Plum And Blackboy Peach Sauce (Spicey)

Ingredients:
2.75 kgs (or 6 lbs) mixture of plums and peaches (half of each)
12 cups of malt vinegar
6 cups of brown sugar
10 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 tsp ground pepper
2 tsp of ground mace
 2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp of ground cloves
One quarter of a teaspoon of paprika

Instructions:
Remove stones from the plums and peaches and place into a large saucepan on a moderate heat to start breaking down.  

Add all the remaining ingredients and slowly bring to the boil, stirring frequently. 

Turn the heat down and simmer for around 20 minutes till the mixture is nice and pulpy, still stirring often. Turn off the heat and allow to cool.

Once cooled enough put the mixture into a blender and blend until smooth. 

Return to the pan and bring back to the boil. 

Simmer for another 10 minutes.

Pour into sterilized jars and seal.

Below : Andrew poses with the jars and bottles from our session.

 

Below : Some of the peaches and plums we used. 

 

Blackboy Peach Butter Or Sugarless Jam

This is perfect to make for those who are trying to limit their intake of sugar and makes a nice jam-equivalent for diabetics.

Simply clean your peaches and remove any bad/bruised bits and the stones.  I leave the skins on. Put the peaches into a blender and slowly make a thick puree.  The peaches are best if they are only just "blitzed" - any large pieces are blended but the pulpy mixture is still thick.  I generally have to add a little water for this part to get my blender to process the peaches.  If you don't have a blender you could try a potato masher or breaking them down some other way.

Place your pulp into a large pot or pan, without a lid, bring to a boil and slowly simmer away for around 45 minutes.  Stir frequently to ensure the mixture doesn't stick and burn.

Once it seems about the consistency that you prefer you can add sugar or honey or artificial sweetener if you wish.  I made a big pot and added 1 tbsp of an artificial sweetener till it was to the liking of the diabetic relative I was making it for.  You can add spices such as cinnamon or ginger as well if you would like to.

This mixture can be used right away or alternatively some can be frozen in pottles or poured into hot, sterilized jars and sealed. 

From one bucket of peaches I made a large pot full which resulted in 6 and a half jam sized jars as shown below. 

Yoghurt Fruit Smash

This dessert is super-easy and quite healthy so you can enjoy it without feeling any guilt whatsoever! 

Ingredients:
Fruit of your choosing - we used our own homegrown blackboy peaches and pears plus a banana
Natural yoghurt
Cinnamon
Bailey's Irish cream
Chocolate - about a quarter of a cup when slowly melted in the microwave for a few seconds until it is a thick sauce, otherwise simply chop and use

Method:
Layer fruit in the bottom of the jar, sprinkle with cinnamon and then spoon in natural yoghurt.  

Dribble a tablespoon (or 2 or 3) of Bailey's Irish Cream over the yoghurt.   

Add more fruit and then yoghurt.   

Spread the melted chocolate sauce over the top. 

Add another layer of fruit, then more natural yoghurt.  

Top with a spoonful of fruit and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

Push down a little bit with a spoon on the mix if you wish to make it look a bit more "smashed".

Optional : add whipped cream or chopped nuts on top. 

Adventures In Dehydrating

I've had a small dehydrating machine for several years now but my recent purchase of a larger 1000 watt model second hand gave me the impetus to improve my skills in the art of drying food in this way.  This past weekend Andrew and I dried 6 trays of mixed fruit again, another adventure in dehydrating.

With a few earlier trial runs we'd already figured out:

1. Wipe the outside but DON'T dunk the fruit in water in a Vitamin C mix to stop it browning.  It really doesn't need it and it just makes the fruit a lot wetter to start with and harder to get just right in the dehydrator. Our undunked fruit seems to come out with a better texture and we found browning of the fruit really wasn't a problem.

2. Leave the skins on.  There is some good nutritional value in the skins and they add some extra colour and interest to the end product.

3. With most things a slice of about 1.2 cm or half an inch is about right.

In our latest session we did organic apples, pears and blackboy peaches from our orchard plus some bananas that we had on hand which were getting close to over-ripe.    We also put in two different kinds of grapes from our vines.  After 8 hours the apples, pears and peaches came out lovely, 

very moreish, although the peaches were quite tart immediately afterwards.  They seemed to regain some of their sweetness over the following hours.  

The bananas were divine.  I can see how they could get addictive!  What a great way to use up any bananas though, before they get too ripe - dry them and use them for yummy snacks. I am sure children in particular would love them.

The pictures below show some of our trays of raw fruit ready to be processed and then the end products.  We put this lot into plastic, ziplock bags and what a great snack they make.

Andrew blended a mix of the bananas, apples, pears and peaches and we agreed it would be wonderful in homemade muesli, muffins or fruit loaf. 

Dehydrating seems such a quick, easy, convenient way to help deal with a big surplus of fruit in the autumn.

 

Below :  At the end when we'd mostly mixed the apples, pears, bananas and peaches up together.