Lemon Chutney

I made this awesome lemon chutney ages ago, and have been meaning to post the recipe up but have totally forgotten about it (sorry). Do not make this chutney if you do not like the bitey tang of lemons as it is quite strong. However, it is just gorgeous, especially with roasted meats. It is incredibly easy to make (although needs to be made over two days) and the smell of lemon in the kitchen is beautiful. I hope you guys like it as much as I do.

Lemon Chutney

Ingredients:

• 4 large lemons
• 3 medium onions
• 1.5 tbsp salt
• 2.5 cups white vinegar
• 3 cups brown sugar
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 3 tsps mustard seeds (although I just use the mustard in the jar, the seeded stuff not the smooth stuff, so no need for a muslin bag).

Method:

1. Wash and thinly slice up the lemons (remove all pips).
2. Peel and slice the onions.
3. In a bowl layer the lemons and onions, sprinkling each layer with salt.
4. Cover and leave to stand for 24 hours.
5. Next day, pour the lemons and onions into a colander and rinse well under cold running water. 
6. Drain well, then put in a pan with the vinegar, sugar, raisins, cayenne pepper and ground ginger. 
7. Wrap the mustard seeds in a small square of muslin and tie securely. Add the muslin bag to the preserving pan, making sure it is thoroughly immersed in the mixture.
8. Heat the mixture gently, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has dissolved completely. 
9. Bring slowly to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 1½ hours, or until the lemons are tender and the chutney has been reduced in volume by a quarter and is thick and shiny. 
10. Remove the pan from the heat, remove and discard the muslin bag and spoon the chutney into clean, warm, dry jars. 
11. Cover immediately with vinegar proof lids. When the chutney is cold, label and date the jars and store in a cool, dry, airy cupboard for two months.

Blackberry Jam

Today the husband & I went out for a self-indulgent yummy breakfast with two of our very dear friends, Darren & Cherril. These people are gorgeous, the sort that you are just at such ease with, love to be with & who just make you laugh. Luckily for me, they have a multitude of fresh blackberries at their property - & they collected some for me, which of course means, blackberry jam!


Blackberry Jam

1.5 kg fresh blackberries

1.5 kg sugar

Juice of half a lemon

¼ cup water
I packet of pectin (such as Jamsetta)

1. Combine the berries, water & lemon juice in to a big saucepan.
2. Heat gently, gradually bringing to a slow boil.
3. Heat the sugar in a microwave for 2 minutes (usually in 2 batches) & gradually add to the berry mixture: mix in well until dissolved.
4. Add the pectin: mix in well until dissolved
5. Pour into sterilised jars & seal well.

Spring has Sprung!

Wow, spring is finally here! How lovely to be just wandering around the garden: the weather is mild, the smell of all the is blooms filling the air, & I'm seeing all the flowers & the bulbs smiling at me. We've had so much rain lately in the region, with lots of awful flooding wrecking people's homes unfortunately. Jeremy took some fantastic photos of the Creswick flooding, you can have a look at the Ballarat Courier's photo gallery here: http://www.thecourier.com.au/multimedia/15806/flooding-at-creswick.aspx

I took some photos of the garden just now, so I thought it best to share xx

Our Lone Pine.

We have been able to purchase a descendant of the original Lone Pine (Aleppo Pine), left at Lone Pine Ridge, Turkey in 1915. This was the last Aleppo Pine left standing after the Turkish Army cut down the other ones to cover their trenches. In August 1915, during a 3 day battle the Australian Army lost 2000 men whilst the Turkish Army lost 7000 men.

Two Australian soldiers kept some of the pine cones. Many years later, luckily, their relatives were able to germinate 6 seedlings. These seedlings were then donated to various towns & war memorials. Since the 1980's many trees have been grown from the Aleppo Pine which was donated to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

Now we can all buy the descendants of that Lone Pine. We bought ours recently, but also purchased an plaque to clearly identify it as a very special addition to our garden.

Spiders In The Garden.

It's a frosty, crisp, wintry day here & it's appears that the spiders are enjoying the morning sunshine. How glorious is our garden today? Magnificent.

Spring in the Garden

Gosh I've been away from here for ages! What has been happening in my life over the past month? Probably not a great deal of interesting stuff really, just general family nonsense with great boring potential for others. We did put in floorboards in the September school holidays, my bestie Kim visited from NSW then too (more about her at a later date) so September was a great month.

October was not the best month really, as three of the four of us had gastro - but not me luckily. I just got the disrupted sleep and a dose of the queasiness, which was more than enough thank you very much. Both the boys got the vomits in the middle of the night which appears to be the best time to have it really, makes it delightful to attend work the next day.

We had the school sports, which was Tom's last one at primary school. He had his literacy & numeracy testing for college a few weeks ago and coped just fine. A great friend of his will be joining him at the new school as well as his current school friends so he couldn't be more excited really. Jack is grooving along at a great rate of knots, and he is feeling more grown up now that Tom will be leaving him for a new school as Jack now has the responsibility of taking notes and newsletters back and forth to the school office. He will also be in the Senior Group for the next two years of school - and it's hard to be more grown up than that in the scheme of things.

So here are a few gratuitous garden shots from today. It's looking rather pretty isn't it? Spring is a great time of year in our garden, but in a few weeks time this will all be a brown dust bowl. Hopefully we will all be safe from fires this summer fire season, I don't want anyone in Australia to go through what some communities went through on Black Saturday. Perhaps it will be inevitable in our climate and with fire bugs waiting to pounce - but I hope it will not be so. Lives are too precious - both human & animal.

Beautiful Camellias.

We have beautiful camellias don't we? These babies are enormous bushes (or trees), technically about 2 storeys tall, and they are part of a large planting of 8 camellia trees, all different colours, from deep red to really bright pink. They surround a small bit of decking, which I want to expand to go all around the house. However, if I do actually do that I will have to rip out the camellia trees, which totally sucks. What to do? I want both the decking and the camellias. How do I get to have it all?

My beautiful ex-tree

My day was totally ruined yesterday by the untimely upending of my most favourite tree in the world. It was a Eucalyptus Ficifolia, and is pretty hard to grow in this part of Australia, due to cold temperatures in winter, with many frosts.

This was it last summer - isn't it just glorious. Each Autumn we do a mass plant out of about 20 of these, with usually about 5 surviving each time, so at least we have more, but they are still small, and will have quite a few years to get to the brilliance of this one.

Unfortunately, this is my tree today. We had huge winds here yesterday, and this was one of a few trees damaged, but unfortunately this one will not be able to be saved, as the roots are out. What a damn shame - it was indeed a beautiful tree.