The last of the apricots have now been picked from the tree and turned into chutney.

This was my first time making chutney and i must say i am quietly quite impressed. I figured we had enough jam and were all caked out. I feel like a pioneer woman preparing for winter. Here is the recipe;

APRICOT CHUTNEY

1 1/2 kg apricots (weighed after stone is removed)

500 g chopped red oinions

750 g sugar

1 cup vinegar

1 cup apple cider vinegar

1 tsp curry powder

1 tsp chilli

1 tsp salt

1 tsp all spice

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tbsp chopped fresh ginger

mix all ingredients together and boil for 1 hr. Then bottle in sterilised jars.

This recipe made 8 jars.

After i had finished the chutney and the jars sat on the bench cooling i had a feeling satisfaction and i smiled to my self. So much of the work I do around here ( cleaning, folding, wiping, sorting, shelving, shopping) is invisible that it is nice to see a product. I know that life is also about the process but sometimes it is also satisfying to have a product too.

The apricots may be finished but the plums are just beginning. Plum cake anyone?

What do you do when it is 43 degrees ? Stay inside and make cheerio necklaces.

Tonight we ate from our garden. I made grilled polenta with tomatoes, basil, zucchini and beans from our garden. I also made a mixed leaf salad with cucumber also all from our garden. It feels so good to go out to the garden and gather dinner.

We started our veggie garden in September and it is amazing to see how it has grown since then. I remember visiting St Kilda veg out garden just after we had planted our garden and i wished that my garden was as full and beautifully prosperous. I didn't really believe that my garden would grow, but wow has it grown! The tomato plants are taller than me, the pumpkin vines are taking over the path and the beans are filling the fence. Their are capsicums and cucumbers hiding in the leaves and silently swelling to size. Blue berries and black currants are tempting the possums. And sun flowers reach for the sky. As i didn't really think that the garden would grow i over planted a bit so we have lost the strawberries to the towering domineering zucchinis and pumpkins. Next year I will have more faith.

This year we gave everyone keep cups for Christmas. They are such a good idea, take away coffee cups littler my car and I guess that my car is like a little representation of a little eco system. Jokes aside they are fantastic and I live the way everyone can have their own personalised colour scheme.

Like my wrapping? That's Solly on the gift tags he is obsessed by glasses at the moment.

We have an amazing apricot tree in our garden. We also have Fifteen rozelas than live in our garden and the birds have been nibbling the top leaves of the tree. I kept telling myself that i should put up a net but I never quite got around to it and i getting really anxious than all the apricots would be lost. We have lost a lot of apricots but we still have many more than we can consume and we spent new years day making 28 jars of jam!

We moved into this house last year but when the apricot tree was full we were painting and doing the floors and we were camped at my uncles house. I made jam in the in the heat as baby Sol slept.

When we moved in the previous owners left us a large folder, a manual full of information, in this they told us how they had planted the apricot tree 20 years earlier. They left us a forwarding address so I sent them some apricot jam. They sent me back the most delightful letter telling me how they had also made jam from the apricots and how much they appreciated the jam. With the letter was a jar of black currant jam the had made. I will sent them a 2010 batch also.

Westbury Jam

2kg of apricots

2kg sugar

1 vanilla bean

juice of one lemon

sterilised jars with lids

* wash the apricots and then halve and pit them

put them in a large pot

* add the sugar and the lemon juice and vanilla.

* place on the heat and stir and bring to the boil.

* as the fruit boils your will need to skim off the foam that form on the surface.

* cook for around an hour, stirring regularly.

* to test the jam is ready place a spoonful on a saucer and put it in the freezer. Remove from the freezer and push it with your finger, if it forms a skin its ready.

* pour into sterilised jars

jam will keep for up to a year if refrigerated.

We have also been cooking apricot cake. This recipe comes from my grandmother, who also once had an apricot tree.

Omi's Apricot Cake

3 eggs

3 tbs butter

3 tbs castor sugar

6 tbs self raising flour

1 tsp vanilla

fresh apricots

20 x 30 pan

preheat oven to 180

simply mix all the ingredients beat for three minuets

spread the batter in the pan and then arrange the apricots on top

bake for 35-40 mins depending on your oven

let the cake cool in the tin and then dust with icing sugar

watch the cake disappear before your eyes as hungry hordes are drawn by its delicious aroma

I saw that Bill Granger has an upside down caramel apricot cake, might give that one a try next.

Happy 2010. I have been meaning to post for days now but summer has been getting in the way. Lazy walks on the beach, friends, bbqs, electric storms, parks, pools, mexican food and birthdays have been on the agenda. We have been busy in the laziest possible way. Ricky had only a few days off but in this time he managed to reorganise the entire laundry, not a small task. our laundry was becoming a dumping zone for the household. Piles of clothes(clean mostly) ensured that the door was to remain closed out of embarrassment, but now it is a place of peace and pride we can see the floor and we have systems. I am eternally grateful for Ricky's efforts for the laundry is on space that I can never seem to get on top of. The endless tide of clothes going in and out is just relentless in this place. Enough about the laundry I feel that i need a few retrospective posts to bring you up to speed so here goes;

Just before Christmas we hosted a gingerbread party for the kids in our street. It was a huge success. We are luck to live in a street full of children, most are the same age more or less as my children. I grew up in a street full of children. We rode our bikes up and down and climbed the trees in each other's garden. My summers were full with building cubby houses and rafts, and playing in the long evening light before it was time to go in. This is the childhood I wanted for my children too and i feel so lucky that it has eventuated. I watch Zar toing and froing with the other kids in the street, drawing with chalk on the footpath between our houses and it makes me smile.

We had five children to the party. I baked the gingerbread house and glued them with royal icing. The kids arrived to find a gingerbread house with their name on it and tray set out with little bowls of different lollies and chocolates, sugary and shiny. They also had a little bowl of icing and an icy-pole stick to apply the icing glue. I made a display house that sat in the middle of the table as a suggestion. The kids needed little instruction and busily got to work decorating their houses. I put out some extra lollies and pretzels for the kids to eat and the kids actually started using the pretzels as fences something i completely didn't think of.

All the kids a sugary blast and all we very proud of their creations, so much so that a few have still not eaten them because they are to special.

Today is the last day of Hanukah. Tonight we lit nine candles and danced around the kitchen, my boys giggling. Now the house smells like ginger bread and the boys are both asleep, life is good.

We have now moved in to Christmas mode. Our extended family celebration is this Sunday and we have been busily making these cute pasta angle ornaments for gifts. I purchased a hot glue gun this week and it is so much fun.

The angles are made from four different pasta; body is rigatoni, the wings farafelle, arms elbow macaroni and the hair is occhi. The head is a hazel nut. I glue guned it all together and then sprayed then white. I then drew on the face in permanent marker. I also added some raffia around their necks as a scarf but I was so excited that I photographed then before that. All in all I think that they are super cute.