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Christmas Giving 2010

November 28, 2010 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

I posted this piece in November 2009.  Perhaps it’s the time of year, but  yesterday I found myself writing almost exactly the same words again in a new post.  Our views haven’t changed at all, and I thought I’d really like to share them with you again, particularly as there are so many visitors who weren’t reading our blog last year. For me, this post is a statement about why we approach the festive season the way we do, and a precursor to many of the December posts to follow.  Maybe reposting an updated version of it each November will become a Fig Jam and Lime Cordial tradition!

For the last nineteen years, Pete and I have made most of our Christmas gifts. It’s something that we love to do, not just because it feels like we’re keeping the spirit of the season, but also because it allows us to let loose our creativity. It never really feels like Christmas until we start the annual cooking and crafting ritual. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be blogging about the things we’re making for Christmas. Hopefully you’ll find something that inspires you to create your own handmade gifts this year!

Why should you even bother making presents when they’re so easy to buy? Here are some of the reasons we do it :

1. As I mentioned above, we really enjoy the process. We love the feeling that we’re giving of ourselves – homemade gifts are far more personal, and our friends seem to appreciate the time and effort we put into them. The proviso here is that they can’t be crap – don’t give people things made from toilet paper rolls, unless the rolls are filled with growing heirloom seedlings and your friends are avid gardeners.

2. It saves us a fortune. $20 won’t buy a decent present, but it’s enough to create several homemade gifts. Because of that, it allows us to give freely, without the miserly Scroogeness that a tight budget imposes on Christmas spending.

3. It allows us to give small gifts without obligating the recipient to respond. I love that we can take a plate of cookies to the neighbours and no-one feels the need to reciprocate. I don’t ever want our gift giving to impose a sense of obligation. It’s much easier to achieve that with homemade presents, particularly baked goods, than it is with purchased items.

4. Wherever possible, we try and give consumables at Christmas. Our houses are all so full of clutter – it’s much nicer to give something that isn’t going to compound that issue. Most of the gifts come from our kitchen, although we’ll occasionally include small homemade items, like Christmas decorations, beeswax candles or crystal bookmarks.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve been packing mini hampers for Christmas. We purchase small paper bags with drawstring handles, and fill them with goodies – last year, each bag had a couple of jars of jam, some homemade vanilla syrup and an assortment of homemade chocolates. We also gave small bags of spiced nuts, boxes of speculaas, mini fruit cakes and mini fruit and nut cakes. Most of these items can be made well in advance, leaving just the baked goods to be made in the week before Christmas.

Watch this space – there’s lots more to come!

PS. Please have a look at our Christmas page for more gift ideas!

Posted in Musings | Tagged | 36 Comments »

Bakewell Slice

November 26, 2010 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

An easy recipe made with eggs from our ladies, Pete’s raspberry jam,  homemade butter and flour milled by our mate Kevin Sherrie.  We don’t always have such insight into where our ingredients come from, but when we do, it’s blissful.  It’s based on a recipe in Rachel Allen’s Bake.

Base

  • 75g (3oz) unsalted butter
  • 25g (1oz) caster sugar
  • 1 free range egg yolk
  • 175g (6oz) plain (AP) flour
  • homemade raspberry jam (about half a jar)

Topping

  • 100g (3½oz) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
  • 2 large (59g) free range eggs
  • 100g (3½oz) ground almonds
  • 100g (3½oz) semolina
  • 100g (3½oz) caster sugar
  • flaked almonds

1. Line 20cm/8″ square brownie pan with parchment paper.  Preheat the oven to 180C/350F or 160C/320F with fan.

2. To make the base: beat the butter with an electric mixer until soft, then beat in the sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the egg yolk and beat well.  Add the flour and mix to form the shortbread dough.

3. Roll the pastry out (I find it easiest to do this between two sheets of parchment paper) and ease it into the lined tin.  Spread a thick layer of jam over the top, then allow the base to chill in the fridge.

4. To make the topping: combine the whole eggs and melted butter, and mix well to combine.  Then stir in the ground almonds, semolina and caster sugar.

5. To assemble: remove the cold base from the fridge and carefully blob the topping over the top, gently spreading it out to cover the jam.  Try to keep the jam layer even – it’s a bit fiddly.   Scatter the flaked almonds over the top and bake for 25 – 30 minutes until light brown and a toothpick inserted into the centre of the slice comes out cleanly.  Allow to cool before slicing and serving.

Click here for a printable version of this recipe

 

Posted in Recipes | Tagged , , , , | 27 Comments »

Red

November 24, 2010 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

The last post was green, so this one is red.  After all, it’s nearly December, and Christmas is just around the corner.

Above are unusual cherry tomatoes given to us by one of our neighbours – the fruit grows into little heart shapes.  We’re going to see if we can save the seeds from these ones.

These gorgeous red beetroots have added a splash of colour to our green garden beds…

…and grown into both small and ginormous beets!

