Apple Harvest, Apple Storage and a Recipe for a Traditional Irish Apple Blackberry Pie

The boys and I were out picking apples this weekend. Unfortunately this years harvest isn't as plentiful as the years before. In early Spring frost hit the trees while they were in full blossom and at their fragilest. I am not sure, if I will have enough to make apple sauce to last for the whole year, but we´ll find a replacement when time comes. The boys still had a blast climbing the tree and picking the apples. What we usually do is we collect them all, including the ones that have fallen on the ground as they only attract wasps and slugs if you leave them there. And we have plenty of those around anyway and we don't need any more.

How to make your own black Elderberry Syrup

Blackberry Chocolate Jam - Indulge in this divine combination

On Monday I was in a crazy jamming session. Not the music one but the juicy one! So here I am sharing yet another recipe. This one is for blackberry chocolate jam. I have never tried to mix chocolate with jam before. This was a first and I really like the outcome.

For this nerve balm of a jam, aka blackberry chocolate jam you need:
450 grams of Blackberries
Juice of half a lemon.
100 grams of dark chocolate
250 grams of gelling sugar (in the US jelly sugar). Using gelling sugar will allow you to use only half the amount of sugar.

Bring Blackberries and gelling sugar to a boil, whizz until most of the blackberry seeds are not visible anymore!
Take pot off the hot hob and add chocolate in little chunks. Now stir until dissolved!
Fill in sterilised jars while still hot and screw lids on tightly. Now turn the jam jars upside-down. Let cool to room temperature while upside-down. Label and voilà your Blackberry Chocolate Jam is ready for use!

Preparing your own jam really is no rocket science and well worth the work put into it. Some of the ingredients in bought jam give me goose bumps...like why does it need food colouring? Why would you add 60-70% of sugar? Do you really want to eat jam with corn starch syrup?

A detailed how-to for sterilising jars and any jam making or canning basics you can find here.

I hope you will enjoy your blackberry chocolate jam. If you combine this one with peanut butter on some sweet bread. You should feel heavenly instantly!

Strawberry Blueberry Jam - simple and divine!

Making Strawberry Blueberry Jam is no rocket science. In fact it is so super simple that I was seriously considering it unworthy writing a blogpost. But I thought, what if you have never tried this? Simply didn't think of it? This is such a great combination for a jam jar and if you haven't tried it wait no longer. I made 4 different varieties on Monday and this one is my most favourite! I actually only wanted to write about blackberry peppermint jam and blackberry dark chocolate jam. (they will follow) But over the week I fell in love with the strawberry blueberry combination that I simply had to share. Seriously, try it with a dollop of cream cheese on a pancake and you will understand what I am talking  about.

Banana Chocolate Waffles - a good & fast way to use up those giraffe coloured overripe bananas

Are You guilty of collecting some of those ripe bananas and then let them end unused in the compost?

Well, join to the club! I decided I need to fight this wasting! So from now on I will come up with uses!
Here is my first experiment. As so often it involves the waffle iron!

Roasted Hazelnut Chocolate Brownies - A gluten free taste bud explosion!

You can make these very tasty brownies out of any left over nut meal from making nut milk. You can also just use any ground nuts or nut flour, if you have no left over nut meal in your freezer.  These roasted hazelnut chocolate brownies were made out of the roasted hazelnut meal from last weeks roasted hazelnut milk post. They are incredibly moist and rich in taste. Roasting the hazelnuts really adds the extra bit of flavour to these little taste bombs.

Here is the very simple recipe:

Melt 70 grams butter in a saucepan
and add 150 grams of chocolate (I use a mix of 70% and 85% dark chocolate) and stir until melted
add 150 grams of brown raw sugar
and 6 eggs one ofter the other, while risking on high speed for a while after each
and add 2 tablespoons of vanilla extract (find out here how to make your own) Whisk all well
Now gently fold 200 grams of defrosted roasted hazelnut meal (you can add any nut meal here, we have also tried almonds or cashews. Both make very tasty Brownies!) Here you find out how to make your own. You can also use 200 grams of very finely ground hazelnuts (or really any nuts to make a different brownie) if you have no nut meal in your freezer. Be aware if you take ordinary ground (hazel)nuts your brownies will be a little less moist!  Once all is a homogeneous mass pour it into your buttered baking dish (I use a 23cm/9 inch square silicon form that is 4,5 cm in hight)  Now bake in preheated oven at 180C/360F for 15-20 minutes. You don't want to over bake them, rather still have them a little moist instead of bone dry....they should be just about baked.

Enjoy!

