I've been a bit uninspired blog-wise lately. Cooking mainly for young children day- in and day-out is exhausting. My oldest daughter is going through a bit of a fussy phase while my youngest continues the infuriating toddler eat-heaps-one-day and then hardly anything the next.
I'm also at the end of two weeks of travel, sickness and injury within the family. My husband and I have taken turns sleeping in shifts all weekend and so a little cooking mojo came back.
I attended Handmade 2012 a few weekends back and
Lynda Hallinan of NZ Gardner fame brought along her ginger beer bug and sent home attendees of her masterclass with their own bug starter in a jar. I bottled my first batch at the weekend and hopefully I will have a good news story about it later in the week. This is my second batch of the bug and it is very, very active.
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Ginger beer bug. Ten minutes later it frothed over on to the bench. It took nearly half an hour to calm down. |
At the same time as I was making the bug I was waiting for my apple and mint jelly to set. I seem to have some kind of jam making impairment at the moment and end up having to re-boil all my jam. I've even taken to using the temperature method (boiling to 102C). I have a few jam making friend experts so I'm hoping to pick their brains. Apple and mint jelly made with green apples though is a very easy jam to make - all the pectin in the apples helps a lot!
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Taking photos at night with a flash using a window as a backdrop is rarely successful but I quite like this one. I like the idea that the apple and mint jelly (Edmond's style) has a bit of a cheeky taste. |
Since I was up late I decided to get some bread baking for the next morning. I tried a new recipe from the newer version of Alison and Simon Holst's bread making book. I was intrigued because it used two kinds of yeast. Even though it was the same yeast as in the very frothy bug I found that there was not much of a good rise in this bread. I felt that it was a little doughy and way too yeasty tasting. However, I'm sure it was something to do with the process not the recipe (I have never yet found a problem with an Alison Holst recipe). I love how mysterious bread making can be.
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Bread maker. Sadly the bread was really disgusting.
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I also decided to try something a bit different and come up with something to do with a bag of persimmons that had gone soft. There are not that many options out there, even with the whole of the internet as a resource. I decided to go with an apple and persimmon butter. I cooked them on low over night in the slow cooker, then squished through a sieve and boiled down on the stove top. The final colour is a deep blood red/orange. It tastes nice, but is quite sweet. I don't like it as much as plain
apple butter.
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Persimmon and green apple butter - early stages.
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Making pectin stock. I couldn't bear to let the cores go unused. |
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The time that I stopped cooking! |
You have been busy! And congrats on the 200 post!
ReplyDeleteCiao
Alessandra