Home Made, Home Grown, Home Crafted

From Soil to Table: June

Posted by Rosemary Jeboo on Saturday, June 20, 2015 Under: Gardening
June brought a taste of the exotic and unexpected as I took a break in South Florida.

Sown seeds in my garden were left to grow and watered when necessary. Fortuitously, abundance and resourcefulness pursued me.  Stationed at my brother’s garden in Florida, I was surrounded by exotic and colourful flowers - frangipani, buttercups, and bougainvillea.  

But it was the sheer weight of hundreds of fruits on the trees that exploded on my mind. Pineapples perched in the centre of the plants. Avocados, limes, tropical cashews, coconuts for refreshing water and, sour sops dished on to ice cream, and sugar cane chewed for the sweet juices.  

However it was the glut of mangoes that dominated my stay.  I was intrigued by the resourcefulness of preserving this fruit.  

Hundreds of mangoes pulped for freezing to be used for desserts and smoothies, mangoes cut into slices for dehydration, grated and spiced for achar and made into jam. The kitchen and my entire being heaved with mango activity.  

Then I thought how similar it is in the ‘Old Smoke’ (London).

Preservation of fruit is on a renaissance. Artisan classes are now extolled and encouraged.  

I compare my preservation skills with gluts of my own fruit. Apples are chutneyed, made into achar, dried for snacks, pureed, made into jam and stored whole.  I realise that oceans cannot separate what has been passed down from generations. That I deal with my glut of fruits in a temperate climate the same as my brother does in a tropical climate.



Apple Leather 
  1. Wash apples, core and chop
  2. Place fruit in a large saucepan – 4 cups of fruit to ¼ cup of water
  3. Cook in low heat for 10-15 mins
  4. Once pureed spread on a greaseproof paper and put in low heat in oven
  5. Let it dry in the oven until a leather form


 

In : Gardening 


Tags: soil table recipes gardening