Quark cheese - A love I thought lost

If you ever lived in one of the following countries - Austria, Germany  or Switzerland, you might have grown fond of a type of cream cheese called Topfen or Quark. If you now live abroad and miss it, you need to suffer no more!

Edible Chestnuts

Chestnuts, the edible type, are a tasty treat!
They are also healthy as they are high in Vitamins B1, B2,B5, B6 & Vitamins C and in Potassium and Magnesium.
For me they are the taste of autumn and Christmas!

Another Waffle experiment - Apple Cinnamon Waffles

The weather has turned into a crisp damp cold here. Just right for yet again waffles and some hot chocolate. We harvested around 10 kg of the most beautiful red apples last weekend. This made me  experiment a little again.

I present you the Apple Cinnamon Waffles.

Chocolate Waffles - A Spontaneous Experiment Involving The Waffle Iron

Today we felt like we needed a little food for nerves, and decided we´d add some chocolate to our waffle dough.

Blackberry Waffles

The other day I had a few fresh picked Blackberries sitting on the counter while I was making waffles for the boys for our tea break and my little one asked what would happen if we put them in the waffle maker. So here we went and created our new favourite tea break treat!

Go make your favourite Waffle dough  and put a hand full of Blackberries in the waffle iron with every waffle you make. Need a new favourite Waffle recipe? Mine is added below!

Our Waffle recipe:

125gr brown raw sugar

125gr soft butter

3 small or 2 large eggs

10gr Vanilla sugar, home made or 2 Tbl spoons  of vanilla extract, homemade

2-3 teaspoons of real Rum

250gr of flour

250ml buttermilk

1 leveled teaspoon of baking powder

Mix all together, mix until well mixed, pur into waffle maker and add blackberries (or any other fruit) if desired. 

BTW this recipe also freezes very well (the raw dough) and if you have left over Waffles, you can store them in a container in the fridge for 2-3 days and stick them in the toaster just before you eat them. 

Enjoy!

Let´s talk Mirabelle plums! We harvested 18 kg this weekend and preserved them in various ways.

Mirabelles (I added a link as I have recently learned that they are banned in the US right up there with the Kinder Surprise Eggs and Hagis. Who would have thought?! )

These little plums the size of a yellow cherry taste divine!






Pitting them can be a bit of a chore, if you do it with a little knife like us. The stone comes out a bit easier if you cut a long the line shown in the picture.

And here comes a public service announcement: USE A STAINLESS STEEL KNIFE! If you do not you will have a reaction between the metal in your knife and the acid in your fruit and your fingers will look like mine for a week or longer....Or if you do use that old granny knife in your drawer, just because it happens to be the sharpest in there....well, make sure you are not meeting people for the next week, you´ll get some queer looks or be smart enough and wear gloves....!


Back to the Topic: I read online that if you have a cherry pitter you can use it, but I have not tried this and I believe it will only work if the Mirabelle plums are super ripe!

Every now and then you find a little added 'protein'! You better not be squeamish, as these move faster than you think!

Here are some of the recipes we made this weekend:

Mirabelle Jam
Prepare your jam jars! Either boil them and the lids separated (as in open jar) in a big saucepan full of water for a few minutes, or boil your kettle and fill up the jars and lids with boiling water and let stand for a few minutes. This is the method I have been using for decades now. I have never had a glas break on me while filling it up with the billing water, but I know that that is a fear for some. I once read that you need to do this on either a glas top or a wet towel to avoid this to happen. I have them stand on my ceramic hob which seems to work just fine. It also usually has spilled water on it, which probably helps here, too.

Then empty lids without touching the inside (I just use a big pair of BBQ tongs) and then fill one lid with Vodka. Pour the Vodka from one lid into the  next, until you have them all disinfected. And again without touching the inside! Once the last lid is disinfected I just pour the vodka into the boiling jam.

for 1 kg of pitted and halved fruit you will need
500 gr of gelling/jam Sugar (the one that has citric acid and pectin and you can use a 2:1 ratio of fruit:sugar)
and 1-2 teaspoons of lemon juice (optional)
mix well and let stand for an hour in saucepan with lid (the sugar will drain some of the juice out of the fruit in this time) (if you are in a hurry you could also just add a little water or juice and start boiling immediately)
Bring to boil and let boil at full and while stirring for about 5 min. Then whizz the fruit mix until no 'lumps'. pour straight into jam jars (I use a wide mouthed funnel to help with the spillage) and screw the lid on tight, then turn them up side down and let cool in this position. Label and store cool (as in cellar)

I love my Jam with a bit of cream cheese instead of butter. A recipe for homemade cream cheese will follow soon.

