Pineapple, Papaya, Ginger Jam

I thought I'd try making pineapple papaya jam. I had a recipe from a Pacific Island friend who had made it and it tasted really good. Of course I added other stuff that I had just bought off a friend from the island - ginger and lemons. Sadly the 9 pineapples I bought had rot in them so I only ended up with about 1 pineapple worth. 

Luckily I had two bottles of pineapple soaking in coconut juice and boy was it smelling nice, I love coconut and the smell. 

I think they are Meyer lemons, they are huge and organic

This is the spoilt pineapple that I had to throw in the compost, so not thrilled, never trust a sale

A friend gave me some mulberries that I had frozen so I cooked them up with some blueberries I found as well. they look good, hope they taste good too

Pineapple Pawpaw Ginger Jam

1 large pineapple

1 large papaya

8 cups raw or white sugar (I only used 1 cup as it was sweet enough)

juice of 1 large lemon

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground clove

2 - 3 tsp grated Ginger

45 - 50 minutes simmer all of the above in a pot until the right consistency of thickness. 

Skim froth off the top if there is any.

Put into sterilised bottles. 

I place my bottles upside down to start with so the hot jam can sterilise the lid as well

 

Covid 19

So what a world we are in now with Covid-19 and Ukraine.

I was very scared to catch covid because I have mild asthma and diabetes, have managed to not catch covid for 2 years until Jan 31-2022 when I had the worst sore throat that I'd ever experienced. It felt like I had swallowed a razor blade. I knew in my heart that it was Covid so I took a RAT test and there was a faint second line. At first I wouldn't believe that it was positive so waited 2 days to be able to go to a testing station to get a PCR test. 

Luckily we had stocked panadol and nurofen, two medicines that we needed and ate like lollies. the panadol helped with the headaches and the nurofen helped with the body aches. Wish I had dry throat cough medicine too because my throat was very sore. So I made this throat tonic that I found on a blog by Down to Earth  

3 - 4 inch long piece of ginger

2 lemons thinly sliced

1 litre water

1/2 cup raw honey

In a medium saucepan add the water, ginger and lemons and bring to a boil. Gently simmer for 20 minutes. Turn off the heat, put the lid on the saucepan and let it sit for two hours. Add honey, stir until its completely dissolved and pour into a sterilised bottle.

You can keep the ginger and lemon and recycle it, going through the above process again. The flavour wont be as strong but its definitely worth getting two batches.

To make up the tonic for use, make a hot tea with it by adding boiling water to 2 tablespoon s of syrup, add it to the black tea using the same amount or make it into a cold drink.

I hope you dont get covid, its not very pleasant, I reckon we got the middle version. 

I wrote down everything that happened to me:

My first bake in the new oven

Hubby told my brothers that I would not use the new oven because that's what I've done in the past and never used anything new he bought me....well SURPRISE I wasted no time and as soon as the gas fitter came on Monday to install the final part to my oven I was in there baking at 5.30am.

My favourite and famous Chiffon Cake, recipe from my very good friend Josephine has been a no fail one (all the fails have been my fault because I have seen and eaten her cakes).

You can see my FAILED cakes here which was not so long ago (4 months ago). Those failed cakes were cooked in an electric oven. I love this recipe because it doesn't use butte, I always forget to bring the butter out of the fridge to come to room temperature. 

I say nothing cooks better than a gas oven as you can see from below. Now I had abit of a disaster, you can see on the left cake the indentation of my hand. As soon as I removed the cake pan and tried to invert it, the pan fell on my arm and gave me 2nd degree burns.

I used the fan force and baked for 45mins on 160C then turned the oven up to 180C and cooked a further 10 mins PERFECT, no cracks.

As you can see this cake had holes in it, in THIS recipe it says to use a knife and cut through the batter to remove air pockets (I didnt do that) I also forgot the cream of tartar and the vanilla (doesn't say int he recipe but I always put it in as it smells good) lol.

This RECIPE explains alot about the dos and don't which should be adhered to for a successful bake

 I also didn't put a glaze on it but this glaze looks good:

Orange Glaze

1/2 cup butter

2 cups icing sugar

2 - 4 tbsp fresh orange juice

1/2 tsp grated orange zest

I also made my favourite Portugese Egg Tarts. I had ordered these tart cases and they arrived so I put them to good use and made my first batch. Ooh so yummy straight out of the oven.

