by Krista | Mar 16, 2015 | Autumn
“Anyone who has a garden, park or orchard tree has an opportunity to ensure that it offers protection, brings beauty and bears fruit for future generations.” Gabriel Hemery
When I first moved to our farm in rural Queensland, Australia, I could never have imagined the projects Bear and I would tackle as we turned this beautiful spot into a place where little dreams come true.
One of our dreams was to have our own orchard filled with apples, plums, pears, peaches, apricots, etc. But as owners of a herd of Kalahari goats with fence-busting tendencies, we had to make sure the orchard would be safe from their voracious appetites and sneaky ways. We also had to protect the fruit from marauding birds. We both love watching the amazing birds around here – galahs, cockatoos, grass parrots, kookaburras, and more – but any fruit tree left unprotected is soon devoured by the feathered beauties.
All that to say, we had our work cut out for us to grow and harvest our own fruit.
We’ve been working in stages. First we built one row of fencing of heavy duty wire around the perimeter of the Big Orchard which houses plums, peaches, citrus, and 19 grape vines. Then we pounded in star pickets to anchor the large plastic pipes that would form the base for encasing the orchard in bird netting.
This week we’re working on building an inner fence. The last line of defense to keep out pesky goats, kangaroos, and wallabies.
It’s mighty hot work out in the blazing Autumn sunshine, but over the last day or two some cooling breezes have blown in making it more bearable. Thank. Goodness.
Being out there day after day gives us the opportunity to see the orchard up close and personal. While the plums and peaches are past producing anything, the citrus portion of the orchard is flourishing. Even though the trees are only two years old, most of them are bearing good-sized oranges, lemons, and limes.
A few of them are covered with lusciously scented blossoms. I always wondered why brides in old books wore orange blossoms in their hair. Now I know. They’re pure heaven.
Some of the trees were purchase at rock bottom prices because the labels were missing and the nursery didn’t know what they were. So they’re our mystery trees, and we look forward to finding out what they are.
Working in such hot weather regular breaks in the shade with cold glasses of something to cool us down and refresh our spirits.
Our favorite drink right now is Sima, a traditional fermented Finnish drink made to celebrate May Day. It is lemony and fizzy and not-too-sweet and slightly alcoholic, rather like ginger beer. I brewed up a triple batch this weekend, and it is divine. Those Finns have a good thing going with Sima, and we are very happy to adopt their traditional drink as a delicious pick-me-up on sweltering days on the farm.
Traditional Sima is made using sliced lemons, but I have bottles of bush lemon juice I made last year that need to be used up, so I make it with straight lemon juice and bush lemon zest instead. Feel free to use whatever suits your fancy.
What is your favorite drink on a piping hot work day? xo
Bush Lemon Sima
3.5 litres/gallons of water
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup raw sugar
1/2 cup fresh squeezed bush lemon juice
1 heaped Tbsp bush lemon zest
1/8 tsp champagne or regular yeast
handful of raisins
1. Place water, sugars, juice, and zest in a large pot and bring to the boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and sit until lukewarm.
2. Pour into glass demijohn (or large glass pitcher), add yeast and stir. Cover with clean tea towel and leave overnight.
3. Sterilize 4 1-litre/gallon bottles with lids.
4. In each bottle add one tsp raw sugar and 5-6 raisins.
5. Strain Sima into each bottle and seal well, giving it a vigorous swirl to help dissolve sugar.
6. Let sit at room temperature until raisins have all risen to the top of the liquid.
7. Refrigerate until ready to serve. This should nearly halt the fermentation process and stop the bottles from exploding, but check the bottles now and then just to make sure. Gentle open tops to release pressure if necessary.
by Krista | Mar 10, 2015 | Autumn
“I know the look of an apple that is roasting and sizzling on the hearth on a winter’s evening,
and I know the comfort that comes of eating it hot, along with some sugar and a drench of cream…
I know how the nuts taken in conjunction with winter apples, cider, and doughnuts,
make old people’s tales and old jokes sound fresh and crisp and enchanting.”
Mark Twain
I love this time of year, so very much. Though I must confess that the beginnings of our Autumn feel suspiciously like the roasting hot days of the inordinately blistering Summer we’ve just had. Hopefully cooler days will come soon.
In the meantime, Bear and I are basking in the harvests of Autumn, hauling home boxes full of too ripe pears and perfectly crisp apples as we begin our initial forays into cider-making.
Over the past few months we’ve been collecting all the bits and bobs necessary for brewing our own cider, beer, wine, champagne, liqueurs, and anything else we might think of.