Mirabelle & Blackberry Jam
prepare Jam jars as above
for 500gr of Mirabelles pitted and halved and 500 gr of Blackberries
add 500 gr of jam  sugar (see above)
1-2 teaspoons of lemon juice (optional)
 Proceed as above!


Mirabelle and Lemon Jelly 
This stuff is seriously good!

Prepare Jars as above!

Juice 3 kg of Mirabelles in whole just washed (I use one of those saucepans where you boil the fruit and the juice comes out of a nozzle at the bottom) but I am sure you could use a regular juicer too.

mushing the fruit with the potato masher helps speed things up

add the juice and Zest of 4 Lemons

200 ml of orange juice

Weigh the mix and
add half the amount in grams of jam sugar (in my case a little over a kilo of sugar)
also add 3 cinnamon sticks 
and 5 cloves
now boil until it thickens. Make sure your saucepan is big enough as the mix can get a bit foamy and bubbly when boiling. Fill in Jars and proceed as above!

Mirabelle Gin

Get big wide mouthed glas jar and prepare as above.

Wash 250 gr Mirabelles very well. Then pour some boiling water over them. Drain immediately.
Now layer the Mirabelles with
125 gr rock candy (if you use brown rock candy the gin will get brown!)
Stick half a stick of cinnamon in the middle and pour
Approximately 250 ml of gin over the mix.
The fruit should be well covered.

Screw lid on and shake well! Store in dark cool place for 4-6 weeks. Every time you pass give it a good shake. After this time you should be able to enjoy it. (obviously we haven´t tried our own yet as the mix is only four days old so far but we are very hopeful)

Canned Mirabelle halves

prepare jars as mentioned above

Wash Mirabelles very well, half and stone, fill in sterilised jars and prepare canning liquid.

canning liquid:
for 1 kg of fruit
use 300 gr of jam sugar (see above)
and 1 litre of water
add 1 cinnamon sticks
and a 1-2 cloves to taste.
Bring to boil and let simmer for a few minutes. Remove cinnamon sticks and cloves and pour hot over fruit. Immediately screw on lids. Put all your jars in a big water bath canner or in my case a huge saucepan and bring to boil. Boil for 30 min.

Let cool on a cooling rack and make sure all lids have popped inwardly. Otherwise they won't keep and can even be dangerous to consume (Botulism would be your biggest fear) if any of your jar lids, even after cooling down, did not have their lids plop inwards store in FRIDGE and consume immediately!

Mirabelle sauce

Prepare jars as above.

Wash and stone 3,5 kg of Mirabelles.
Add 1 tsp of ground cinnamon and
1 tsp of ground cloves.
Add 50 ml rum and
300 gr brown cane sugar (I prefer raw)
Mix well and let stand for a good hour. The Sugar will draw the juice out of the Mirabelles, this way you don´t have to add any extra liquid. After this bring to boil and boil on medium heat with no lid while stirring every few minutes, until there isn't too much liquid left (took me 2h). Whizz it into a homogene mass. Pour boiling hot into your prepared jars (funnels help reducing the mess! They also keep the rims of the jars clean) Close straight away and then boil in water bath as described above. Please check those lids before you stack them in your shelves.

Store your canned goodies cool and dark and before you store them wipe them all clean.
Before consuming any canned product you should check those lids again, and when opening them the first time you want to hear this hissing noise and a plop. this shows that there was a vacuum in the jar all the time you stored it!  Check for discolouration and signs of mould. Only then is it safe to eat! I only ever had a handful of jars turn mouldy, these would have been ones were I worked sloppy hygiene wise. Either not wiped clean enough or the rims of the glasses had spilled jam on them, here those funnels come in really handy!

We also halved, stoned and cleaned several kilos and just froze them. So if you have any more ideas let me know! Thank you for any input!

super fast to make sugar and gelatine free healthier jelly bears for your kids or yourself

200 ml orange juice (fresh pressed is more yummy, but from the pack will do just fine)
1 teaspoon of lemon juice (again fresh juiced would be better)
1 package of agar agar/ agartine (10gr)
1-2 tablespoon Honey or any other sweetener of your choice.You could easily make them vegan with rice syrup or agave syrup. I could imagine maple syrup having a bit of a too strong taste, but I have not tried it.

Heat up juice and dissolve honey in it.
Whisk in agar agar.
Whisk until all dissolved.
pour into forms. I used silicon form. If you do so learn from my past experience and put a cutting board underneath.
Chill for about an hour and then dig in. They will be a bit glibbery to the touch, but taste awesome. Even my mom who despises anything sweet, loved them and had not just one, but a few! They supposedly last a week to 10 days in the fridge but they didn't even make it to day 2 in our house as they where all gobbled up in no time.

