we'll be making jam... blackberry jam

As the Michelle Shocked song goes "if you want the best jam you've got to make your own." 

That's precisely what we did today. While Baby A slept the big kids & J went out to harvest more blackberries. 

I used the Thermomix to make this batch of jam and despite the lemon being omitted (it was full of grubs) there must have been enough pectin to thicken it. Again I read a few recipes and came up with this one with a slightly less sugar to berry ratio. 

This recipe makes about a litre of jam. 

ingredients 

700g blackberries 

500g raw sugar 

 

method 

Rinse the berries under cool water and drain. Add 500g of the berries to the Thermomix bowl. Add the sugar. Set the timer for 45 mins/speed 2/100°c. After 45 minutes add the remaining blackberries and increase the temperature to Varoma. Cook on 15 mins/speed 2/Varoma. 

To test the jam place a teaspoon full on a saucer. Wait until it's cooled slightly & run your finger through the mixture. Place saucer in the fridge. If, after a few minutes, the jam doesn't run then it is set.

Store jam in hot clean sealable jars or just scoff it! This is good on toast or with ice-cream!

Want some crackling with your pork?

We bought our Weber BBQ just before we left Sydney & we've have only used it a handful of times so we wanted to use it on the farm and see what we could do with it. A very crackly pork appears regularly on the Weber Facebook page I follow. 

I've only ever made one other roast pork with crackling & probably eaten pork a dozen times at most so it's not something I feel comfortable cooking & I was a little worried about the outcome yesterday. 

Before I started I made sure I read lots of recipes so I didn't miss any vital steps. 

This recipe is based on a few. 

ingredients 

1.5kg rolled pork (deboned) 

oil (I used EVOO)

salt (I used pink himilayan salt) 

Any vegetables you might like (we had carrots, potatoes, Brussel sprouts & broccoli)

Apple sauce (I used store bought because I wanted to focus on the pork but it's dead easy to make. I'm sure there are plenty of recipes flying around on the web). 

 

method 

Leave the pork out of the fridge for up to two hours so it reaches room temperature. 

Turn your BBQ on the highest setting & leave to preheat for 20 minutes. You don't need to lift the lid during this time. 

While your BBQ is heating up prepare the meat. Firstly pat the meat dry with paper towel. You will need to score the fat ensuring you don't cut in to the meat. I remember seeing Jamie Oliver using a retractable art knife and measuring the fat from the side of the cut of meat & retracting the art knife just a few millimetres so the knife would only cut in to the fat. 

To score the fat cut along the shortest side of the cut in lines measuring about a centimetre apart. 

Now baste the meat with oil. I used EVOO but plenty of sites recommend vegetable oil. Using your hands rub the skin with salt enduring you push it in to the cracks. I used a handful & it was a lot. You don't need to layer it on (like I did) but it does need to coat the skin. 

Place the meat on a Weber trivet & then on a convection tray. These are designed to let the air flow around the meat, acting like an oven.  

Leave the meat to rest for 30 minutes. 

Now that the BBQ has heated up place the meat (on trivet & convection tray) on the BBQ. Leave the temperature on the highest setting & cook the meat for 25 minutes. This will crackle your crackling. After 25 minutes lift the lid and you'll see that the pork has crackled. 

           This was our final product.

Reduce the heat to medium (half way) and leave the meat in the BBQ for a further 1 hour & 5 minutes. Do not lift the lid during this cook. This will give you time to prepare the veggies. If you're organised (I wasn't) you could cook these for the 1hour & 5 minutes around the meat on the BBQ. 

After 1 hour & 5 minutes turn the BBQ off but, without lifting the lid, let the pork rest (as the oven cools). 

After 20 minutes carve the pork and divy up the veggies & crackling. Don't forget the apple sauce! 

This is best eaten by an open fire looking down the paddocks out to sea (if you're lucky). 

feasting on the family farm

I've been meaning to get back to this post for months but I think it's time I released it in to the ether. This could be read as an ad for the Thermomix (I'm not a consultant) but if you're interested in the gadget it may give you an idea of it's versatility. I rarely use it for all-in-one meals (though I am trying out more of these) but I do use it in the preparation of meals every day. 

Spending the days preparing and cooking meals, with great ingredients, in an iron shed, in the middle of a paddock, is pretty much my idea of heaven. Meals are shared, eaten together outside at the table and at night - around the fire! 

