homemade coconut oil

Anyone with access to a coconut, a grater, and a stove can make coconut oil. And I recommend anyone try it, it's time consuming but really educational in that it proves once and for all why coconut oil is such a luxury and so expensive.

Ideally you'll want fully mature coconuts, the heavy ones that don't sound full of liquid. Open, save the liquid, remove and grate the flesh. The easiest way to do this is by using a juicer like a Champion (we have a Jack LaLarres). If you don't have a juicer then a blender or food processor works too. We use a coconut grater from the south pacific which looks like a rising sun.

Grate the coconut. If you use a juicer it will separate the coconut cream from the meat. If you use anything else you will get a nice moist pile of shavings mixed with liquid. Mix this pile with a small amount of water, mix thoroughly and then squeeze the liquid from the flesh. I use an old pillowcase. You want to use the minimum amount of water as it will be cooked out later and will just lengthen the cooking time. Squeeze as hard as you can to get as much of that lovely milk out. Save the flesh for baking, or for curries, or for the dogs. It's important to have helpers clean the coconut shells:

Whichever method you use, let the milk sit for several hours, preferably overnight (in the fridge is fine too). This allows the milk to separate, skim the cream from the surface and put in a pot. If you get some of the milk too it's not a problem, you'll just make coconut cheese. I always skip this step as I am impatient and I love coconut cheese.

Bring the cream / milk to a slow boil stirring ALL the time. Reduce to a simmer and stir. Now you will wonder why you used so much water. Stir, stir, stir.

Gradually the water will evaporate, the cream will thicken to a slushy paste like consistency and you will be bathed in coconut steam. Keep stirring. Slowly the cream will begin to separate and you will see the beginnings of the oil, it will puddle around the edges at first. Keep stirring.

More and more of the coconut cream will become oil. Curds of coconut cheese will begin to form, these will be small separate chunks, almost the same shape as cottage cheese curds but less than half the size. At some point you will notice that there's no more oil forming and the cheese is beginning to change colour. Remove from heat, allow to cool and pour through a sieve to filter out the cheese. Store the coconut oil in a wide mouthed jar in the fridge, eat the cheese! The cheese is an excellent addition to baked potatoes, salads, actually anything savoury. It's the closest a vegetarian could get to crispy bacon. It's very good, the only place I've heard it being sold is Hawaii, but it must be available elsewhere. I do hope you make this and I do hope you enjoy it. If you do, please leave me a comment!

pineapple scones

The kitchen smelled wonderful yesterday, not only were the dehydrators full of papaya, pineapple, banana and jackfruit, but I was baking scones and an oat bar we've been enjoying for breakfast. A friend with an organic farm has a surplus of pineapples at the moment (he did something like we just did: plant 300 same age suckers at once!), and no electricity so he's selling a lot to us. This is great news. Not only have we been eating copious quantities of sweet and sour everything, and drying every day, I've also had enough to experiment with such frivolities as pineapple scones and pineapple jam.

Hating to waste any of the fruit, I've been simmering the skin and cores (they are organic) in water for about 40 minutes, or until the water reduces by a third and then storing it in the fridge, or adding sugar and cooking it down into a syrup. In Nicaragua they make a delicious rice pudding with cooking pineapple peel along with the rice, and in Belize they make a great iced drink with this pineapple 'tea'. The tops have been going to the kindergarten: we've got quite the pineapple patch over there now!

The pineapple scones are the best so far of all the scone flavours I've tried, the farmer says they're up there with the durian scones, but in my mind they're better. Here's the recipe, it's the basic scone mix with extras:

2 cups wholewheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch salt
about 1/4 cup sugar
about 3 tablespoons oil
1/3 cup dried pineapple chunks
about 1/4 cup crystallized ginger
about 2/3rds - 1 cup pineapple 'tea'

Mix dry ingredients, add oil and pour in about 2/3rds of the 'tea'. Mix lightly. For scones you want a soft dough, not much handled. Add remaining liquid until the dough comes together in a ball, you probably won't need it all. If it gets overwet add some flour. Turn out on a floured board and pat or gently roll to a thickness of 3/4 inch. Cut into rounds and bake on a cookie sheet in a 350F oven for about 30 minutes. Allow to rest for 5 minutes then enjoy warm.

jammin', with fudge

After a long hiatus I made some araza jam this morning. There's a small season starting and I was able to pick 2/3rds of a bucket of fruit to make 11 jars of what has become our signature jam. I also found just enough nutmeg to make two jars of nutmeg butter. What incredible smells filled the kitchen! Especially as we were also slicing ginger and processing black pepper.

