in the peaceful countryside. We met lovely hospitable people, drank great coffee and beer, and came home happy and pleased with our haul.

Back in the kitchen, we made jam, dried some, froze some, preserved some, and, with the smallest fruit, bottled them in grappa. We will need some warmth when the Dunedin winter bites so hopefully we will be able to keep our hands off these bottles until then.

CRABAPPLES

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Crabapple is not a fruit I have had much experience with in the past, but my BIG crabapple tree at my new house in Dunedin has forced me to have a closer look at possibilities  regarding these beautiful little fruits. I have spoken with the experts, borrowed cook books from my neighbors, googled, took advice from bloggers and, after a lot of reading picked about 10 Kg of crabapples (still have about 30 Kg left on the tree). I have decided to start with crabapple jelly. Most references suggested throwing the pulp away after extracting the juice, but my “use all and throw nothing away” culture has compelled me to do something with it. So here is what I did

10 kg crabapples

10 liters Water

Boil for about 20 minutes

Separate the pulp and juice by filtering through cheesecloth and put the pulp aside

JELLY

Heat the juice to boiling point and add  1 Kg  Sugar for every kg of liquid.  Simmer the mixture until it reaches setting point. Quickly, while still hot and before it gelatinises, filter again through cheesecloth and bottle. Seal bottles and sterilise in a boiling bath for 20 minutes. The clear, pink jelly sets beautifully and is delicious. I also made a batch where I added chili and rosemary to the original fruit – a very interesting and  tasty jelly resulted and I would probably make some more.

JAM

I have taken the pulp and put it through my Italian tomato pasata machine, which separates the skin and pips from the fine pulp. Heat the pulp to boiling point and add  1 kg of Sugar for every kg of pulp. Simmer the mixture until it reaches setting point. Seal bottles and sterilise in a boiling bath for 20 minutes. Beautiful and absolutely delicious jam.

The skins and pips I am using to make alpple cider vinegar. I think it will be good, as I normally use the cores and skins of ordinary apples to make this. I make large quantities of vinegar every year, of which I use most as is, but convert some to a mosto cotto

ROASTED CRABAPPLES AND HONEY

I have dribbled some fresh crabapples with honey and roasted them in the oven until soft, then served with home made custard – I never thought crabapples could taste so good, even though it was on the sour side where the rest of the household was concerned.

This week I am going to try making crabapple chutney and a  cider. After all that I should  still have another 10 kg of fruit left on the tree.

I find it strange that the big kereru pigeons do not eat the fruit  since they stripped the cherry trees and had a good go at the plum tree.