Strawberry Fever!

Well the boys and I went strawberry picking!

 A fabulous day and at only $10 per big black box a cheap family day out.  So this is what we started with:

 That is 2 trays less the ones that we ate 25.4kg.

 So we set to work... ok I set to work... Jams, preserves, cordials, dried and frozen.  We then went and got two more trays since we are stocking up the store cupboard.

 B helped make a jelly tart (dairy free version of a cheesecake-ish)  Digestive biscuits and dairy free margarine base chilled then sliced strawberries then strawberry jelly (jello)... no artificial colours of course!  Set in the fridge and disappeared really fast.  Yesterday I broke out the puff pastry and egg slicer (best way to slice strawberries ever!) thats it... that is all the ingredients for the pretty flower / star pastries ;-)

This morning I moved all the strawberry jars into the laundry - going into a cupboard in here as my kitchen is *small*. 

 Jam's on the left... the Ball Pectin worked the best.  CSR Jam Sugar did not set even though I followed the directions so it will go into cakes and on ice-cream.  Jamsetta gave mixed results too... so definitely sticking to Ball Pectin next time!  On the right - Preserved strawberries... really yummy and can be turned into Jelly (Jell-o) easy peasy.

 Left - middle jars are Strawberries with Balsamic Vinegar and Black Pepper.  Sounds funky but is delicious.  Right - 3 jars of dried strawberry "chips".  Ended up using the oven on 50C - 75C fan forced.  Much quicker than the drier and leaves them with more flavour.

 In the corner is dried rosemary from the garden... have lots more to dry lol.  I will use this in savoury scones.  The Preserved Strawberries here have a dash of Cognac in them for something different.  Two of the smaller jars are the Juice left over from this batch that I sieved and turned into American style "Jelly".

The rest of the left over "juice"/syrup from the strawberry conserve got sieved put in a bottle as cordial.  The boys definitely wont be lacking vitamin C!

So since we outgrew the half a shelf in the kitchen we decided to consolidate and move all our preserving efforts... Strawberry - everything; Salt Lemon Pickle; Nectarine Jam; Peach Jam; Spiced Nectarine Jam; Black Marmalade (brown sugar!); Lemon Marmalade; Honey Nectarine Cordial and a few other bits and pieces.  

So you might be wondering why this is on our Vege-patch page.  Well the whole point of our vege-patch is to provide for our family good fresh food.  We have a kitchen garden and preserving our harvest where ever it is harvested from is part of this.

Happy Gardening

*hugs*  Sarah