I had started to make the puff pastry from scratch but the recipe was incomplete so I got the puff pastry out of the freezer and used that instead. I will have to find a better pastry recipe and will attempt it again. I'll also be tweaking the recipe so that the custard doesnt start to set while I am making the molds.

UPDATED 24TH JAN: Doctor is very pleased with my burn after 2 weeks, it has healed and is ready to be aired to have skin grow over.

Sharing this post with Sherry's Pickings about In My Kitchen

Chiffon (Angel) Cakes - In My Kitchen

 So a friend kindly let me taste her Chiffon cake along time ago (probably in the last year). I fell in love with this very rare cake, rare because you can't buy it in shops, at least not in Brisbane and no one I know makes it.  It uses a heck of a lot of eggs, one recipe says 6 and another recipe says 10. 

So as you can see from this photo I would have used up 30 eggs for these three flops lol. I can't remember what I did wrong, so I can't tell you what not to do.

I was told to up end the cake tin like this so the cake would stay up and not collapse like a souffle, well we know what happened to that instruction. Still something I did wrong for this to happen.

Almost perfect, as you can see the left side of the pan has cooked cake on it, I went to put the pan in the oven and swiped it over the back of the chair and almost lost the whole pan of cake hahaha. Success because the cake didn't crack on top.

Like this one below, I think this one is too many eggs, a large egg isnt 90grams as I have found out its 55g, so if you weigh 6 x 55g eggs that how much you should use

The almost perfect slice, light and fluffy and hardly any holes. I am aiming for no holes. I think the holes are because there is still air inside and wasn't combined well enough.

After a few successes another flop, not sure what happened here either lol.

Iced the almost perfect cake

The outside should be smooth, don't look at the right side where I ripped off a chunk lol

Sometimes the top cracks like this, again I think its too many eggs, some of the eggs I used had two yolks and that could be the reason, too much yellow.

As you can see this cake was very small and hardly came up the sides.

The next few look like too little egg and too little mixing.

This one is good, this is the cake upside down so I could ice it.

The hat moved lol. Again too much egg made too much mix

This is the perfect amount for a cake

So here is the recipe

Here are other recipes:

Meyer Lemon this has a video

Chocolate Chiffon

Earl Grey Chiffon

Green. Tea Chiffon

Orange Chiffon

Lemon Chiffon

So I a linking up with Sherry's In My Kitchen post for August

Soup - At Home Card

Its soup season in Australia. This soup was so delicious, I put in a smoked ham hock, some left over curry potato and mackerel, mushroom and spinach sauted in butter, stir fried veges, can of creamed corn and corn kernels, carrots, potato. Cooked in a slow cooker for 6 hours. It was very delicious, I shared it with friends as there was so much.

Meanwhile.........

Love these rules of yesteryear, how times have changed. While growing up we would always have a huge pot of food on the stove ready for any drop in visitors - today I still carry that legacy but the visitors don't drop in like before, so we have lots of left overs.
What I don't understand in this day and age that people do not have enough to feed you when they invite you, one is always left hungry. Usually its the people who have money not the people who are cash strapped that this experience is with or is it a cultural thing? Anyway each to their own.

I saw this on Great British Tea Party.

The "At Home" day signifies a lady is at home to her friends and acquaintances on one particular day in the week.

On the "At Home" day, calls should be made from three to six, or from four to six. The first comers should leave before the afternoon tea hour and should limit their call according to the degree of intimacy existing, remaining from a quarter of an hour to an hour, as the case may be.

The popularity of a hostess is tested on these "At Home" days by the number of visitors who call during the afternoon, and when "At Home" days are not a success, socially speaking, she should discontinue them after a certain time, and should substitute an occasional "At Home."

It would be a breach of politeness not to be at home to callers on an "At Home" day, and many things might occur to necessitate absence from home on that particular afternoon. If, however, absence is unavoidable, a relative might take the place of the hostess on the "At Home" day in question.

The tea hour varies from 4 to 4.30 o'clock. When callers are present at 4 o'clock, tea should be brought in at that hour.