I've been trying to make fudge these last two days. Back in the US, my class would make and sell fudge by the caseload for Christmas fairs. We could knock out fudge like no-one else and had all the packaging and presentation - and sales talk - down to a tee. But this is the first time I've tried it in three years and the recipes from up north don't work so well due to temperature and humidity differences, plus the farmer won't eat butter (!). And there's the caveat that everything we offer at the farmers' market comes from the farm. So. Here's my new recipe:

Coconut Chocolate Fudge
one serving (enough for 4 people after dinner treat)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup coconut oil
2/3 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup powdered cacao
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Melt oil, milk and sugar together in heavy bottomed pan, bring to boil and boil until it reaches the soft ball stage. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Wait for 5 minutes then stir in powdered cacao. Wait 5 more minutes then beat until mixture loses its glossiness. Pour into silicon mold (or onto greased parchment paper). Allow to cool before eating (if possible). The cacao and coconut milk comes from the farm, the oil came from Bastimentos Island, the vanilla from Mexico (but soon from our farm) and the sugar from the store. No photos, we ate it before I had the chance to bring out the camera.

christmas pudding

Today I made the christmas pudding. It's always a fun thing to do, partly because the list of ingredients is long but simple, partly because it's so much a part of tradition, partly because the end result is so, so good. I'm not sure of the tradition of Christmas Puddings, and anyway there are plenty of sites explaining it, even a site or two dedicated to this institution, but I do enjoy them. As a child we would have at least two puddings each Christmas - one made by my gran, the other, a more traditional Scottish pudding, made by my great aunt. The Clootie dumpling was, alas, always shunned by my sisters and myself. It was perfectly round and had to be cut to stand on the plate, but the skin was spongy and gooey-slimy at the same time, and it gave me the dry heave - literally. Too bad, because inside it was like the other pudding - delicious. But we weren't allowed to just pick at the inside, no we had to take the skin too. Now as an adult, I would like to try it again, just to see if it really is as dreadful as I remember. I somehow doubt it.

I have made christmas puddings on and off for the last few years, this year I even made one for my birthday cake in August. They are so delicious because they are basically a combination of fruit, spices and alcohol held together by a tiny bit of flour, some breadcrumbs and good will. Once made they sit for a minimum of 2 months gathering flavour and texture, aided by the regular addition of more alcohol. They are twice cooked: steamed for 6 hours initially, then a further 2 hours on the day of serving.

Very very rich, and most often served with brandy butter or whipped cream: a perfect companion to an already dangerously heavy Christmas dinner. But that is what Boxing Day is for - recovery time for all the over-indulgences. It was traditional in my house, and many others in Scotland, to slice left over pudding and fry it for breakfast, served with a fried egg on top. Never mention cholesterol.

Christmas Pudding
4 oz suet (or vegetable shortening)
2 oz wholewheat flour
4 oz brown breadcrumbs, fresh
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon clove
1 whole nutmeg freshly grated
2 oz chopped crystallized ginger
8 oz brown sugar
24 oz mixed dry fruit - I used 10 oz prunes, 10 oz raisins, 4 oz mango, but as long as you use plenty of raisins you can add whatever you like - figs would be great, dates too, I used bananas in my birthday version.
1 grated apple
zest of one lemon or lime, or orange
2 eggs
5 fl oz dark beer
2 tablespoons port or other rich alcohol. I use whiskey or rum.