You can make them in other colours by using different coloured juice/fruit purees. The only no go is pineapple as it won't work.

If you tried an esp. nice tasting  fruit/colour please let me know. Or if you have an idea that makes them less glibbery.

Homemade Yoghurt

Homemade yoghurt is so easy and my base for so many other homemade basics.
All you need is two ingredients.
1 litre Milk (I have also made this with coconut milk, which makes great baby food or you can use single cream for greek style yoghurt)
1 cup of organic natural yoghurt with live cultures.

Bring your milk to boil in a saucepan, stir often and do not walk away! Once it has boiled for a good two minutes, put saucepan to side and let cool to roughly 37-40C (it has to be below 42C, otherwise you kill your cultures if you add the yoghurt while still too hot!) To check the temperature without a Thermometer just use your clean finger, if it feels very hot, wait, if it feels just a tiny bit hotter than your finger, go ahead!

I have an old early 80s yoghurt maker that I got second hand, but my MIL makes her yoghurt in a saucepan, so I´ll give you both methods.

There are different type yoghurt makers, ones with several little glasses, and ones with one big one.
Mine has 6 little glasses, that hold together 1 litre of yoghurt. In each of those glasses I put 2 teaspoons of yoghurt, fill them up with the milk once it has reached 37-40C and stir well.  Screw lid on and put in yoghurt maker. Set for at least 12 h. After finished refrigerate. They keep for 2-3 weeks. When using save the last yoghurt to make new yoghurt, and just proceed like above. You will never run out of yoghurt and get 6 organic homemade yoghurts (if you use organic milk and starter yoghurt) with no additives for the price of a litre milk.
Yoghurt can be your base for so many things. I make our cream cheese out of it, and as a side product get homemade whey. Which you can use for starting your own ginger bug for soda making or use it for bread baking. I use yoghurt for a salad dressing that will keep a week in a screw jar in the fridge, as a dessert, or in ice cream... Really the list is endless!

If you have no access to a yoghurt maker you could make it my MILs way. You let the milk cool down to just under 40C and leave it in the sauce pan add your cup of yoghurt and stir well. Put the lid on the saucepan and wrap it in big towels and Blankets (lid and all around) and leave it on a heater or other warm but not too hot place over night ( roundabout  12 h).

Gluten-free Peanutbutter-Nutella-Double-Choc-Chip Cookies

There are quiet a few recipes floating the net for PB-Cookies without flour. Some have bananas in them. Some just lots of sugar and PB. All the recipes looked so strange to me. And I could not understand how this dough would actually form into a cookie later...So I had to give it a try! Now it actually makes sense. You can use almond or coconut flour as a flour substitute, so why not peanuts?

Sorry for the bad quality of all the pictures, but this 85% dark chocolate really screws them up.  They either look burned w/o flash (which they aren't) or well like the above if I use flash.. :-/

I have quite a number of coeliacs in my family and a PB addicted father, so next time I am home I am going to treat my family to these!

I didnt have that much PB left so I created my own and came up with this:

Add all the following in a bowl and mix well:

1/2 cup smooth PB (good quality)
1/4 cup crunchy PB (good quality)
1/3 cup Nutella
1 cup brown sugar
1 TABLESPOON Vanilla extract (jip you read right! since I started making my own I go big, because I just love the taste so much )
1 pinch of salt (depending on how salty your PB is)

then gently fold

110 gr 85% choc chips
80 gr. dairy choc chips

into the dough

refrigerate for at least 1,5h or over night

form little balls out of approximately 2-2,5 tbsp. of dough, put on plate and back into fridge.
preheat oven: 175C/350F once oven is hot (10-15 min) take your plate out of fridge, place balls quickly on backing paper or silicone sheet, stick in oven and bake for approximately 7-10 min.

once you take them out, they look very soft and are pretty fragile, just leave them on sheet for 10-15 min to set and cool, then shift them carefully onto a cooling reck.

I took 85% dark choc. While I love it, it might be a bit bitter for some. Even though there is a whole cup of sugar in these they actually are not very sweet. I can see them taste very well with just dairy choc or white choc, too! Oh and maybe a white chocolate and cranberry....hmmm I think they are next!!

If you eat them after just a small cooling period, they are lovely and gooey, the longer you keep them the firmer they get...over all they are very yummy and got a five star rating in this house!

I also made a cookie sandwich with Ben and Jerry´s Strawberry cheesecake...OMG just do it! Go treat yourself! Unfortunately it was gone before I thought of making a photo :-P

I hope you enjoy them as much as we did!