A Hostess or her Daughter should pour out the tea on these "At Home" days when tea is not served in the dining-room as at "At Homes," which should be done when the number of visitors is very considerable.

Extracted from MANNERS AND RULES OF GOOD SOCIETY BY A MEMBER OF THE ARISTOCRACY, 39TH EDITION, 1918

At Home Card Template 

Tea for Tuesday - Pineapple Pie

There is a wonderful lady on the island Lusi who makes these wonderful island desserts. She made me one on the weekend called Pineapple Pie. I used to eat it in Fiji. Here is the recipe if you'd like to try it out. Here is the video.

I'm going to link up tomorrow with T for Tuesday, Bluebeard and Elizabeth she will be so surprised because the last time I linked up was May 2019 a loong time ago.

So abit of light reading about tea for you below:

I saw this on facebook under GREAT BRITISH TREA PARTY and loved it, especially the part about giving up sugar and the reasons, it made me think about how lucky we are to have so much at our finger tips and #Covid-19 has come to take us back to those days that our ancestors had to live on so little-we are definitely spoilt.

Mary Berry on Tea, pictured at home in Buckinghamshire - English food writer and television presenter.

"My mother was fussy about making tea. When we had guests, she would have two pots of leaf tea – one of Earl Grey and one Indian. If it was just family, it was a blend of Indian tea with a pinch of Earl Grey, which was dearer but we loved the flavour, so only a pinch. I like the idea of being quintessentially British and only drink tea in the afternoon. I have a cup of hot water when I wake up. Then I have coffee. In the afternoon I like weak Earl Grey with milk but no sugar – perfect. I find Earl Grey fresher than Indian tea. Just one cup is enough; I like it as a treat. It’s how I was brought up – nothing in excess, everything should be treated as something special."

Whenever my husband serves me tea or coffee he asks “Sugar?”, knowing full well that for the 50 years we’ve known each other I’ve answered “No thank you”. That’s because during the war my mother said: “If you give up sugar in tea and coffee, I’ll be able to make the odd cake, stale bread and margarine pudding, or rhubarb and crumble.”

Green Tomato Pickle

Last weekend my local vegetable shop Willow and Oak had some green tomatoes for sale, I was over the moon. I have not been able to find green tomato for 10 years since I got the recipe and made it. It is one of the best pickle recipes I have ever tasted.

Hence me trying to plant a lot of tomato trees this year. I bought the whole box which came to around 5 kgs. Which was 2 lots of the recipe. That was a lot of cutting up, thank goodness hubby helped me.

 I turn them upside down to sterilize the lid

Here is the recipe:

Green Tomato Pickles 

6lb (2.7kg) green tomatoes

2lb (900G) onions

2lb (900G) white sugar

2 pint (900ml) white vinegar

1 tbsp turmeric

1 tbsp mustard

1 tbsp curry or less ( I use 1/2 that)

1 tbsp salt

4 tbsp plain flour

½ tsp ground cloves

½ tsp ground all spice

Cut up onions and tomatoes. Sprinkle over the salt. Leave OVERNIGHT covered in fridge.

Next day drain well.

Add sugar, ¾ vinegar and bring to boil. Simmer for 2 hours. Add spices cook further ¼ hour. Mix flour with rem. vinegar. Stir until thickened.

Pour into very clean glass jars and seal

Bread making disaster

I tried my hand at baking this very EASY RECIPE so they said and there were photo proofs to tell me they weren't lying hahahaha, I mean it looks easy enough, was easy enough, then disaster struck.

 Mixed the dough, I think it needed more than the recipe asked for so I added another half a cup of water but maybe it only needed a quarter cup

 See was not runny at all like the video says

added my 1/2 cup more water and it was too soft, I also think I handled it too much at this point as the dough was running off the baking sheet

Looks good enough but the round one was squished in my 4 quart cast iron pot you can see in the back. Next time I will put half the recipe in it. The new bread pan on the right, silly me didn't even oil it or use paper, next time I will use baking paper

Ta da I pulled and plucked and swore until half the bread came out, still tasted good though

The round bread, I must say they tasted good and smelt divine, so don't give up. I wont. Will try some today and cook it in the fireplace we are lighting again to have a feast.

