F is for Feijoa jam

It is Easter weekend and wet, very wet here. So a good time to spend most of the day in the kitchen. I made Feijoa jam. We have a BIG very BIG Feijoa tree. The kids are selling them but before they sell them all I made some feijoa jam. Really easy and very yummy.

Here the recipe:

1 kg feijoas, peeled and sliced

1/4 cup water

3 cups sugar

zest and rind of 1 lemon

Stir till sugar is dissolved, let onto a steady boil for 10 minutes till set!

If you like have a look at my on-line shop:

http://www.lovelyliving.co.nz/

Easter break.

Hope you all had a great Easter break. We enjoyed it, no work, no school, no sport, just nothing, it was great. The weather was perfect (like most of the time) and that makes it all so good.
The girls still like it to have an Easter egg hunt, so we had one in the garden.

I made this bread for breakfast. The dough is made in the bread maker the night before.

After 20 min. in the oven I filled it with a spread of marscapone and lemon curd. Some spread on top and fresh fruit and mint. It was a great start of the day!

Of course, we painted some eggs, don't they look colour full.

I made a Greek diner with an espresso cake with a chocolate/walnut topping for dessert.

As you can see we loved it. My birthday is coming soon and I think I want this cake as my birthday cake. I probably have to make it myself but I don't mind. It was Delicious.

Now with the Easter behind us , I've put some handmade love heart in the Easter tree as a colour full decoration.

Cooking disaster.

Once a week Elle (13) makes a nice meal for us. I can tell you she is doing a great job. She is vegetarian and likes cooking and baking (like mum). Our rule is the one who is cooking can choose what to make. She goes through the books during the week and on Saturday she comes out of the kitchen and surprises us every week. Last Saturday she needed a little bit of help from me. She was preparing Sushi. But the smell was terrible. We were looking through the recipe and couldn't find any mistakes. At last we found the mistake. All the ingredients where overdue for more than a year!!!
So off to get some take aways, fish and chips, was a good alternative.

But the best surprise was left till the end. For desert she made a wonderful lemon meringue pie. And is was DELICIOUS !!!!!

Well done darling. I'm looking forward to next Saturday.

Stuffed peppers.

So fresh and dont' you like the colour?

Stuffed with mince and then in the over for almost a hour.

I love cooking and baking and I realize that I never write about it on my blog. Most of the time I make my own recipes and make something with what we have in the garden or fridge.
I prefer organic and with your own veggie garden is that easy , cheap and healthy.
Last week I went with my daughter to a farmer to pick our own apples and much more. We picked peppers as well and I made that evening stuffed peppers. I made a mince filling and a tomato sauce and served it with basmati rice. It was a great dinner. Because we had a big bag of peppers I made two dishes at the same time. One for in the freezer for later on when we have a busy day!

Happy New Year !!

I bought a great calender to start the New Year with. The Cupcake calender !!
Hundreds of recipes to keep you in cupcakes and muffins all year long. I'm not sure if I 'll try them all, but the best ones I 'll definitely share with you.

Thanks for visiting my blog last year and I wish you all a great and creative 2009!

Home made bread.

I love baking bread, specially different ones. I make the dough in the bread maker, because it is easy and saves a lot of time and hard work (so I have time to do other things in between) then I bake the bread in the oven.
Last Saturday I found 2 great bread tins on a garage sale. I never saw them before so I bought them and make some nice muesli bread.
I used the normal recipe for bread and added a big bowl of muesli and a hand full of sultanas. It turned out very nice and tasty.

Tonight we are having vegetarian soup for diner and I serve it with a home made cumin-bread. Just add some cumin seeds at the dough and bake in the oven. Great taste!

Feijoas

What can you do with 200 Kg. of feijoas, believe me it is a lot !
We have a big feijoa tree in our garden and it had heaps of feijoas. The kids sold a lot in there little stall on the roadside and I made a lot of jams, chutneys and feijoa crumble.
To us is the feijoa new, we don't have them in The Netherlands. And it is hard to say how they taste. The taste is a bit like a pear.

I made feijoa jam and feijoa apricot jam. And the chutney is so yummy, I love it!
My freezer is full with feijoa crumble. I put them in little ramekins, easy to use and always a nice dessert with some custard or vanilla ice cream.

My little girl told me that we can be the bear family, because we preserve food for the winter. Isn't she a qute girl.

If you still have some leftover feijoas in your garden, here is the recipe for nice feijoa crumble.

1 Kg. feijoas chopped with skin
1/2 cup dried apricot in pieces
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup suger
some lemon rind and juice

Put everything in a big pot and simmer till soft.
Place in a ovenproof dish.

To make the crumble:

1 cup flour
1/2 cup brown soft sugar
50 gram butter

Put in the oven for 1/2 hour on 200 degrees Celcius.
Enjoy the lovely crumble.