The making and baking of this week's Wednesday morning tea platter. Always a favourite, this raspberry coconut slice. A good choice too because I had some leftover egg whites, a batch of (until today) frozen sweet shortcrust pastry and half a large jar of raspberry jam.

And so to bed - well, almost. Just stewed a bucketful of apples and now the peels and cores are hopefully making a jar of apple cider vinegar. Too tired (and fearful of Huntsman spiders) to walk out to the cooking school to get a piece of muslin to cover the jar, and no coffee … Continue reading Another Apple Day ends

Day 3 of apple processing and now the juice is all preserved. The cooking school is finally cleaned up again, with slow cookers lined up for an upcoming class. Now just four buckets of apples to peel, core and puree then preserve and we're done - except maybe for a minor experiment or two with … Continue reading The juice

Yesterday was the designated day for the annual juicing and cider making. Thanks so much to friends and family who came along to help. It was no mean feat chopping and pressing all those apples in the chill of the open shed door. Lucky me got to stay in the kitchen to prepare food to … Continue reading Cider Making Time

Here are some of the apples we picked with a friend a few days ago. This is only about half of them, there are as many again in containers behind these. So this weekend, it will be the tradition of scratting and pressing them all for cider, apple juice and also innumerable jars of preserved … Continue reading Apples and apples and apples

Snowy on the hills opposite us today, wish iot would keep coming over to our property. However, meantime there's the Wednesday morning tea platter in the making. Apples picked earlier this week in the Valley, lightly stewed and then their surrounding juice thickened with a little custard powder paste. Apple portions went on the top … Continue reading Valley Apple Custard Cakes on a cold and snowy morning

Here's the recipe I promised for the lemon meringue slice. It's destination was Primrose Sands. The meringue topping had a challenge to arrive without cracking too much. (Love this serving on grandson's plate.) Lemon Meringue Slice Pastry 90g butter 90g sugar 1 egg yolk 180g plain flour ½ teaspoon baking powder For the Filling 2 … Continue reading Lemon Meringue Slice recipe

Love a little evening baking - tonight, lemon meringue slice in the making and a container full of chewy Anzacs. The intense colour of that lemon filling is due to the last of the lemons from the tree, and especially eggs from our pampered hens.

It may not be pretty, but hopefully tasty. Time to clean out the freezer of last summer's berries, currants, jostaberries and cherries. This is a combined fruit concentrate, which will be used later to make a larger batch of cordial syrup, and also as a concentrate for Robert's fruit beers. Tomorrow this syrup (much lower … Continue reading Freezer “garden” bounty

This + this + this = what? Today's little adventure in the kitchen. On our way back from the north of the state recently, we called in at a place called The Conservatory, at Sassafras. I'd known this place since I was a child, driven past it innumerable times. ("A place for plants" my parents … Continue reading The Stuff of Inspiration – Tasmanian pure honey and pepperberries