It's that time of year again - just look at these beautiful scarlet jewels, Morello cherries. Because we are a little later picking this year, they are bursting with flavour and juice. These were picked today at the property of lovely friends.So ripe and luscious - perfect to be preserved for pies and tarts.

Wednesday morning tea offering today. An experimental banana caramel upside down cake - thankfully it worked out just fine and used up over a kilo of very ripe bananas. For the next course was a Strawberry Chantilly Ice Cream Cake, which I'd made a day or two ago especially to serve as a treat today. … Continue reading Wednesday morning tea platter offerings

When we run a Bottling the fruits of the season class here, as we did yesterday, I always get carried away with shopping for produce in the days beforehand. Once I see those beautiful summer fruits, I simply can't resist buying by the boxful where, quite frankly, a few kilos would have sufficed. Hence, the … Continue reading Bottling the Fruits of the Season class

I know it's a bit early for an afternoon tipple, but it's still 38 degrees here so a little indulgence is in order. An oat stout for me (I like it served in a wine glass) and a blackcurrant beer for Robert. He brewed them himself incidentally, and they are both jolly good.

The preserving frenzy continues in the cooking school kitchen. Last night bottles of Moor Park apricots, the ripest of the ones I bought a couple of days ago, were stewed and then preserved. They were so naturally full flavoured and sweet that there was absolutely no need to add any sugar at all. These will … Continue reading Preserving frenzy continues

On the way home on Saturday we found some gorgeous Moor Park apricots for sale. So today - just jammin' in the cooking school with a crispy apricot crumble to the side. Yesterday many kilos were halved and bottled, but more jam was certainly in order. It's my favourite - I use it a great … Continue reading Apricots again, excellent!

Raspberry lemon cream tarts, sitting at the ready to take in to the ABC last Saturday for the Jams and Preserves talkback. As for savouries - well, amongst them were sausage rolls of course. Now I like a packet of ready rolled puff pastry sheets as much as anyone - so convenient and they do … Continue reading Little Sweet and Savoury Treats

I do love a good pie, pretty much any sort, savoury for preference (with the possible exception of apricot, which I adore). They're great for using up leftovers too - a case in point, beef curry pies made for dinner last evening. The filling matched well to the batch of herbed shortcrust pastry I'd made … Continue reading PIES!!

With preserving season now in full swing, I keep forgetting to put up photos of the Wednesday morning tea platter offerings. Today - a very large old fashioned pineapple upside down cake. I decided to double the amount of caramel, just to see what would happen. It bubbled its way up through the cake batter … Continue reading Pineapple Upside Down Cake – luscious!

And then there are the geese - adopted as goslings a few weeks ago. Reason - the ride-on mower tends to tilt a bit alarmingly in places when I mow in (what is loosely termed) the orchard. "Geese are great for keeping down the grass." said several friends. "They can be really nasty, geese can." … Continue reading And then there were geese….