Wow! Its really has been a crazy week! It started with a very boring last Wednesday. Too much day time tv over the uni holidays was starting to send me a little crazy. I decided to go up the the church where my mum runs Friendship Centre, a place where people (mostly over the age of 60) get together mid week, chat, do crafts and eat waay to much afternoon tea. After being told I wasn't doing my little craft project the right way, being given a 2 hour tutorial on how to do it correctly and eating buttered scones to my hearts content people eventually started to pitter off and go home. Thankful for my little lesson I said goodbye to my new 70-something friend only to notice someone had dropped off a few bags of plums. I decided to take a bag of overripe plums home with me. On the way home I dropped into see Nonno and Nonna to give them a hand with preparation for sauce making for Saturday morning. They had the copper boiler out and were trying to connect up the gas bottle but to no avail. While Andrew went off gallivanting the suburbs of Adelaide for the right connection, Andrew's beautiful pregnant sister, Claire, other gorgeous sister Joy and I began picking all the ripe figs from the beautiful fig tree canope in Nonno's backyard. All inspired by the fruit I had just acquired I went home and started to create. By Friday I had stewed the plums and made burnt fig and almond jam. Both ended up becoming a screaming success! I will post my fig jam recipe later.
 |
| My Breakfast: Stewed plums with yoghurt and muesli |
 |
| Figs all ready to go |
My friend Sarah has become interested in the authentic Italian sauce making experience and had been invited to come and join in on the process early Saturday morning. Joy had organised a room full of tomatoes that would be made into sauce and divided among the family members. 4:30am the sauce production began and people made their way over to Nonno and Nonna's house bleary eyed and not so bushy tailed to help out. Step one, put the tomatoes in the copper. Step two, put the boiled tomatoes through the mincer to get rid of any seeds and skin. Step three, repeat step two to get the most from the tomatoes. Step four, pour the freshly made sauce into long neck bottles. Step five, cap bottles filled with sauce. Step six, boil sauce bottles for maximum longevity. Step seven, take a seat around the table in the back yard while Nonno cooks you sausages at 10:30am. By 11am it was all over. Andrew and I went home with 20 bottles of freshly made sauce. People have asked me if the real Italian sauce making experience is anything like it is in Looking for Alibrandi. I can't tell you because I haven't seen it but according to Sarah, it is.
 |
| Not sure how to flip the photo the right way but you get the idea |
It doesn't stop there. Andrew and I came home that afternoon and decided it was time to bottle our home brew apple cider too!
 |
| Filling up bottles with home brew cider |
At the end of the weekend we had 6 jars of fig and almond jam, 1 large container of stewed plums, 20 long necks of sauce and 40 odd bottles of apple cider!
Yes it has been quite a weekend!
No comments:
Post a Comment