Mix all ingredients except eggs and alcohol. Blend eggs and alcohol and add to mix. Mix should be sloppy, not sticky. Leave overnight then steam, tightly covered in pudding bowl for 6 hours. Wrap in wax paper then cloth (traditionally, but here in the tropics I put it in the fridge), and leave in cool place for at least two months. Every 3 weeks make holes on top of pudding and add 1/4 cup of whiskey, brandy or rum.



To serve, steam for further 2 hours, remove gently from bowl, douse in alcohol and set alight. Serve with brandy butter, heavy cream or ice-cream.

Oh and another tradition - wrap a penny in foil or wax paper and add to the mix. Whoever finds the penny in their serving has a prize. For my birthday pudding, the prize was a massage, this time it might be dinner at Loco Natural, my favourite restaurant in town.

One of the great things about the pudding is the anticipation and the ritual. When I made this with the kids in my classes we always read Truman Capote's 'A Christmas Memory' the day before we began. It's a wonderful story about Truman making Christmas fruit cakes with his ancient cousin, so touching and so beautifully written. I didn't read it this time, but I know the story so well now, "It's fruitcake weather! Fetch our buggy. Help me find my hat.". Superb.

kumquat in rambutan syrup

This is delicious over pancakes and probably good with ice-cream. It also works with chicken dishes. Another recycling recipe from the farm kitchen!

The kumquat part:
Kumquats (Citrus fortunella), are a member of the citrus family. They grow on a small tree with sparse branches and highly glossy leaves: kumquats are often used as an ornamental because of their leaves. The kumquat is unusual for a citrus in that the whole fruit is eaten, in fact the peel is much sweeter than the flesh. The tree originated in China but can be found throughout Asia, the tropics and subtropical regions, Japan, California and Florida. Traditionally kumquats are eaten raw or preserved in sugar syrup, pickled, or dried.

preparing the kumquats:
wash, prick with a sharp knife and boil in water for 30 - 40 minutes or until soft. Set aside to cool. Reserve the cooking water.

preparing the rambutan syrup:
This is the recycling part. I was peeling rambutans to dry and throwing the peeled ones in a large bowl. After shelling a bowlful, I found I had a good 2 cups of rambutan juice in the bottom of the bowl. Rambutans are juicy little fellows - it would be possible to extract more juice by placing a heavy weight on top of the peeled fruit and leaving overnight in the fridge or on the countertop for a few hours. This way you get to enjoy the fruit too! Actually rambutans freeze very well, and make a delicious ice cold nibble - instant sorbet.

to make:
Add the rambutan juice to the kumquat's cooking water, add sugar to taste and bring to a boil. Taste again for sweetness (if you overdid it, add a drop of lime juice), and simmer until the syrup reduces in volume by a half. Add the cooked and drained kumquats, cook for another 5 minutes, then can appropriately in sterilized glass jars.

Drying kumquats is also fun - slice thinly and lay on drying trays. I dry ours until they are quite crunchy, then use them as a sweet citrus chip!

Today in the kitchen

It's Friday which means baking for the market. I have some araza (yes, it's back again!), some ginger and some very strong lime marmalade which needs to be transformed. This will probably mean that the oven will be busy with ginger araza cookies and a marmalade cake. The ginger araza cookies are a favourite at the market and very easy to make.

The brilliant thing with all these self concocted recipes is that they are infinitely adaptable. I use the same basic recipe for all sorts of different fruits and spices. However the araza / ginger combo is the most popular. I think it's because of the acidity of the araza, the gentle heat of the ginger and the sweetness of the cookie. With no araza I would substitute something like rhubarb, sour plum or cherry.

Araza Ginger Cookies

1/2 cup oil
1 egg
1 cup ginger sugar (the sugar and ginger pieces left over after making crystallized ginger (recipe on this blog). Substitute plain brown sugar, white sugar, sugar spiced by adding dried ginger, cinnamon, vanilla pods, orange peel . . . imagine)
2 cups wholewheat flour
1 cup rolled oats
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 to 1 cup fruit (with araza (acidic fruits) I cook first with sugar as though I were making jam, just enough to soften, with non acidic fruits, like apples, I cook a little to soften)

Beat oil, egg and sugar. Add dry ingredients, mix in fruit. Bake at 350F for 15-20 minutes. Enjoy.