Our outdoor kitchen is still in the dreaming phase, so until then, our breezeway is stacked with demijohns and bottles, packages of lids and rubber seals, and the presses and mulcher Bear has been lovingly restoring and adapting to our needs.
Last week we were finally ready for the trial run of our equipment, so we got it all set up and went to work.
Our cider apple orchard isn’t planted yet, so we just picked up a couple varieties from the market and a box of pears to blend them with.
I was in charge of the mulching, getting the fruit chopped into pressable bits. It smelled amazing!! All that gorgeous apple and pear deliciousness wafting around us while we munched on apples as I fed the machine. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon, I tell ya.
When the fruit was all chopped up, Bear manned the press, turning the handle and squeezing out every last bit of gorgeous juice into the waiting bucket. Then we filtered the juice into waiting demijohns, added Campden tablets and yeast, inserted the air locks, and set them into the Granny Flat to do their fermenting work.
Bear checks them all throughout the day, excitedly reporting back on the rate of air bubbles, frothing consistency, and whatnot. We’re getting rather antsy to get to the bottling and tasting stages. Oddly enough, we keep getting volunteers eager to help with that whole tasting thing. Such good friends we have. 😉
What is your favorite brew? xo
**If you fancy reading about how we got involved in making cider, pop over to our farm blog to read my hubby’s highly exaggerated account: Adventures in Cider Making 🙂
by Krista | Mar 8, 2015 | Autumn
It’s a beautiful Sunday morning, sunny and quiet, just what Bear and I need after a hectic week.
We’re having a pottering sort of day, a day for naps and research for our books and for a leisurely brunch made special with Pomegranate Mojitos.
I love pomegranates. They always remind me of California, for that is where I first tasted them and became a fan for life.
I have two pomegranate trees planted and a third seedling coming along well, but didn’t think I’d get to taste any fruit until next year. Then my friend Shirley stopped by bearing pomegranates from her tree! I was thrilled. I kept them sitting in a blue bowl on my table for a whole week before using them, simply because they look so beautiful.
Yesterday I finally set aside time to process them. Pomegranates take a bit of time to get the ruby insides ready for eating, but they’re well worth the effort. While there are many methods for removing the seeds, known as arils, I find the easiest way is to simply cut off the top and bottom of the pomegranate and score along the natural humps of the fruit with a sharp knife, top to bottom. Then you can easily break it open into sections, and quickly fill your bowl with these tart little beauties.
I decided to turn them into grenadine syrup to use in various cocktails (Tequila Sunrise, Shirley Temple, etc). Grenadine is the French word for pomegranate, and is usually a shiveringly sweet syrup made with none-too-healthy corn syrup. Making it from fruit and sugar instead results in a more flavorsome syrup that doesn’t hurt your teeth with sweetness. You can make it even healthier by substituting real maple syrup for the sugar, but it does contribute a subtle maple flavor to the syrup.
Grenadine syrup is very simple to make. Barely cover pomegranate arils with water, bring to a boil, simmer for five minutes, then press through a strainer to get as much juice as possible. Measure the juice and add an equal amount of sugar, return to a boil, simmer for one minute, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Either cool and use right away or bottle it for future use.
I decided to use some in a special Pomegranate Mojito to make our Sunday Brunch extra special. Mojitos are my favorite cocktail. Always refreshing, always cooling, just the thing for a hot Sunday morning. A traditional Cuban mojito has five ingredients: lime juice, sugar, mint, white rum, and sparkling water over crushed ice. This is bliss in a glass, and the perfect base from which to experiment with different fruits. Blackberry, raspberry, they’re all delicious, and pomegranate is just as scrumptious.
What is your favorite cocktail on a hot day? xo
Grenadine Syrup Recipe
Ingredients:
2 cups pomegranate arils (seeds)
water to cover
granulated sugar
Directions:
Place pomegranate arils in medium saucepan and add water until just covered.
Bring to boil over medium-high heat and simmer for 5 minutes, crushing seeds gently with potato masher to extract juice.
Remove from heat and pour through fine mesh strainer into new saucepan, pressing seeds to extract all juice.
Measure juice and add same amount of sugar.
Return to heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Simmer for one minute.
Remove from heat, cool, and bottle in sterlized bottle. If using right away, store in fridge, if saving, put through hot water bath to seal bottles.
Pomegranate Mojito
Serves 2
Ingredients:
4 tsp Grenadine syrup
Juice of one lime
20 fresh mint leaves
1.5-2 cups crushed ice
4 Tbsp white rum
chilled soda water or sparkling mineral water
mint leaves or lime wedge to garnish
Directions:
2 tsp of Grenadine syrup in each glass.
Divide lime juice and mint leaves equally between two glasses. Stir then muddle gently with muddler or mortar so leaves are bruised but not crushed.
