In a pickle

It’s that time of the year again, time to do some pickling, relishing, saucing and chutneying. We went to the market garden in Mangere, South Auckland to get what we needed. A few kgs of the last of their tomatoes were found for us as well as a pile of other vegetables, and at reasonable prices too.

Once back at the van, the veg were prepped and left to soak in a salt solution overnight for making Giadienera, pickled vegetables. Next courgettes and onions were sliced and brined overnight ready to make zucchini/courgette pickle before boiling beetroot ready to peel slice and then cook in the pickling liquor and bottled.

Vegetables brining ready for Giadienera

Courgette pickle ready to go

All done, top Giadienera, bottom left zucchini pickle and right beetroot

Tomatoes are being made into my version of a kind of passata which can be used to make soup, added to sauces, pastas and lots more and as we shall be heading back in the direction of the market garden later next week I shall pick up a few more tomatoes to make some relishes and sauces.

Mouli on the go with the passata

Tomato passata done ✔️

The cupboards are replenished with a few bits and pieces to keep us going over the next few months. Next we need to go fishing to replenish the freezer stocks!

Saucery sorcery

Don’t you think it’s a little bit like magic that you can turn a few simple ingredients into deliciousness? A bag of plums was given to me by Wade & Lindsay courtesy of their daughter Caroline’s tree and so I set to to make some Plum Sauce.

Now, my recipe for plum sauce comes courtesy of Janet, lifelong friend of Roy’s (they started school together as 5yo’s), and it is the simplest but most delicious and long lasting plum sauce I have had…in fact I know Janet has a bottle of the said sauce that is over 30years old and is still as delicious as a newly made batch!

Plums ready to cook up.

I took the little portable gas cooker outside and let the sauce simmer away outdoors which meant the van wasn’t full of the aroma of plum sauce cooking.

Sauce cooked, ready to mouli then bottle.

It didn’t take long to get it all bottled and sealed, although on tasting it, I think I may have slipped a bit with my measurement of the cayenne pepper as it sure does have a kick to it!

Roy had a trip down to Antony’s recently and on his way back he called in at the market gardens in Manukau picking up a big bag of tomatoes. Two batches of relish/chutney were made and bottled before I thought about taking any photos.

Tomato chilli relish and tomato red pepper chutney.

Zucchini pickle has also been made and already two jars have been consumed.

Zucchini pickle

There are a few more pickles and sauces to be made over the coming weeks, I just have to keep my eye out for produce from our favourite market garden in Mangere. Some pickled vegetables have been done (Giadienera), but I forgot to take any pictures before I stored it all away.

More pesto has been made from the abundance of Basil in the garden, this time I froze the pesto in ice cube trays then packed the cubes into a bag for easy use. I was also given some passionfruit and I did the same with that.

Not too much more will be done this year, we have a bit of a busy time ahead which we shall be the subject of an upcoming blog entry.