We haven’t had a hugely successful strawberry crop, but there are a few bright red berries in the pot right now…

Pete finally agreed to let me crop some of the rhubarb – it’s mostly green with a little red, but it will make a lovely dessert or sauce one day soon.  There was nearly a kilo and a half (over three pounds) in the stems below…

A few tiny carrot thinnings from our rainbow seeds…these were too small to eat, but we marveled at their colour…

We’re waiting for most of our tomatoes to ripen, but these cherries will be ready for picking in a day or so…

And lastly, the Red Norland potatoes have stormed ahead of the other varieties – whilst the Bintjes and King Edwards are still tiny new potatoes, the Reds are now full sized and very delicious!

Posted in Frugal Living | Tagged , , , | 35 Comments »

Green

November 22, 2010 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

It’s late Spring here in Sydney, and our garden is glowing green.

Two large clumps of curly parsley are thriving in the first bed, and I’m hoping to make a batch of parsley soup this week.  It’s hard to believe that I was lamenting about how hard this was to buy in June.

We’ve just started harvesting our first Lebanese cucumbers…

Our second bed of corn has been planted, replacing the peas that are now finished…

The first bed of corn is growing at an incredible rate – the plants are noticeably taller every morning, often by several inches.  Pete tells me that corn is a grass, and grows accordingly…

Some of the corn is already flowering – as these plants are wind pollinated, they need to be planted within proximity of each other, rather than scattered throughout the beds..

The garden is full of wee visitors, including dragonflies, bees, paper wasps and these tiny ladybeetles…

Our broccoli, from which we’d harvested a large head several weeks ago, continues to provide small delicious offshoots for our dinners..

This is a single cherry tomato plant.  And now we know to only ever plant one cherry tom in the backyard. The added bonus is that they grow so quickly that almost nothing eats them.

Our basil plants scent the entire garden, and seem to really enjoy their spot beside the tomatoes…

Our other tomatoes are standard romas – they’ve fruited heavily, but none have ripened as yet…

We’ve planted celery in every bed, but the ones in the first bed are now going to seed.  I wonder if we can harvest the seeds for use in our coleslaw?

My favourite vegetable in the garden this season – Tuscan kale, also known as cavolo nero. I use it in place of spinach, and it’s been producing for months now…

And finally, great excitement as our first eggplants are ready for picking! The capsicums are growing well too, but they’re still very green and not nearly ready for harvest.

I’m a little gobsmacked at how well Linda Woodrow’s permaculture principles are working in our suburban backyard. Her plan is clever, well laid out, and ensures that there is always something in the garden for dinner. And we’re all marveling at how fast the process has been – getting ready took a bit of time, but we only really started planting out a few months ago.  Our little patch is now providing eggs for ourselves and my parents, as well as all the carrots, cucumbers, beetroots, cabbages, celery, beans, leeks and herbs that we need.  Hopefully, we’ll soon have enough tomatoes to be able to process our own passata and tomato ketchup, and our potatoes will be ready for harvesting before Christmas.

We’ve been blessed with lots of rain lately, which has helped the garden no end, and we haven’t sprayed anything other than diluted worm pee on the plants. We don’t buy any fertiliser (apart from one initial bag of dynamic lifter), and we don’t worry too much about the insects. As Linda taught us, we don’t have bugs and weeds, we have chicken feed.

Almost all the hard slog is done by our lovely hens, who till and fertilise the soil, eating all the weeds and slugs in the process.  We repay them for their tireless labour with kitchen scraps and garden waste, like this spent broccoli plant.   I’d like to think they’re as happy with us as we are with them!

Posted in Frugal Living | Tagged , , , , , | 58 Comments »

One of the World’s Greatest Sandwiches

November 20, 2010 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Twenty years ago, on a whim, I picked up this little cookbook.

I didn’t know anything about the author –  the now legendary UK food critic Fay Maschler – but I can remember being attracted (unusually for me) to the photo-less format and writing style.  Specifically, it was this recipe  for “One of the World’s Greatest Sandwiches” that persuaded me buy the book, but until two days ago, I’d never actually made it.

When I was growing up, smoked salmon was an exotic food, which we only ever ate at Christmas parties hosted by my parents’ very hip friends, Bill and Marty.  Gorgeous Aunty Marty would lay a whole fish, sliced, on the buffet table, and my sister and I would try to eat as much as we could without anyone noticing.

Big Boy, who has grown up eating smoked salmon in his school sandwiches, was foraging for lunch a couple of days ago, and I decided that it was finally time to try this recipe out.  He took a bite and laughed out loud, then tilted his head and said in a slightly surprised tone, “Mum, this is amazing…”

That’s good enough for me.

I don’t usually provide a recipe verbatim, but I’d hate to compromise the tone of Ms Maschler’s writing. So here it is, as written…

‘One of the World’s Greatest Sandwiches’

For each person:

  • 2 slices of hot toast or 1 slice for an open sandwich
  • butter
  • smoked salmon
  • mango chutney
  • hot, crisp, streaky bacon
  • cayenne pepper

For each person, lightly butter 1 piece of toast, cover it (thickly) with smoked salmon, spread the salmon (thinly) with chutney, cover the chutney with bacon, sprinkle cayenne pepper on the bacon and surmount with another piece of lightly buttered toast.  Equally good as an open sandwich, in which case the single piece of toast should be medium-thick instead of medium-thin.

Posted in Recipes | Tagged , , | 31 Comments »

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