Divide crushed ice and white rum between two glasses.
Top up with chilled soda water and garnish with mint leaves and/or lime wedge.
Serve immediately.
by Krista | Mar 6, 2015 | Bits 'n' Bobs
I’ve been waiting eagerly for Autumn to arrive. For sweltering hot days to be replaced with cool mornings and breezy afternoons. For markets to fill up with crisp apples, juicy pears, and plump grapes.
It’s finally here and I’m so happy, body and soul. My Canadian self is not cut out for Queensland Summers. As much as I love the sunshine and brilliant blue skies, the heat knocks me flat and mornings are the only time I feel remotely energetic.
So this morning, when I woke to overcast skies and cooling breezes blowing in our windows, my whole being gave a sigh of relief.
Autumn is here.
Bear and I spent yesterday doing a trial run of all our cider-making equipment, processing apples and pears to turn into hard cider today. I’ll tell you all about that soon.
This morning, however, is about resting and basking in Autumn weather and getting caught up on reading and dreaming and planning.
It’s about wandering through gardens to see what’s flourishing and what is on its way out, checking on newborn goats and growing ducklings, and sitting down with a big mug of Lemon Verbena tea to relax before the next big project.
It’s also about studying and researching, for Bear and I have embarked on writing a medieval cookbook together. We are having a marvelous time expanding our current knowledge and experience and putting our discoveries to the test. Our study times are punctuated with exclamations of, “Hey babe, listen to this!” or “Ohhh, we’ve GOT to try this!” We’re both loving it.
Summer on the farm is marked by feverish activity, each day packed with watering, feeding, building, managing, etc. We fall into bed each night utterly exhausted but strangely satisfied from knowing our weariness is simply the result of a job well done.
But Autumn brings a reprieve, giving us time to sit back and be proud of what we’ve accomplished, to work steadily but leisurely harvesting and enjoying what we worked on so hard all Summer long. We’re gathering rosellas and the last of the green beans, plump yellow heirloom tomatoes so sweet they’re almost candy, and the few apples that our fledgling orchard produced.
It’s also exciting as we see the new growth of the few things that thrive in our Winter: citrus trees blossoming and filling out with baby lemons, limes, and oranges, and hardy winter veg gearing up to produce Brussels sprouts, cabbages, and spinach during the cold months.
Yes, I love this time of year and am looking forward to every day.
What is your favorite thing about the season you’re experiencing? xo
by Krista | Feb 27, 2015 | Summer
Last night I was woken from a sound sleep by an incredible storm. Booming thunder shook the house, lightning lit up the farmyard, and rain hurtled straight down making an incredible racket on the roof. It was both scary and marvelous.
A few hours later we woke again, this time to a quiet but sodden world. The ground was like a sponge and laundry hung on the line the night before was so wet I had to wring it out before it would stop dripping.
We were thrilled.
Good, soak-into-the-ground rain is so rare here, that anytime it comes is cause for celebration.
Normally we’d drive straight into chores and to-do-lists, but this rainy morning Bear announced that he was treating us to breakfast. Never one to argue with a good idea, I hastily got ready and off we went.
It was wonderful to sit in a comfy booth, chat with friends who happened to be there too, and linger long over coffees and extra hash browns.
There was lots to talk about, for we’ve decided to plant another orchard, this one set aside for cider apples and cider pears so we can make our own hard cider in years to come. It was so fun to pour over lists of cider apple names from England, France, and Australia. Who could resist a “Brown Snout,” “Fox Whelp,” or “Bulmer’s Norman?” Not us. 🙂
We settled on ten varieties of apples and two varieties of perry pears, ordered our trees, and are now waiting excitedly for them to be delivered in a couple of months.
Between now and then we’ll be digging holes, building fences, and setting up bird netting to keep the fruit safe from marauding cockatoos, galahs, grass parrots, and innumerable other birds who’ve set up home on the farm.
After getting our cider orchard planned and a few errands run, the rain began to fall again, soft and gentle, and we arrived home in time for a cozy afternoon of cuppas and wood-burning, studying about cider-brewing and watching new episodes of “White Collar.”
On rainy days like this I like to make us special breakfasts, warming yet nourishing ones that are a bit out of the ordinary. This week I made a healthy apple crisp topped with oats, pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds drizzled with a bit of butter and some real maple syrup. While the crisp baked I made a quick batch of vanilla pudding lightly sweetened with a swirl of maple syrup. Dusted with cinnamon it made a warm, luscious topping for the apple crisp and made us feel quite decadent and spoiled.
What is your favorite breakfast on a rainy morning? xo