Opps I forgot to post last weeks fire cooking. Going to try and do this every Saturday during lockdown and winter. 

Stay tuned!!!

Lockdown simple menus from yesteryear and Postcrossing

I love this post from Down to Earth blog that I follow, its about affordable homemaking. She has a picture of a German Potato Pancake or Kartoffle Puffer. Reminds me of Potato Rosti-hubby's favourite.

There were a few recipes to follow:

The Spruce Eats

The Daring Gourmet

Foodal

Anyway Rhonda's suggested menus if you're not doing too well financially due to losing your job or being stood down:

• Tuna bake - is a mornay sauce with canned tuna, pasta and vegetables.
• Zucchini slice - you can use any vegetable for this. Caramelised onion slice is delicious.
• Salmon patties - the cheaper canned pink salmon is good for this.
• Boiled eggs and salad.
• Corned beef, cabbage and potatoes.
• Next day - corned beef hash with eggs.  My recipe here.
• Potato pancakes- my recipe is here
• Pumpkin or sweet potato or pea or grean bean risotto.
• Meatloaf - and lentil or chickpea version of meatloaf.  Spicy meatloaf recipe 
• Curried vegetables with poached eggs. - I bake the vegetables in the oven with a little oil, curry powder or paste, then poach eggs in another pan.
• Pea and ham soup.
• Vegetable soup with herb dumplings, made with beef bone broth.  When you make the broth, boil them a second time and add salt and pepper for a lovely beef tea.
• Lamb stew - using one lamb chop for flavour - and lots of vegies is very tasty and nutritious
• Spinach or silverbeet pie in filo pastry.  Recipe here.
• Homemade bread - search "bread" in my sidebar for recipes
• Rice pudding - ½ cup white rice with 2 ½ cups of milk, 1 tablespoon sugar and vanilla.  Cook slowly - excellent for breakfast.  
• Bread and butter pudding to use up bread or old hot cross buns.  Recipe here.
• Porridge.

2008 recipe links

50 Old School Aussie dinners

Talking about yesteryear, I came across this in Postcrossing, a treasure trove of letters found in an post office that couldn't be delivered for one reason or another "The Piggy Bank" . I love the handwriting, looks like everyone could master calligraphy.

Homesteading and Chicken Poop...what to do?

So after a rest from raising ducks, lots of ducks and finding it was too expensive, $50 a week of feed was too much especially as the ducks weren't giving me much eggs, was cheaper for me to go and buy eggs hahahaha however those eggs were really nice.

Anyway we gave the ducks away to friends and family so they have gone to a good home.

I want to get chickens this time, they are more economical and give more eggs like 300 per hen.

On visiting the chicken run I discovered a pumpkin plant growing in it as well as a paw paw tree hahaha, I must have fed the ducks with those and now they are really thriving in the best soil we have on our property.

So for those of you who like me need some help with raising chickens The Prairie Homestead is one of my favourite blogs to follow, this link is about raising laying hens.

This next link shows how to make your own chicken feed, and lots more other great information in there. I am looking at the picture of the ingredients and thinking to myself "that makes a good dahl soup" hahahah Nils will be proud of me.
Ok seriously its easier and convenient for me to go to the Pet shop and get a bag of feed and I'll keep all those lentils to make hearty soup now that winter is coming along.

Gardening and how to start your vegetable garden 

Here's a wonderful candied walnut, apple and cranberry salad

 A month ago we went to a friends house to get some chicken poo, I haven't look at my garden for a month, you can imagine my surprise when I went for a squiz the other day only to find the chicken poo in the white foam boxes had sprouted beautiful tomato plants. Three healthy plants in the box above and off course some weeds lol.

One healthy plant below. So today I will be going out and replanting them so I can take the foam boxes to get more poo to use. I'm going to dump the poop and plants in the garden and stake them.

In the raised bed to the right I have a fruit tree growing, I have no idea what it is, if anyone can recognise the leaf I would love to find out what I planted 3 years ago LOL

 The raised bed behind the box has a lime tre (I think) and some garlic chives. The reason i dont  know what trees I have is because three years ago I planted trees and they all died. We then let a chicken roam around in there and she must have pooped at all the roots so all these trees have suddenly come alive. So lesson is dont despair or discard dead trees, they will come alive thanks to chicken poop.