Mabolo wowzolo

Well I dried the mabolo and the taste is quite nice, the fruit is a little chewy though, I'll save it for my fruit lovers mix. I also made a butter with it which is delicious, I think: the farmer is not keen. It has a strong floral taste, somewhat like rose (bear in mind I haven't been close to a rose for 3 years), very nice would make a lovely meringue filling, or perhaps whipped up into a fool or syllabub. However the drawback is the texture. It's grainy. I think this is because I scrubbed the fine hairs off and left the beautiful red pink peel on. I was hoping the colour would bleed into the butter, it did a little but not enough to make up for adding the graininess. Tomorrow I'll make it again without the peel. Here's the recipe just in case:

Velvet Apple Butter
3 cups chopped, peeled mabolo
1 lime halved
1/2 cup sugar

Simmer chopped fruit and halved lime in enough water to cover until fruit is soft. Remove from heat, take out lime halves and blend with sugar. Return to pot (add limes again if you wish) and simmer until thickens, it took me about another 15 minutes. Can appropriately (I put the lime halves in two of the jars). Enjoy on warm crumpets or with plain yogurt.

Jam on

Well wasn't I just complaining that the araza season was over and the carambolas were at least a month away? Wrong, wrong, wrong. I was out picking cas and lovi-lovi yesterday and saw several carambolas lying on the ground - on the ground no less! Clearly those at the top of the tree are ripening faster than those I can see on the lower branches. I had only moments before been lamenting the fact that I really needed a few early carambolas to try out recipes before the main harvest began. And once again I got exactly what I asked for.

Carambolas are rather beautiful and strange. Native to Sri Lanka and the Moluccas they have spread all over Asia and now all tropical and subtropical regions. Starfruit in English because the fruit has 5 raised ridges running along its length (rarely 4 or 6 ridges), and when sliced the ridges and the seeds make a nice double 5 pointed star. The fruit tends to be sour, with a fairly detectable oxalic acid content. Sweet carambola do exist, but they're not really so sweet. The fruit is pale to rich yellow when ripe, has a crisp texture and gives a good amount of juice. People tend to use the fruit as a decoration, or juice it, it doesn't have much of a strong character by itself. But it makes a great salsa and can be used for relish and jam.

It's tricky getting carambola jam to set up. There is little if any natural pectin in the fruit and so it must be mixed with something else, hence my need to try out different ideas. I've made two types today, both very different and I think both good, though one certainly wins in presentation.

The jar on the left is a Carambola Butter with Lime and Black Pepper, the one on the right is a Carambola Lovi-Lovi Marmalade.

The butter was made by pureeing the fruit first then cooking up with sugar and the juice and flesh of a couple of limes (I boiled the rinds until tender then added to the cooking butter), I added a good teaspoon of our freshly ground black pepper as it was simmering. The butter has the fresh smell of carambola and the lime comes through strongly in the flavour; the pepper gives it a nice warm glow and spicy aftertaste.

4 cups pureed carambola (I compost the hardest part of the raised ridges and the ends, everything else goes into the blender)
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
juice, flesh and rind of 2 limes
big teaspoon ground black pepper

Prepare the rind of the limes by chopping finely and boiling in water for a good 10 minutes. Meanwhile combine other ingredients, bring to quick boil and simmer. Add in rinds and continue simmering for another 10 minutes or so until it thickens and a teaspoon of mix gels (see araza pictures, the butter won't set as well having a different consistency). Can in hot water bath.


The marmalade was much simpler, just a combination of chopped carambola and lovi-lovi in about a 3:1 ratio cooked with sugar, and a little squeeze of lime to bring out the flavours. It has a sweet tangy flavour and the texture and presentation are great.

1 1/2 lbs chopped carambola
1/2 lb lovi-lovi
between 1/2 and 3/4 lb brown sugar to taste
juice of 1/2 lime

mix ingredients, bring to boil and simmer until juice thickens. Test on spoon. This one takes a little longer to set up. Can appropriately!

