A use for Tomato Skins

I am looking forward to trying this one.#more

Make your own candied peel (crystallised peel)

When our orange tree was loaded with fruit, instead of throwing away the peel from eating or juicing the oranges, I looked up the CWA cookbook and made my own candied peel. So here is my recipe based on the CWA recipes combined with what I discovered.

The rind from 6 oranges or lemons
salt
water
2 cups sugar
Castor sugar

The best way to remove the peel is to use a vegetable peeler. That way there won't be any bitter pith on your peel. Cut each section of peel into the equivalent to the amount of peel on a quarter of an orange or lemon.
Make up a brine solution of 1 tablespoon salt to 1 cup of cold water. (Make enough to cover the peel). Stir the salt in the cold water until it is dissolved. Soak the peel in the brine for 3 days.
Remove the peel from the brine, put into clean water, place on stove and allow to boil for 10 minutes.
Make a syrup by putting the sugar in one cup of water and letting it boil until the sugar disolves. Take the peel from the boiling water and put it in the boiling syrup and let it boil for 5 minutes.
Take the syrup and peel mixture off the stove, cover and leave it for 2 days.
Strain off the syrup into another pot and boil the syrup up again. Put the rinds in and boil until semi-transparent (about 20 minutes).
Take out the rinds and lay them flat on baking paper. Put a little bit of syrup in the centre of each, and sprinkle with castor sugar. Don't put too much on as it won't dry out very well. Dry it out a little in a cool oven.
Once cool and dried out (the peel will still be soft, much like fruit leather), place in an airtight container. This will keep indefinitely. I put one lot in a jam jar and another batch in an ordinary plastic container.
I have used mine in my Christmas Cake recipe.

My Christmas Cake

This year I used the peel from the oranges on my orange tree to make crystallised peel. So I have been looking forward to making my Christmas Cake for quite a few months, and finally did it today. If you have just read Sweet Poison, or are diabetic, best you steer clear of this recipe as it is very high in fructose. Instead of making one big cake, you could divvy it up into smaller cake tins and give them away as gifts. You have to have the oven on for a long time, so don't try this on a hot Australian summer's day. The photo is of my cake going into the oven today.
Ingredients:
500g currants
500g raisins
250g sultanas
125g dates
125g crystallised ginger
125g crystallised cherries
125 crystallised peel
125g blanched almonds
1/2 cup dark jam
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 teaspoon almond essence (I don't use it as I don't like the taste of almond essence)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/2 cup crushed pineapple with juice
1 tablespoon grated orange peel
1/4 teaspoon lemon essence
1 tablespoon cocoa or carob powder
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
250g butter
5 eggs
2 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
250g brown sugar

Method:
Line the bottom and sides of a 9-10 inch round or square cake tin. I used one of both as this makes a lot of mixture.
Mix fruits and nuts together, cutting to similar sizes.
Mix together orange juice, rind, jam, pineapple and essences.
Sift flour, cocoa, bicarb and spices together.
Mix about 1 cup of the flour mixture into the fruit mixture.
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time and beat thoroughly after each egg.
Mix in liquid jam mixture.
Add fruit and flour alternatively and stir in until cake mixture is even in texture.
Put into prepared tin.
Bake in a very slow oven (250 F or 120C) for 5 hours or until cooked.
This is a very heavy cake (6 1/4 pounds or almost 3kg).
Skewer should come out clean when cooked.

Cheap & cheerful Christmas decorations the kids will love to make

Here is something the kids will have fun making for Christmas...and it's so cheap to make. My 2 year old son enjoyed helping me make these. We made the shapes one day, painted them another day (as our food colouring came out rather pale) and when the paint was dry, my son selected the decorations and told me where he wanted them glued on.
Cooked Playdough Decorations
2 cups plain flour
1 cup salt
1 tablespoon oil
1 cup hot tap water
food colouring or non-toxic paint
pva glue
decorations

1. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl.
2. Mix hot water, oil and food colouring in a jug.
3. Pour liquid into dry ingredients. Stir until well combined
4. Knead well on a floured surface
5. Roll out to 1cm(half inch) thick
6. Cut out using Christmas themed cookie cutters. You can stick a hole in the top if you wish to hang the decorations off the tree.
7. Bake in moderate oven until hard.
8. Allow to cool and then paint (if desired). Use PVA glue to add decorations.

Make your own hankerchiefs

Now, you may wonder why I would bother making my own hankies? Firstly, I never seem to be able to find decent ladies hankies in the shop. They are usually thin, small and don't last very long. Secondly, I have quite a few scraps of material that are too small to make anything else out of.
This is how I did it:
1. Iron material to get rid of creases before cutting into large squares. I used an existing hanky as a template.
2. Using the rolled hem setting on my overlocker, I went around all the edges. If you don't have an overlocker, you could fold over the edges twice, press with a hot iron and sew into place.
3. (Optional - after overlocking, for a more refined finish). Fold over the edges and sew into place, securing at the corners.

There you are, it's that easy (if you have a sewing machine and/or overlocker). I made a dozen hankies in a very short space of time.
In this photo, the white handkerchief is hemmed using an overlocker only and the green one was firstly done with the overlocker, then finished off with the sewing machine as in step 3. Incidently, I am making a dress with the green material, so now I will have a matching handkerchief.

More action in the garden

My next door neighbour gave me some rather large tomato seedlings today. He has been waiting for me to get the mounds ready, but I have been too busy. He gave them to me today saying they were overdue to be planted in the ground. So I very quickly got a patch ready, and am now hoping I haven't rushed it too much.
I noticed today that the pumpkin and eggplant have germinated...very exciting!
I'm glad to say that the beer snail traps I made the other day seem to be working!

Don't be afraid to use your breadmaker

It's amazing how many people tell me they have a breadmaker, but it's in a box and they never use it. My then boyfriend, now husband, gave me a breadmaker for Christmas in 1999, and it's been used weekly ever since. We've even taken it camping (when staying in a powered site) and had it with us when we bought a caravan (trailer home for my US visitors to this site) and started travelling around Australia. He did his homework well, asking people he knew had one which was the best one to get. It's a Panasonic, which I also knew at the time had a really good reputation for being a good breadmaker.
Since then I have used it to make countless loaves of bread, foccaccia, pizza bases, apple challah, bread sticks (grissini), panettone, bagels, bolillos, monkey bread, sourdough and have even tried making cakes in it.
If you have tried using your breadmaker but have found the results haven't been great or inconsistent the best piece of advice I can give you is use kitchen scales to measure the flour. If you are using measuring cups to measure the flour, you will find the results inconsistent as there is often air trapped in the flour which makes one cup of flour different every time.
If you are short for time, use the bread mixes available in supermarkets and breadmaking shops instead of having measure out every single ingredient. It has surprised me how many people don't know about the bread mixes. All you need to do is add yeast and water along with the mix.
My breadmaker has a timer function, which means I can pop the ingredients in the breadmaker for a loaf of bread, press the button, and have it ready in the morning. That gives it time to cool down ready to cut for lunch.
My foccaccia and bread sticks have always been a hit at parties. (I know many of my friends read this blog who have tried them). I have even made breadsticks for a wedding. Both are extremely easy to make. You can use the recipes in the manual that come with your machine or there are many good breadmaking books available or look on line. I have a bread making book but find that I usually have to add more water than what it says in the book. If you look in your breadmaker while it is mixing, check out if the ingredients look too dry and add a little extra water at a time.
So go on, get that breadmaker out of it's box and start using it. It's cheaper than a trip to the bakery every time you want a loaf of bread or something special.