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

Hydroponics Strawberries and Rhubarb!

After cutting back the self seeding rocket I was able to get some pictures of the sumptuous 

 The Rhubarb is looking healthier than my 2 year old Rhubarb in the ground and this has been in less than 6 months!  Some of the stalks are looking good enough to eat!  The oregano is so prolific you can barely see the pipe in places!

Grand Pop's Tomatoes... well lots of the leaves have browned and gone crunchy but lots more are growing.  LOTS of fruit are coming in and so far so good... NO blossom end rot! :-D

That's it from the hydroponics side of things for today as the rest of the garden is in need of attention!

Happy Gardening *hugs*

Sarah