Cake, Jam, Lollies, Oaty Fruit Bars, Pie, Syrup and Sauces.

8lbs of fruit + a very late night (03:30 bedtime) = Lots of tasty homemade dishes to eat.

Started at 16:30 yesterday afternoon and finished at 11.30 this morning. I made with my foraged fruit - Cake, Jam, Lollies, Oaty Fruit Bars, Pie, Syrup and Sauces x two types.

I apologise now for not being able to link all the recipes to their correct sites but I wrote them down and after closing the pages I realised I forgot to note their web links, note to self must get the printer fixed - it would have printed the web page link at the top of the pages. I have not rewritten the recipes I have linked but will mention anything different I have done or added to the recipe.

First thing to be made was the jam with 2lbs of fruit + one boil over (due to distracting kids, thank goodness the stove top was recently cleaned, whew!).

Cherry Plum Jam, I added a nub of fresh grated ginger.

Oaty Fruit Bars - 200g of plums. I got this recipe from Mangocheeks blog, I altered it slightly by adding a few dashes of cinnamon, nutmeg and the crushed seeds of two cardamom pods. The fruits I used was 200g of plums and 100gs of wild blackberries. Reading her food creations takes me back to when I was freer with my time to be as creative with food. I think, no, I know her blog is starting to push me to be more creative again with the dishes I produce for my family.

Plum Pie with a Crunchy Oaty Topping - 600g of fruit. This dish is the combination of three recipes, the pastry base I got from a great vegan recipe site, I added cinnamon and nutmeg to the ingredients, changed the soy milk to orange juice and reduced the salt to ¼ tsp. It was baked for 15 minutes before adding the filling

Plum Pie Filling
600g of plums
100g of sugar
4 tsp of cornflower
I also added a bay leaf x1

Crunchy Oaty Topping
60g flour (I used whole wheat)
40g oats
95g brown sugar
2g cinnamon
2g nutmeg
30g chopped pecans (I used sliced almonds)
75g melted margarine

Mix all the dry ingredients together, then add the melted margarine. Spread over the pie filling and sprinkle the chopped nuts (I mixed the almonds into the a mixture, I don’t have time to faff).

Upside Down Plum Cake - a large handful of left over fruit. I simply substituted the pineapple juice for water and the pineapples for halved plums. I stupidly forgot to line the cake tin with greaseproof paper and paid for it wit all the fruit remaining stuck to the pan. Well its not for a competition, just the family’s tummy, so I simply scrapped the fruit out and spatulared it back on. We all had some tonight and its very yummy.

I really wanted to complete all the dishes last night but soon realised that I forgot the onions and chillies which I needed for the next recipes in the greenhouse out back, not wanting to go fetch it at 02:00am in the pitch dark I decided to complete the rest of the dishes this morning. So this morning I woke up to crack on as the weeks washing and a planned day out was also in the works.

Woke up at 08:30am and first things first put on a load of washing and then get started on the last three dishes which was really two in one which I adapted to a three in one recipe.

So the original recipe is Tangy Plum Barbecue Sauce & Plum Syrup (2 in One!) - 3lbs of fruit. I made it into three dishes, the Plum Syrup and by halving the strained fruit solids, I made the BBQ sauce and the other half to make a Chinese Plum Sauce. The Chinese version I adapted further substituting the ground coriander with two leaves from a Vietnamese coriander plant, I added one small stem from my lemon grass plants, the cayenne pepper was substituted with fresh chopped chilli to taste and I omitted the vinegar entirely as I found that overall the cooked plums in the earlier dishes where very acid. Both the Chinese and BBQ sauces where further tweaked after test tasting with the adding of a dash of salt here or spoonful more sugar there.

While the above was bubbling I decided to use up some leftover strawberries which I purchased on Tuesday from the boys who came by with wheelbarrows filled with punnets. This is my recipe dreamed up today for:

Yoghurty Ice Lollies
A punnet of strawberries
250g/ half tub of Alpro Yoghurt
3 leaves of pineapple mint
4 leaves of lemon balm
Optional a couple squeezes of golden syrup.

Liquidize the lot up and pour into ice lolly containers of your choosing.

And well that’s it, except I forgot to add prepare breakfast (porridge was a quick choice), finish three more loads of washing leave a fourth to soak, make pack lunch x 2, get kids and self dressed and out the door at 12:50am to catch the right bus, arrive at destination in time. Nicely done a gold star for me, yah!!!