Welcome 2013

Hello dear reader,
It's been pretty busy around here with two small children to entertain and occupy for the last couple of weeks.
We've been on a bit of a mission to keep the TV turned off for as long as possible during the day. It's no TV before 4.00 pm, and when we do, it's a movie, and you know, the kids are actually having an old fashioned holiday.
The house is a complete mess, but they're having fun.


They've been drawing,
drawing on the footpath,
seed planting,
walking to the Milk Bar,
building cubbies out of cushions,
cooking with me,
threading beads,
playing complicated pretend games together,
trampolining,
painting,
playing with guinea pigs,
making sweets,
indoor swimming when it was too hot for outside,
stuff! It's good.
I have been going bananas in the garden.

Here's pictures

Sour dough bread I made

 Elsie's play dough man

 little man with a beret

 Little Parisian pickling cucumbers...

 Carrot flowers!

We call these fairy lanterns, not sure of the proper name

 This is beautiful! Purple!

 Corriander flowers

 Lovely plant and planter for Christmas, and my new "no dig" beds.

 Lettuce, basil, and sunflowers

 Another "no dig" bed...looks a bit like a shallow grave...Tomatoes up the back

Cosmos and Pea

 Banana passionfruit flower

 Plum/peach yumminess ripening

 Lemon bounty

 Apples

 Columbine

 Crispy Columbine

Pretty green underworld....

Autumn

Getting back to Apples

As time has marched on, I have forgotten how much my little girl loves mushy stewed apple. We made a lot of cooked apple when she just started solids, but as she became more adventurous we left it by the 8ish month way-side.
So here is my yummy, and extremely simple way to make mushy apple.

2 apples
1 tbsp sugar (or less)
Pinch of cinnamon (to taste)
2 tbsp water

Peel, core and chop apples into quarters , put them into a small saucepan, with the other ingredients. Simmer for about 10mins.
Squish it all down with the back of a wooden spoon.
Serve on it’s own.
Or with custard, or icecream.
Also makes a nice underneath for crumble

Autumn

Home grown Tart Tatin

This is a great tart to make if you have an apple tree in your back yard, and they aren’t that great to eat straight off the tree. (There is absolutely nothing wrong with buying your apples from a shop or market either, it will make little difference). We have a very old tree that has had many years of neglect and has a lot of worms in the fruit. We are on a mission to get it back on track. I f you have a lot of worms in your apples, be sure to pick up as many fallen fruits as possible. It will help reduce the worms crawling back up the tree…it helps to break the wormy cycle.

Now to get started…

You will need

A suitable heavy based baking dish that can go from stove top to oven. For example Chasseur or Le Crusiet or similar.
Apples, (enough to cover the bottom of your baking dish) I use 8 in this recipe

Raw Sugar, (enough to cover the bottom of the dish.

50 Gms. thin slices of butter, to cover the bottom of the dish.

Short crust Pastry sheets 1 – 2 sheets, or your own recipe.

Peel, core and cut out any wormy bits of your apples. Cut the apple in to quarters.

Sprinkle about 1 fingers depth of raw sugar across the base of the dish. Then slice, and layer the pieces of butter to roughly cover the sugar.
Place the quarters of apple, round side down in to the dish and arrange them in a concentric circular pattern. Making sure they are firmly together.

Thaw your pastry sheets, then refrigerate them, don’t ask me why, it just works better if you do it that way.

Place your dish of apples on the stove top on a low temperature. The idea is to slowly melt the sugar and butter, while gently half cooking the apples. You will have to keep an eye on the apples during this process. You don’t want them to go mushy. I move the pot around to spread the cooking evenly.
It may take 20 minutes or so.

When you’re happy with the amount of cooking, they should still be firm to touch with the back of the spoon. Take the apples off the heat. Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees.

Place your sheet/s of short crust pastry over the apples. Make sure there are no wholes in the pastry…this will become the base. Trim the pastry so it sits on the apples.
Bake in the oven until it is crispy and lightly browned.

Now for the tricky part…

Take a knife and run it around the edge of the baking dish Place a large enough plate or serving tray over the dish and carefully turn the whole thing upside down. The apples should be on top of the pastry…and it should look and smell delicious.
If some of the apples have gone astray, just put them back as well as you can…there is always one or two that got a bit of extra cooking.
Now, serve it up with some lovely thick cream and enjoy.