Autumn and getting green once more!

Well, it certainly has been a hot Perth summer, but autumn has finally arrived and with the cooler weather the plants are recovering. We have loads of pears, guava, citrus and apples growing at the moment. This is the first year we have been able to pick guava, and they are delicious!

Strawberry guava- delicious!

Strawberry guava- delicious!

We also have had a huge amount of honey from our busy bees- the shelves were full of jars of honey and we did another harvest a couple of weeks ago. This is a 20 litre bucket!

20 litre bucket of honey- second harvest this year!

20 litre bucket of honey- second harvest this year!

Our olive trees have also fruited this year, much better than the dozen or so olives we harvested last year!! Enough to fill a couple of 2 litre jars. These are soaking in water, changed daily for 2 weeks. Next comes the brine solution which they will sit in for a year- such a long wait!

Olives in water

Olives in water

 

Fermenting…..

Our latest preserving venture is lacto-fermentation, a process which has been around for a long time and has many health benefits. After a few experiments and a couple of hands on workshops (in particular with Yoke Mardewi from Wild Sourdough, we are now well on the way and have a few delicious items fermenting away!

Just a few….

Just a few….

There is a batch of sauerkraut and a batch of kimchi in the fridge being eaten, and in this photo is two types of sauerkraut, more kimchi, rhubarb and beetroot (left), saltless carrots, garlic in brine and garlic in honey. Next on the list is a mushroom ferment…..when we can find the shimeji mushrooms needed! Recipes will be added soon to the recipe section.

Rabbit liver pate….

We made a yummy rabbit liver on the weekend! We used the livers of four rabbits and followed a thermomix recipe for chicken liver pate and just substituted rabbit livers. It was very easy to make and really delicious!

Home made rabbit liver pate

Home made rabbit liver pate

It has been a busy few weeks, but we now have a full freezer…..of turkey, rabbit, lamb, and chicken as well as pate and various stocks on hand.

Using what we grow!

This past year we have been much more successful using and preserving what we grow, and we have learnt a lot about what works and what doesn’t!! There are some great websites with successful recipes that suit what we grow, our resources and our lifestyle, so we thought we would share some of our successes in a ‘recipe‘ page- beauty/health products such as lip balm, calendula salve, aloe vera gel, calendula oil; and our favourite recipes for home grown rabbit, duck, fish, veggies etc!

Today we made Aloe Vera Gel, which is good for sunburn and dermatitis. Because of the gelatinous nature of the aloe, we made the mix in the Thermomix. This helped to blend it well with the coconut oil and Vitamin E (which is added to help preserve it- though it still needs to go in the fridge).

Aloe vera gel making

Aloe vera gel making

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The finished product is certainly gel like, so we will see how it goes!! The recipe will be posted on the new ‘recipe‘ page once we know it is successful!

Mead bottling

Finally the mead is bottled. It is tasting ok now, but should improve with age so is stored away for a few months.

Ready to bottle

Ready to bottle

Ready for maturing!We decided to bottle into beer stubbies as one bottle makes two glasses, probably quite sufficient! It also means there is less waste when we open a bottle in a couple of months to try it.