Category: Fruit

Bottled Tamarillos

On By kwarkyIn Desserts, Fruit, Preserves3 Comments

DSC06537   Today I bottled 11kg of tamarillos.  We still have some fruit on the trees.  There is a mixture of 3 varieties that have self-seeded in our avocado orchard and grown up tall to reach the light.  I just go and give the trunks a good shake and they fall down if they are ripe.

Red Tamarillo
Red Tamarillo
Gold Tamarillo
Gold Tamarillo
Amber Tamarillo
Amber Tamarillo

The three varieties are red, gold and amber.  The red ones are more tart than the other two, so I tend to process the red ones in some way with sugar, and the gold and amber ones are good to eat fresh or to process, needing a lot less sugar.

I used the recipe ‘Bottled Tamarillo’s’ from my cookbook ‘Tamarillo Cookbook’ by Jan Bilton, and this time I decided to use wine instead of water. I have changed it slightly because I found it to be too sweet going exactly by the recipe. Naughty eh 🙂

Once I had bottled the tam’s, I had a whole lot of juice left over, so I bottled that too.  It will be lovely diluted with lemonade or soda water, or just water.

One 10 litre bucket yields aprox 3 kg of scooped fruit, but for the recipe you weigh them before you scoop them out.

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Ingredients:

2 cups water or red or white wine

3/4 cup sugar

1 kg tamarillos,  halved and scooped.

Bring the liquid to the boil, add the sugar and stir to dissolve.  Poach the tamarillos until just cooked.  Spoon into clean preserving jars and fill to overflowing with the boiling liquid.  Seal with vacuum seals.

With the excess juice left after bottling, strain, bottle and seal.

Really yummy

Kind regards

Mumma Bear xx

Homemade Pectin

On By kwarkyIn Fruit1 Comment

I use pectin quite a bit.  Its great for helping jams to set,  coconut yoghurt to thicken,  and also for lambs with the scours.  Actually, it works for humans with the ‘scours’ too.  Remember grandma’s remedy for diarrhoea?  Stewed apples!!

All you need is about 7 large tart apples (aprox 1 1/2 kg).  I use ‘Granny Smith’ variety.

Wash but don’t peel.  Cut into small pieces, put into a pot, cores and all.

Add 4 cups water and 2 tbsp lemon juice.  Boil for about 40 mins.  Strain through a cheesecloth or jelly bag.  Boil the liquid another 20 mins.  Pour into sterilised jars and seal.

I will put a photo up when I have made my next lot.  I just used the last of mine on a lamb with scours 🙂

See, I told you it was easy.  Or did I?  Anyway,  it’s easy 🙂

Talk again soon.

Yours sincerely

Mumma Bear xx

Tamarillo Whirls

On By kwarkyIn Dairy-free, Desserts, Fruit, Gluten-free3 Comments

20150935This is my husbands favorite dessert, so when the tamarillos are in season we have this often.  The kids love it too.  My favorite tamarillos to use are the red ones.  They have more flavour and tartness than the Gold or Amber ones.  Tamarillos are an excellent source of carotene and vitamins B6, C and E.  They are a rich source of iron and a good source of fibre.  No reason not to do lots with this very versatile fruit.  Unless of course you live in an area where they don’t grow.  When I was a student in Dunedin my fiance lived in Kerikeri, and he used to send me down boxes of tamarillos and kiwifruit.  I thought it was christmas!  He obviously knew the way to a poor fruit-deprived students heart 🙂

Red, Gold and Amber Tamarillos.
Red, Gold and Amber Tamarillos.

The recipe is really easy,  basically a scone mixture made into pinwheels.  It is easy to make into dairy-free,  just substitute coconut oil or ghee instead of butter. And I have made it gluten-free before, by using a gluten-free flour mix. And the sauce that it makes is deeeeelicious!!!  I could go on and on and on…..

So, on with the recipe.

Heat oven to 180 deg celsius on fanbake, or 200 deg celsius on conventional bake.  Into baking dish place 1 1/2 cups boiling water and 1 cup sugar.  Place in oven to keep hot.  Prepare dough.

Dough:

1 1/2 cups flour (wheat or gluten-free)

2 tbsp sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/3 cup milk (dairy or dairy-free eg. almond, rice etc)

90gm butter (or ghee or coconut oil)

Pinch salt.

Rub butter (or dairy-free alternatives) into flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.  Mix with milk (or dairy-free alternative) into a stiff dough. I usually just chuck it all into my food processor.  Roll out into an oblong aprox 1 cm thick.

1 cup tamarillo flesh – (cut tams in half, use a teaspoon to scoop out the flesh, and chop lightly into smaller pieces.)

Spread chopped tamarillos over the dough. Add some dots of butter or coconut oil to the fruit.  Roll up from the long edge into a roll, lifting as you go so as to capture the fruit in the roll.  Cut into slices about 4cm thick.  To do this easily, I get a piece of cotton thread,  slide it under the roll where you want to slice it.  Bring each end of cotton up and over the top of the roll, crossing over each other at the top and keep pulling.  This slices the roll neatly without squashing it like a knife does.

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Place each slice in your dish of hot water/sugar mix.  Add any leftover fruit around the slices in the dish.

In this picture I have doubled the recipe. If you do this, don't double the amount of hot water, put in about 2 cups instead.
In this picture I have doubled the recipe. If you do this, don’t double the amount of hot water, put in about 2 cups instead.

Bake for aprox 20 mins or until golden brown on the top.  Let it sit and cool for a bit so that the sauce thickens.

I often serve it with Homemade Custard and Old-fashioned Vanilla Ice Cream.

Yum, yum, yum!!!