Sweet Chilli Jam

Our Chilli bush has flourished this year. Who would've thought that a bush that had been surviving on neglect for the past 5 years would come to life with such vigour when given a regular watering? I shall endeavour to keep the watering up in the years to come.

The abundant, vibrant red fruits pack quite a punch in the heat stakes and given that I've fallen out of the habit of cooking with chilli since the arrival of the kids, I needed to find a recipe that would use many at once.

So, chilli jam it is.

1 large capsicum (red or green)

24 chillies

1 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar

5 cups of raw sugar

1 pinch salt

1/2 pack of jamsetta

Process the capsicums and chillies until finely chopped.

Bring chilli mix and vinegar to boil - simmer 15-20 minutes.

Add sugar, jamsetta and salt - stir until dissolved then boil until ready (check according to instructions on jamsetta packet).

Ladel into sterile jars and seal appropriately.

Decorate said jars for gift giving or eat the lot yourself.

Next I'll try a recipe for chilli relish that I've just been given.

MACLEAN MARKETS - fruit tree finds.

An unexpected trip to the NSW Far North Coast last week, led us to some rather pleasing finds at the local Saturday Markets. After visiting RJ's father at his handmade wooden spoon stall where he sells ladles, spatula's, pizza servers, platters, wooden spoons of all sorts and sizes and groovy little door stoppers to use up the leftovers (all made from locally sourced Banksia timber), we came across a truck load of fruit trees... and there we stayed.

It was delightful to be able to amble through rows and rows of exotic fruit trees, most suitable to be grown in Sub-Tropical climates like ours, but difficult to source locally. Yet here they were and at a fraction of the cost.

RJ kept telling me to pick what I wanted but I had a dilemma in that ideally, I would like everything. Unfortunately we don't live on a farm and we have budget restrictions, so we were limited to a few selections.

We chose a Lychee: Litchi chinensis

A Satsuma Plum

An Autumn Fruiting Heritage Variety Raspberry: Rubus idaeus

A Pepino: Solanum muricatum

and a Black Sapote or Chocolate Pudding Fruit: Diospyros digyna.

We were also given a couple of small Mulberry seedlings that had sprouted up from underneath RJ's Dad's Mulberry tree. Add to that an armload of tall ornamental grass (not sure what it's called but it has long, greyish coloured leaves), an esky load of freshly caught Clarence Coast Whiting and a bagful of Grandpa's shirts for my sewing stash and our car was loaded up to capacity for the long drive home.

So we now have 24 fruit trees, including:

4 bananas

2 mountain papayas

1 mango

1 feijoa

1 fig

1 coffee tree

2 mulberries

1 olive

2 mandarins

2 oranges

1 lemon

1 pepino

1 raspberry

1 blueberry

1 black sapote

1 plum and

1 lychee.

We also have 5 Bush foods, including:

1 macadamia

1 finger lime

1 lily pily

1 lemon myrtle and

1 midym berry (I think).

Our Ornamental Natives include:

2 grass trees (ticketed of course!)

12 kangaroo paws

1 dead waratah (must replace)

1 clump of flax grass

2 gymea lily's

3 native iris'

1 orange flowering gum

1 jervis nightshade (or something like that)

2 birdsnest ferns

2 cycads

about 5 diffrent types of grasses

a couple of other things and

about 7 larger trees that were already established when we moved in. Add to that our Neighbours gums and grevillias and we really do have some nice places for the native wildlife to visit and for us to sit back and relax and take in 'the serenity' of.

Until I wrote this I didn't realise how lucky we truly are.

We've also got the ongoing vege garden and room to turn a bit more lawn into more productive growing space when we have more free time and money.

All in all, I'm quite pleased with how our garden is coming along. Now if only the fairy's would come and remove some of those pesky weeds that so enjoyed the recent rain!

MORE FROM THE SEWING TABLE

This year I'm trying not to contribute to other peoples junky toy collection. More importantly, I'm also trying not to purchase cheap, wastefully packaged and poorly produced, throw away merchandise. So for birthday gifts this year, my aim is to only give handmade, preferably from reclaimed or recycled fabrics, which is a wonderful idea I got from Little eco footprints. It can be a bit tricky trying to come up with ideas, especially ones that will be appreciated by both the little receivers and their parents.

Chookie was given a pre-loved Dora pillowcase for Christmas and she absolutely adores it, so I thought that might be a safe option. As such, for Eric's birthday I designed and sewed together this cute little alien/monster motif onto a plain white pillowcase. I know he likes aliens and monsters as that was the theme for his party. The fabrics are all from my stash which includes some given materials some purchased materials and some reclaimed materials. I purchased the pillowcase new (then Chookie attacked it with some scissors - hence the ball near the eye) but will work toward purchasing a stash of op shop purchases just for this purpose.
Upon completion I realised that I should also make some gifts for other upcoming birthdays (after all it is birthday season!) so quickly put together some wallets out of scrap felt that was given to me. The monster/alien one was so cute I had to make one for Eric as well. Jack and Eric get a monster/alien as they are only 4.

Leo however is 6 so I thought he might be too old for cute little green things and opted for bats instead.

My stitching could do with some practice, but I was tired (the kids have been brutal towards us at night of late!) and figured that the children wouldn't notice and the parents would be too polite to say anything.