Home Grown

Our little garden in the inner city is working overtime this summer. We've just picked a basket of white nectarines off our tree which produced exactly zero last year.

I love white nectarines .... and these are a juicy and sweet and fleshy and luscious.

I love the way the juice runs down your arm and drips off your elbow. I've learnt from experience to eat them straight from the tree in the garden, or over the sink.

Last year summer was blisteringly hot and dry. So far, we've had a cool summer and lots of rain so the fruit is about a 4-6 weeks behind.

And there's lots more to come.

We've got a tree full of apricots not yet ripe, the olive trees are laden, our tomatoes are green but looking good, the lime and orange trees have set their fruit and we've got an abundance of apples and crab apples.

I need to check out what to so with crab apples (and what they actually taste like).

We planted the tree a couple of years ago - mostly for the spring blossom, but this year the tree is heavy with fruit so I need to think about what to do with it. I've heard of crab apple jelly ... so I'll see what recipes I can find in my collection or on good old google. What do you serve crab apple jelly with?

So as summer stretches before us, we're looking forward eating our fruit ... and preserving and bottling and making jellies and jams and curds.

Cumquatty deliciousness

This summer I've been bottling jam and literally enjoying the fruits of my labour.

I've made apricot jam and plum jam and the results have been pretty impressive for a complete beginner (not to mention delicious).

Last week my neighbour dropped in a brown paper bag filled with cumquats.

Ahhh cumquats.

I immediately thought of cumquat jam, my Dad's favourite, but there was some heavy lobbying for cumquats in brandy from another household member!

Nostalgia won out and cumquat jam was the go.

Interestingly I had to halve the cumquats, take the seeds out (they're tiny little things) and soak the fruit overnight.

Maybe other jam makers can tell me if that's the norm. I really don't know.

But that's what the recipe called for.

And I should point out dear reader that yes, that is a chux - a clean one mind you - with the pips in it. Unlike Jane Austin, I didn't have any muslin to hand.

After soaking the fruit, it was the usual procedure of adding sugar and a little bit of lemon juice, simmering until setting point was reached (And I'm getting better at telling this too.)

The end result, beautiful bottles of cumquat jam.

Look at that glorious colour!

It passes the taste test.

And I've got a bottle for my Dad when he visits us at Easter.