It even grew in the bag we had poo in, check out the healthy mint behind the bag

More photos to come in next post, my garden has expanded

Hand Sanitizer recipes to combat/contain Corona Virus

WHO recipe for hand sanitizer, now that the manufactured ones are running out. I know I myself use a lot when I am out and about and cannot access water and soap.

Just in case they take it down

Ingredients

• 1 cup 99% Isopropyl alcohol OR 1 cup plus 4 teaspoons 91% Isopropyl alcohol
• 1 tablespoon hydrogen peroxide
• 1 teaspoon glycerin
• Water

Instructions

• Tip the alcohol, peroxide and glycerin into a 2-cup glass measure. Then add enough water to bring the total quantity to 1 1/3 cups. Mix well.
• Pour, via funnel, the sanitizer into small ("travel-size") bottles. I used squeeze-type bottles, but spritzer- or spray-type bottles are ideal.

Turning whiskey and gin into hand sanitizers

What Australians can and can't do with the new bans

It could be living in your house

How we can protect ourselves

The symptoms include:

fever             coughing            sore throat               fatigue         shortness of breath

Health alert

Hand sanitiser purchase Byron Bay

Face Masks to sew

7 DIY facemasks to make

Video on how to make a 5 minute mask

More mask tutorials

How to make your own disinfectant wipes

• Paper Towels or Cloths (think microfiber cloths, old t-shirts, etc.)
• 1 Gallon Water
• 2 Tablespoons Dawn Dish Soap (make sure it’s Dawn)
• 3/4 Cup 99% Isopropyl Rubbing Alcohol
• 1/4 Cup Bleach (optional)
• 5-10 Drops Lemon Essential Oil
• Large Bowl
• Container to store it in (reuse an old Clorox container, baby wipe container or jar)
• Start by diluting your bleach (if using) by adding 4 tablespoons (1/4 cup) of bleach to 1 gallon of water. Stir well.
• Pour half of that bleach solution into a bowl and add your rubbing alcohol, dish soap, and essential oil. Mix well.
• Place the paper towels or cloths into your container and pour the mixture into it covering them entirely. 
• When ready to use, remove a wipe and use. You can continually make this solution as needed.
• You can also put this solution in a spray bottle and spray on surfaces then wipe.

Silhouette Cameo face mask pattern

Easy Gel sanitizer and Better Spray Recipes 

Mangoes and early Christmas cakes

Wow its been awhile since I posted, life has been so busy lately with working 2 jobs and loving both of them, if I had to chose one job I couldn't, they are both unique in their own way and enjoyable.

After a two week holiday over Christmas and New Year I had some days left and yesterday I baked and scraped and preserved Christmas cakes and Mango Chutney - the spicy type. I had soaked the fruit in September intending to cook these cake for Christmas 2019 but ran out of time, so now I am early for Christmas 2020 LOL.

Now I notice my cakes have cracked in the middle, can any experience cook out there tell me why its cracked? I left it in the pan to cool before I took it out.

18kgs of mangoes de-seeded and grated down to 9kgs, that will last me a year or two I hope LOL. I eat it like its going out of style. I also use it to marinate my prawns, this year I'll try and use it to marinate other meats and see what happens. I use spices I buy from the shops. I have never made the spices from scratch yet. 

Thats my husband lending a helping hand, he's a gem and a keeper, which was awesome as I now have arthritis in my wrists and this process of grating is really taxing on my hands. I need to find a food processor to do this as I make these every year. 

This is called Mango Kuchela and is spicy, made with mustard oil and Indian spices.

EDITED: Did some research and my problem was the position of the rack. See Alice's Rules

In case the link doesn't work:

So many finicky details make the difference in baking. The position of the rack in the oven is almost as important as the baking temperature! And pan rotation is important for even baking too. Too many recipes don’t even mention rack position or pan rotation. Go figure.  

