Apple and herb jelly

http://fromme-toyou.tumblr.com/post/207610459/apple-orchard

I am in the process of making some! I will be adding step by step photos to this recipe :)

Grapefruit Marmalade

For those who love the bittersweet tang of marmalade on their buttery toast, do i have a recipe for you! Grapefruit is a bitter fruit by mature, and makes a delicious honey/amber coloured marmalade. I picked mine from a tree overhanging a friends garden, they were very ripe and juicy with a thick pith.

8 grapefuit

1.5 kg sugar

water

juice of one lemon

1. After thorough washing, peel the skin leaving the pith and shred finely, place peel in a large non reactive bowl

2. remove pith and seeds from grapefruits and keep in a jelly bag (or a very old, clean, pillow slip kept for this purpose)

3. slice fruit as finely as you can muster after all of that chopping

4. Add the fruit to the bowl with the shredded peel and cover with water. Place the jelly bag containing seeds and pith in the water also (you will

remover this later - it just helps it to set)

5. leave overnight to soak

6. the following day, remove the jelly bag and pour your mixture into a large pot to cook. Allow to boil until the peel is so soft that you can easily squash it with the back of a spoon.

7. Take off the heat and add sugar. Stir to dissolve and taste... is it too bitter? if so, add more!

8. Add lemon juice, and boil the mixture very hard (be careful, it will bubble and froth quite high!) until it gels

9. bottle and seal in sterilised jars.

Lemon Butter!

Lemon Butter has to be one of the easiest, cheapest and most delicious spreads to make at home. Don't believe what they say about double boilers!!

Recipe (adapted

from Stephanie Alexander - the Cooks Companion)

60 g butter

2/3 cup sugar (castor if you have it)

juice of 2 lemons

4 egg yolks (i used small eggs from the farmers market)

zest of 1/2 a lemon

1. Whisk the eggs yolks and sugar together. They should make a pale creamy emulsion.

2. add a little lemon juice and whisk again to dissolve any pesky sugar crystals

3. pour into a heavy based saucepan, add the rest of the juice (always taste as you go!*), zest and butter and cook, stirring over a medium heat.

4. remove from the heat once the lemon butter coats the spoon, but keep stirring until you pour into a sterilised jar

this whole process took me about 10 minutes, and make one glorious jar of primrose coloured lemony goodness.

* my lemons were super juicy and large, so i used about 1.5 lemons worth of juice. Taste it - if it is not lemony enough add a bit more, but remember you cant take the lemon back!

Mustardy Roasted Beetroot Relish

There are a great many delicious things to do with beetroot. I had been thinking for a long time that making a relish would be delicious, so i had a go at making a roasted beetroot relish with mustard seeds and horseradish cream added. It turned out very well, especially on a hamburger or with barbequed meats. Here is the recipe!

2 bunches (about 1 kg) beetroot
700 ml apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons dry roasted mustard seeds
2 teaspoons prepared horseradish
1/2 kilo sugar


To start I roasted the beetroot, unpeeled in the oven for about half an hour. Once it had started to smell roasty, i removed it and peeled the skin. I would recommend gloves for all those who do not want violently fuchsia hands. The beetroot were then grated and placed in in a large heavy based saucepan with the vinegar, spices and sugar and cooked until the beetroot was soft and the liquid had become syrupy. Horseradish was added and into sterilised jars and voila!

apple and rhubarb jelly!

curerently cooking up a batch of apple and rhubarb jelly! should be quite pink this time, as the rhubarb was a very deep pink
Using fresh Braeburn apples from my local orchard!

Plum and White Nectarine Jam

made some today :) will be selling it at balmain markets at some time this year!
and probably starting an etsy shop

tastes delicious! and i made it in the same way as the plum and white nectarine jam i made recently

An Etsy Shop or Markets?

I have been wondering lately whether to set up an etsy shop. Itsa great website where we can buy handmade items from the people who made them -

http://www.etsy.com/

or maybe i should just try selling at markets?

like Balmain markets perhaps

http://www.balmainmarket.com.au/

either way i definitely need to be making more jam, and packaging it in these lovely jars

http://tinyurl.com/yh5zg64