Making Jam! or Araza Frenzy!

It seems I'm making so much jam these days, that I thought I'd take some pictures of the process. Right now I'm making Araza or Araza and Guayabilla jam.

The stall yesterday seemed a tribute to Araza: we had fresh fruit for sale; jam; fruit leathers; fruit mixes; I used it as a wrapping for my new dried fruit experiment, and I had araza cookies too. This is what I want, to use what we have in season, in as many ways possible to reap as much as we can from the abundance offered. I'm making araza vinegar and today I'll start araza wine. Oh and I have araza sorbet in the freezer.

The Araza (Eugenia stipitata) is in the guava family. It's a short tree, no more than 10 foot high and is basically round with a tendency to sprawl. It's an Amazonian native and is a heavy producer. When the cacao harvest failed in this region (due to blight), araza was brought in as a replacement crop. However there is not so much of a market for the fruit: while it looks delightful and smells divine, it is very soft and damages easily (ripe fruit can often split falling from the tree), and it is incredibly acidic. The acid content of the fruit measures at a pH of 2.4, and the sugar content is a very low 1.4% (apples are 15%, limes are 1.1%). An araza has more than twice as much Vitamin C as an orange. An hectare (2.2 acres) of araza will produce 20 - 30 tonnes of fruit a year. We have a lot of Araza, maybe 80 trees. Hence the need for jam.

Step 1
Clean fruit and remove inner flesh and seeds. Cut into smallish chunks, about 1 inch long by 1/2 inch wide. Measure by weight or by volume. Place in pot. Araza is a very juicy fruit and doesn't need water added. It does need sugar. I use 60% sugar by weight, for example I use 5 lbs of fruit and 3 lbs of sugar. Put on stove and heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Bring to a nice low boil.



Step 2
Araza, and many other fruits, will produce a foamy froth in the initial stage of the cooking process. This froth will discolour the finished jam and I always remove it with a spoon. But keep it! It is excellent in cookies or for baking and one can make sorbet with it. Put the froth in a glass and when it cools a little some juice will settle to the bottom, pour this back into the jam.





Step 3
At some point, perhaps 15 minutes after you begin, the froth will stop and the texture of the jam will change. The boil will not be so asctive as the mixture begins to thicken. The characteristic plop plip sound of bubbling jam will be heard. The colour will begin to deepen too. Turn the heat down, and stir more frequently. Certainly not a time to go out into the garden to water the tomatoes. After 7 minutes or so, begin to test the jam on a metal spoon. You are looking for a skin to form on the surface.



Keep testing. Soon - though this takes a little experience, you will see just the point of readiness: the jam is thicker and when you move the spoon or ladle slowly through it, the ladle will push the jam ahead of it out of the way rather than simply moving through the liquid. Or as you move the jam you will be able, for an instant, to see the bottom of the pot behind the ladle.



If the jam on the ladle is forming even the slightest of skins, turn off the heat and wait for a minute or two: a skin should form on the surface of the pot:



The jam is now ready and can be ladled into freshly boiled (for 10 minutes)jars. Fill to within a half inch of the top, carefully clean the rim and outside edge of the jar, screw on the freshly boiled jar lid and set aside.

bananas

The banana trees are producing after a lull, and I'm very happy to see them. We have several varieties here on the farm, from the praying hands to the thousand fingers to the red to the cuadrado: we have no cavendish bananas. Twenty minutes drive north will take you through acres and acres of dwarf cavendish bananas, lined up in Chiquita and Del Monte plantations. The trees are tied with wire to support them and each heavy racaeme is enclosed in a blue plastic bag impregnated with pesticides. There are two issues facing the monocultured cavendish: nematodes and leaf blight, and there's rising fears that the cavendish will soon succumb like its predecessor, the gross michelle. Monocultures have a bad habit of being short term: once a pest or problem takes hold it can rip through a plantation without anything to stop it. Biodiversity makes sense!!