This gives us a little taster of what it will be like when we hit the road in a caravan in 2015!

We’re fortunate to have a basic kitchen set-up on the family farm and it was put to good use this week during our holiday. I didn’t leave home without my Thermomix though.

I had a concise meal plan – with the intention of not having to go in to town, especially to buy any extra ingredients. As it turned out we did need a few extra things but I made sure that my organic produce delivery was timed to coincide with our departure of Sydney.

These are some of the meals we ate during our week away from civilisation...

It’s times like this that the Thermomix comes in to its own – as a versatile tool in the kitchen for the preparation and cooking of savoury and sweets.  As well as meals we need snacks and goodies for when visitors pop by. 

I hate waste - especially food waste (and we have to visit the tip to get rid of it) so everything we brought fresh was used. If there was bacon left over from breakfast it was thrown in a salad for lunch. You get the idea!

As well as the Thermomix we have a microwave that doubles as an oven and an electric frying pan.

Below are a few meals I used the Thermomix to prepare.

Breakfasts can be as simple (muesli) or complicated as we like down here, after all we have all day! A few mornings we ate bacon and eggs. Dippy eggs were prepared in the Thermomix (using this recipe) but you have to be careful not to overdo them! 12 minutes was too long.  You can also steam/poach the eggs, which we tried too. My husband is a fiend for Hollandaise and the recipe (from the EDC) is ready in 8 minutes in the Thermomix. We have a BBQ for bacon.

We used the remaining Hollandaise as a dressing for a Caesar salad for lunch.

Passata – One again - here is my roasted tomato passata recipe. Simply bake tomatoes (bruised and battered are fine) with an onion, garlic, fresh basil and chilli (optional) on 200ºc until the onions are soft and tomatoes are beginning to caramelise. Empty them in to a food processor or the Thermomix and whizz until they are a sauce consistency.  I use the passata on pizzas, fresh pasta and a base for lasagne, bolognaise and kidney bean nachos. It freezes well too.

Pizza Bases – I use the recipe from the Everyday Cookbook. You could use gluten-free flour if need be.

Flat Bread – I found this recipe on the recipe community and used it to mop up curry one night.

Pasta – one of the first meals we ate here on the farm was homemade fettuccine. Again, I used the recipe from the Everyday Cookbook. I brought down my pasta roller and rack. J and the kids collected a bucket full of nettle from the gully and some beautiful mushrooms so we ate the fettuccine with a nettle pesto and garlic butter mushrooms. There’s something so satisfying about preparing a meal with basic ingredients, from scratch. 

Lasagne – the béchamel sauce recipe from the Everyday Cookbook worked a treat. I cooked the filling in the frying pan and used ready-made organic lasagne sheets. You could also use thin slices of zucchini or eggplant instead of pasta. 

Green Curry – I was desperate for a spicy dish and the Thermomix makes preparing curry pastes easier than deciding on a jarred alternative in the supermarket (not to mention healthier). I modified a few recipes and came up with my own version (which I've since thrown out!.) I used this paste as one of my inspirations so give it a go if you want a green curry. It’s good and can be used with any meat (or tofu) and veggies. I serve it with brown rice (cooked in the Thermomix).

A shopping list

* As well as a healthy supply of fresh fruit (great for snacking) and veggies (the basics - garlic, onions, and veggies that are good for the week- carrots, potatoes, zucchinis, olives) we also packed the following:

* tins of  lentils, chickpeas and beans which are great for chucking in salads. Our kids also like bean nachos. 

* Quite a few cheeses - mozarella, cheddar, deli cheeses (for pre-dinner snacks), haloumi (for salads) and parmesan for pesto. 

* Nuts - pine nuts (for pesto) and others for snacking.

* Dried fruit for snacking. 

* Flours - pasta, plain and SR. I threw in cocoa (which came in handy when I needed to make a chocolate cake for visitors). If the weather turned I as also prepared to make play dough for the kids so I took food dyes. 

* Milk - not long life. We just travelled with tonnes of ice bricks and stocked up when we ran out. We do like a good coffee on the farm and good coffee means fresh milk. Next time I'll be making yoghurt there instead of buying it, too.

Miss May Blossom http://www.facebook.com/MissMayBlossom