Here are my rules for racks and rotation (for non-convection gas ovens) when recipes don’t otherwise specify: 

To bake cake(s) on one rack: Position the rack in the lower third (just below center) of the oven. If baking more than one pan on the rack, rotate the pans from the front to the back a little over halfway through the baking time. Exception: I bake a single thin sheet of cake for a jellyroll, in the center of the oven.

To bake a single sheet of cookies: Position the rack in the center of the oven. Rotate the sheet from front to back a little over halfway through the baking time.

To bake cakes or cookies on two racks:  Position the racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. Rotate the pans from upper to lower and back to front a little over halfway through the baking time.

For electric ovens: I use the same rules, but when the electrical element is exposed in the oven, I consider the bottom of the oven to start on top of the coil rather than under it, and I position my racks accordingly: thus the center of the oven is midway from the top of the coil to the top of the oven and the lower third is one third of the distance from the top of the coil to the top of the oven, etc. Got it?

How not to overcook your Christmas Cake 

Question

It's that time of year and I'm busy in the kitchen preparing Christmas treats galore, however, I'm having trouble achieving the perfect Christmas fruit cake. After it's cooked, I find that the bottom of the cake is burnt and the top of the cake has large cracks in it. Can you tell me what I'm doing so wrong?!

Answer

It sounds like all of your problems have been caused by a very hot oven. Fruit cakes will burn on the bottom or crack on top if they're baked at too high a temperature. Make sure you set your oven to the exact temperature given in the recipe. The burnt bottom can also occur if the cake is wrongly positioned in the oven. Or if the pans are lined incorrectly. Fruit cakes require protection during long, slow baking times. Cakes that are 22cm or smaller require three thicknesses of baking-paper lining. Larger cakes need one or two sheets of brown paper and three sheets of baking paper.

Recipes

Blackberry vinegar and recipes
https://thenerdyfarmwife.com/blackberry-vinegar-three-recipes-in-which-to-use-it/

Ball mason jars
https://www.freshpreserving.com/ball-collection-elite-regular-mouth-pint-16-oz.-sharing-mason-jars-with-lids-and-bands-4-count-1037617.html

Homemade caesar dressing
https://www.liveeatlearn.com/vegetarian-caesar-salad/

HOW TO MAKE VEGETARIAN CAESAR DRESSING

We’ll start by making an easy homemade caesar salad dressing. To make the dressing, simply throw everything in a blender and blitz until smooth and creamy. To make Caesar salad dressing (without the usual anchovies) you’ll need:

• Olive Oil: Caesar dressing is an emulsion, so oil is going to be our base! Use regular or extra virgin olive oil here.
• Mayonnaise: Rather than thickening with raw eggs, we’re using mayonnaise for a foolproof Caesar dressing.
• Parmesan Cheese: Parmesan adds a savory element to replace the anchovies that are usually found in Caesar.
• Lemon Juice: Fresh is best here! Bottled juice won’t have as much tasty lemon flavor.
• Dijon Mustard: This emulsion is held together by mustard, which will keep the dressing creamy and delicious.
• Garlic: Just a clove of garlic brings major flavor to this Caesar!

• Dressing

  • ½ cup olive oil 120 mL
  • ¼ cup mayonnaise 60 g
  • ¼ cup shaved parmesan cheese 30 g
  • 2 Tbsp lemon juice 30 mL
  • 1 ½ tsp dijon mustard 7 g
  • 1 clove garlic
  • Salt and pepper to taste

  Salad

  • 5 heaping cups chopped romaine or mixed greens
  • 2 cups croutons
  • ½ cup shaved parmesan cheese 60 g
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  INSTRUCTIONS

  • Make Dressing: Add all Dressing ingredients to a blender and blitz until smooth and creamy. Taste and add salt and pepper, as needed.
  • Assemble: Roughly chop romaine or mixed greens. Toss together with croutons and parmesan. Drizzle with dressing and toss to coat (you may not need all of the dressing).

  NUTRITION

  Serving: 1salad – Calories: 409kcal – Carbohydrates: 16.9g – Protein: 8.9g – Fat: 35.5g – Saturated Fat: 7.2g – Cholesterol: 15mg – Sodium: 516mg – Potassium: 259mg – Fiber: 1.7g – Sugar: 1.3g – Calcium: 19% – Iron: 10%