No-one here buys plantation bananas, even without the label they are easy to spot: no bugs or flies circling them. The cavendish works well for the plantation owners because it is a smaller tree with a high yield and quick too. The banana can be picked very green and ships well. Great in terms of shelf-life and presentation for supermarkets, but it loses a lot in terms of flavour. Cavendish bananas just don't taste as good.

Here on the farm we leave the bananas on the trees for as long as we can, to just days before the fruit bats devour them. We cut the 'trunk' and leaves and pile them around the base where they will gradually melt down into compost. The racaeme we hang until it ripens, sometimes covering it with a gunny sack to keep those bats and 'possums off. We dry a lot of our bananas for later use in trail mixes, granola and cookies, and we share the rest with the dogs who really enjoy them.

We grow cuadrados which are a short, stocky, 4 sided banana which is not as sweet and can be used like a plantain. They contain small round black seeds and are better if they are boiled for 10 minutes or so to soften them. If they are very ripe they don't need to be cooked. I've been making chutney and 'marmalade' and they do really well giving a good banana flavour but maintaining some form and bite.

Banana and Cinnamon 'marmalade'

24oz bananas, chopped (firmer cuadrados are better boiled first)
16oz raw brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon (or to taste)

Heat sugar with a spoonful of water until dissolved, add bananas and cinnamon and simmer for 30 minutes or until a spoon will leave a clear trail on the bottom of the pot while stirring the mix. Can in sterilized glass jars and seal in a hot water bath.


Banana and Lime Chutney

6 cups chopped banana
grated rind from one lime
1 onion, chopped
2 cups raw brown sugar
1 cup cider vinegar (or banana vinegar if you have it!)
2 cloves garlic, or to taste
1/4 cup crystallized ginger
1/2 teaspoon fresh finely chopped hot chili, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon salt
good pinch black pepper
1 teaspoon mustard seeds

First boil sugar and vinegar, then add all other ingredients and simmer uncovered for at least 40 minutes until mixture is thickened and smells divine. Can in hot, steralized glass jars and seal in water bath. Chutney is great with cheese, chips, tortillas, Indian foods, straight out the jar.

Mango Season

It's Mango season and I'm up to my elbows in soft sweet splendidly golden pulp. Although we have a couple of mango trees on the farm, and they are easily spotted all around the area, they do not produce well in this climate. Mangoes like a long dry period to set and ripen their fruit and there's just too much rain here.

The mangoes I'm using come from the Pacific side, around Orotino. There are many farms but even more locals with a few trees selling their produce by the roadsides. The harvest began about 6 weeks ago and will continue until the first real rains, sometime in May.

Mango trees (Mangifera indica) are really rather beautiful. They are native to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and South east Asia. There they can grow very tall - over 90 feet and live very long, productive lives, some still fruiting at the ripe old age of 300! The mango is an evergreen with long (up to 12 inch) glossy, narrow dark green leaves. The flowers form on spikes and are small and white to cream coloured. They have a pleasant, sweet smell. The tree branches very nicely and can have a 30 foot crown: they provide good shade. In Costa Rica the trees are smaller and there are several cultivars, with three prominent varieties: Tommy Atkins, Haden and Erwin. We are using the Tommy and Haden fruits: the mangoes are a good size, with a small seed and soft non fibrous flesh. They are also very pretty - when I lived in California I raised lovebirds and the colours in my kitchen remind me of a small flock. I do believe my first bird was named Mango.

The mangoes we're using are ripe, but traditionally here mangoes are eaten green with salt and lime juice. There are many opportunities to buy small bags of sour, juicy fruit with a wedge of lime and a good pinch of salt from street vendors. Seemingly mango like this is very good for the digestion. I know the monkeys prefer them like this too, if the forest floor is anything to go by.

At last, after what seems like a long resting period, my dehydrators are busy again drying mango, salak and weekend bananas. We're also making mango chutney:

2 1/2 lbs mangoes
2 cups brown sugar
2 1/2 cups vinegar
2 1/2 tablespoons salt
2 inch piece ginger
1 scotch bonnet chili (or to taste)
4 cloves garlic
2 teaspoons coriander seed
2 teaspoons mustard seed
3 onions, chopped

Peel and dice the mangoes. In a blender process chopped chili, garlic and ginger with a little of the vinegar. Heat rest of vinegar with sugar, simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in the garlic / chili / ginger paste and cook for a further 10 minutes, stirring. Add remaining ingredients and allow to simmer for 25 minutes stirring occasionally as it thickens. Pour into sterilized glass jars and heat seal. Enjoy on homemade crackers with cream cheese, or with anything really.

time slows down

I've been operating on a different time scale recently, seems another lesson in my life to slow down and enjoy the moment. This latest teacher is very small but potent: my sourdough starter. Living life to the swell and fall of yeast is an exercise in laying back in a primordial ooze, it's about as basic and as slow as one can get. And yet there is so much strength and potency and abundancy in this primordial bath.

The starter began life as a mix of one cup rainwater (all our water here is rainwater) and one cup wholewheat flour. It sat out on the counter covered with a tea towel and was fed every day with another half cup water and half cup flour. I mixed it vigorously twice or thrice a day and on the 4th day was rewarded with bubbles. Another two days later and it was looking thick and bubbly and had that lovely yeasty smell. Now the starter lives in the fridge and is fed twice, sometimes three times a week whenever I make bread. Making sourdough bread is a three day process. The actual preparation is short and simple, but it takes time for raising and re-raising. The difference between walking into a store and buying bread and making it from scratch is not so much a matter of difference in convenience as a lesson in natural law and our place as part of a greater wholesome whole. Yeast has its own agenda, one must have respect and appreciation. Louis Pasteur had it right when he said "the microbes will have the last word".

Before I make bread I take the starter out of the fridge pour it into a bowl, feed it a cup of flour and about 1/2 cup of water, cover with towel and allow it to swell overnight or all day.

Sourdough recipe
1 cup sourdough starter
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1 cup of kombucha (or dark beer, warm, or boil water from pasta, potatoes or other starchy veg, or regular water)
flour to make a good dough, I use about 3-4 cups but it depends on weather and humidity
time and openness to enjoying the moment

anything can be added to bread, at the moment I add sunflower and sesame seeds

mix the starter, salt, sugar and liquid (and any additions). Add a cup of flour at a time mixing thoroughly, until you have a nice firm dough. Turn onto floured surface and knead for 15 minutes. Put in oiled bowl and cover with tea towel and leave in a warm place overnight or all day. Sourdough takes longer to rise than bread using commercial yeasts. Next morning form into loaves. This recipe makes me two loaves. I divide the dough in half, flatten it out into a rough circle and roll it up into a short thick sausage. Place on baking trays, cover with tea towel and leave somewhere warm either all day or overnight. Bake for 30 minutes in a 400 degree oven, the bread is ready when it sounds hollow when tapped.

Enjoy with nutmeg preserve!

nutmeg preserve

Nutmeg harvest is in full swing - again: the nutmeg seems to fruit every 2-3 months, and sporadically between times. It's a pretty tree, medium sized with shiny leaves in a pleasant shade of green and fruits that look a lot like apricots, and it comes in both genders, one needs to have several trees to ensure a good crop. When the fruits ripen they split in two and fall to the ground revealing the glossy nutmeg seed inside and the incredible red lacy aril: mace. the first time I saw mace I was spellbound by the colour and the beauty, and that such a thing could be hidden away inside a fleshy peachy fruit.

The Nutmeg tree is native to the Spice Islands (Moluccas) and was at one time a fiercely guarded secret by Dutch colonialists who were known to travel to neighboring islands to destroy Nutmeg harvests. Later French and British colonialists exported the trees to Madagascar and the Caribbean. Grenada, the Spice Island of the Caribbean, is famous for its nutmeg: the country's flag is red, yellow and green in representation and one even appears on the left of the flag. Both nutmeg and mace are widely used in cooking imparting a sweet, warm woodsy flavor to drinks, puddings, cakes and savory dishes. Nutmeg has long been supposed to have magical properties, in medieval times it was carried as a talisman to protect against misfortune and illness, and even used to attract admirers! Medicinally it is used to aid digestion.

The mace is removed after harvest and dried separately, the colour fades from a brilliant red to a deep orange amber, and the seed shrinks a little, the nutmeg inside can be heard rattling around. Fresh nutmeg has to be refrigerated, but dry can keep for a very long time.

The fruits have for a long time been left to rot where they fell, becoming compost for the tree, until that is I discovered that they are edible! The flesh is very woody and while subtly flavoured like nutmeg, hardly sweet. I've been making jam and it's very good. It comes out with an apple butter texture and a warm, sweet nutmeg flavour - excellent with ginger scones!

-nutmeg fruits, the fresher the better, but soft is fine too
-brown sugar
-a little nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger (last two are optional)

Wash, peel and cut the fruit finely. Add water to cover and boil until soft, and until 1/3rd of the water has boiled off. Blend to a paste, weigh and add an equal amount of brown sugar. Add some grated nutmeg, about 1/4 teaspoon for every pound of fruit - depending on taste of course, cinnamon and ginger can also be added at this stage. Return to pan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Cook until the preserve thickens (a spoon will make a clean trail when drawn across the bottom of the pan) - you can also test for readiness by dipping a spoon and allowing it to cool - if this sets, then your preserve is ready. Bottle in clean, sterilized jars and seal in a hot water bath. Enjoy!

ginger scones

Having made my crystallized ginger I could make my scones. Delicious served warm with cream or butter.

1 cup wholewheat flour
1 cup white flour
1/4 cup ginger sugar (see post below)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup chopped crystallized ginger (see post below)
1 stick butter (4oz)
2/3 cup buttermilk (or normal milk with 1 tablespoon lemon juice added to make up 2/3 cup. Let sit for 5 minutes before using.)

Mix dry ingredients. Finely chop the butter (easier if frozen) and rub into the dry mix until it looks like fine breadcrumbs. Stir in buttermilk with a knife. Turn out onto floured surface and knead VERY LIGHTLY, basically just shape the dough. Shape or pat into a round about an inch and a quarter thick. Using a knife score into 8 sections. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 400 degrees F for 15 - 20 minutes. Allow to rest for 5 minutes and serve with good strong hot tea.

ginger candy

It's time for the ginger harvest: the green shoots are dying back and the rhizomes are pushing up through the soil. Ginger is easy and fun to harvest, it's a simple treasure hunt as the first scraping away of earth reveals the newest and youngest roots and pulling them up reveals larger and older roots below, sometimes one can dig down through 4 layers of ginger. Replanting is simple too: one just snaps off nodules which have a greenish tinged bump, lets them air dry for a day or two then replant so that the bump is only just about below the soil. It's a little like planting potatoes or yams.

I've been making scones and was hankering for the ginger scones my gran used to make. First I needed crystallized or candied ginger. This is the recipe I used. It's a great recipe - not only does it make good, strong ginger candy, it also gives back ginger sugar and ginger syrup.

ginger root, peeled and sliced (the best way to peel ginger is by scraping it with a teaspoon)
sugar - white or brown
water

Boil the sliced ginger in a pan of water until tender, about 20 minutes. Drain, saving the liquid. Weigh your boiled ginger and return to the pan with the same weight of sugar. Heat 'til boiling, stirring occasionally, until the liquid has all but evaporated. Now you will have to stir constantly as the liquid disappears and the ginger goes from a syrupy mess to dry in a moment. Keep stirring until you have a pan of dry hard ginger pieces and a pile of sugar. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Keep the ginger pieces in an airtight container. They will last for up to 2 months if kept dry. The sugar can be kept and used in scones or to give a ginger flavour to cereals, tea, wherever you may use sugar. Now back to the syrup. The liquid you first boiled the ginger in should now be returned to the stove and mixed with sugar. The quantity will depend on how much liquid you have, boil the sugar liquid until it thickens stirring now and again. When about 1/3 - 1/2 has evaporated off pour it into a clean bottle and seal. Use this syrup to make ginger teas or for a cough or cold remedy, or to help with digestion.