Black Boy Peach & Raspberry Jam

There have been some exciting things happen here in Christchurch in the wake of the February 2011 earthquake.  Many interesting activities that have popped up around the city as a result of the Gap Filler project, quirky cafes and bars have taken up residence on demolition sites, and many of the city's broken buildings have become the canvas for unique artworks, all of which have given the city a real vibrance that it didn't have pre-earthquake.

But one thing that is very sobering is the number of whole suburbs that have disappeared, and have now become what we know as the Residential Red Zone.  In these areas the land became highly unstable and the Crown determined that it was uneconomic to repair or stabilise the land.  As a result the Crown acquired all the land from the home owners and all the houses were demolished.  What you see today is large areas of land now devoid of houses and people, but the gardens still remain, like a spectre of the neighbourhoods lost.  Walking around the red zone has an almost eerie feeling to it.  But to every cloud there is a silver lining, and these well established but abandoned gardens are a forager's paradise.

My home is less than 100 metres from the beginning of the red zone, and this week I have been gathering pears and several buckets of Black Boy peaches.  I also have my eye on feijoas, walnuts, figs, more pears, and olives - all yet to ripen.

Some of you may have never come across Black Boy peaches.  They are an old heritage variety, with a dark almost purple skin and pink flesh.  You generally won't come across them in supermarkets;  instead you are most likely to acquire some only if you know someone who grows them, or you might stumble across some at a farmers market if you're lucky.  Unlike other peaches, they are in my opinion better suited to stewing or poaching than eaten fresh, and they are also beautiful made into jams and chutneys.

This week at I Heart Cooking Clubs is Potluck Week, giving us the opportunity to cook with any one of our IHCC stable of guest chefs.  With the bounty of all the late summer produce around at the moment, preserving is high priority for me right now, and I've been spending a lot of time lately splattering the pages of Diana Henry's "Salt Sugar Smoke" with all manner of delicious sauces and jams.  I love Diana's approach to preserving and, seeking some inspiration for dealing with one of those buckets of peaches, this seemed like the ideal place to look.  I had been thinking along the lines of chutney actually, but then I stumbled across her recipe for White Peach & Raspberry Jam.  Since I had a stash of frozen raspberries to use up as well, I could go no further.

I made a few tiny tweaks to the recipe - firstly using these glorious pink fleshed peaches instead of white;  I included the zest from the lemons along with the juice, because why not:  and I added the grated flesh of one apple instead of the box of commercial pectin asked for in the original recipe.  Also once the jam has been made and bottled, Diana then puts the bottles through a canning process.  Personally, this is something I have never bothered doing with jam, and I've had no problem with them keeping for up to 12 months, but feel free to do so if you have concerns about keeping your jams for long periods of time.

The resulting jam, as you can see, has the most spectacular colour.  It's not overly sweet, has a softish set to it and incredible fragrance, giving this jam an almost seductive quality.  A dollop of this on top of some sourdough rye and carraway bread I picked up at the farmers market made the perfect start to the day for a Sunday morning breakfast.

If you're lucky enough to get your hands on some Black Boy peaches, I urge you to give this a try.

Black Boy Peach & Raspberry Jam Recipe
Adapted from recipe by Diana Henry
from Salt Sugar Smoke
Makes 4 large jars
Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

1.2kg Black Boy peaches (or whatever peaches you can get)
5 cups raspberries
grated zest of one lemon
juice of 2 lemons
1x apple, flesh grated
5 cups sugar

Place clean jars and lids into a low oven to sterilise them.

Meanwhile remove the skins from the peaches by plunging them briefly into a pot of boiling water.  Remove and plunge into a bowl of cold water.  The skins should then slide off easily.  Halve the peaches, remove and discard the stones, and cut the flesh into slices or chunks.

Put all of the peach flesh into a large, deep saucepan, along with the raspberries, lemon zest, lemon juice, and grated apple.  Crush slightly to start the fruit juices running, then set pan over high heat and bring to a boil.  Add the sugar, bring back to the boil, and continue boiling until setting point is reached (100 degrees C/220 degrees F on a sugar thermometer).

Allow jam to stand for 10 minutes to cool slightly, and then ladle into the hot jars.  Leave to cool before sealing with lids.

If you would like to get to know Diana Henry or any of our other IHCC chefs a little better, and to see all the wonderful Potluck dishes my friends have come up with, then do go visit I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links.

Boozy Peaches (aka Peaches in Sticky Wine)

According to Shakespeare, "brevity is the soul of wit".  That being said, I fear this post may be rather long on the brevity (is that really possible), and short on the wit.

The long and short of it is that this has been a week that really got away from me, and if I don't get this post out in the space of a very short lunch break today, it isn't going to happen.

So getting straight to the point, this week at I Heart Cooking Clubs, where we continue our journey with the gorgeous Diana Henry, we are creating Gifts From the Heart.  With Christmas just around the corner, it's a great opportunity to explore some of those edible gifts that we cooks like to give to family and friends over the holiday season.

I knew I would find something in my copy of "Salt Sugar Smoke" - in fact I found many things which will make wonderful festive gifts, but I decided that nothing could be as simple to make, nor impressive to receive as a jar of these Boozy Peaches.

Diana's original recipe uses apricots soaked in muscat, but I used what I had - a bag of dried peaches and a bottle of dessert wine.  Really the variables are limitless.  It's just dried fruit packed into a sterilised jar, covered with booze, and then left in a cool, dark place for the fruit to plump up in the alcohol.  According to Diana, these will keep for a very long time, though I defy you to actually do that, and are just perfect for an instant and luxurious dessert.  I'm thinking that chilling these before using them would be a nice touch, and a couple of these with a generous dollop of thick Greek yoghurt would be heavenly.

Not sure yet who is going to be the lucky recipient of this jar as a Christmas prezzie, but I'm willing to take offers.

Boozy Peaches (Peaches in Sticky Wine) Recipe
Ever so slightly adapted from recipe by Diana Henry
from Salt Sugar Smoke

Take a large sterilised jar

Fill jar to approximately 2/3 full with dried peaches
(apricots, plums or pears would all be good alternatives)

 Add one bottle of a sticky dessert wine

Ensure that you have left enough room in the jar for the fruit to plump up.  After a few days add more wine if all the fruit is no longer covered.

Store in a cool, dark place until you are ready to use.

If you would like to get to know Diana Henry a little better, and to see what everyone else has cooked up this week, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links (who knows, you might even want to join the journey and cook along with us) ...

Peach & Blueberry Pancakes

I've been on the waiting list for about a year to join the Secret Recipe Club, a cooking group where each month we are assigned another blog from which we will choose a recipe to make and write a post about.  This is done in secret (hence Secret Recipe Club), so no one knows who is cooking from which blog until everyone puts up their post on reveal day.

Anyway, after a long wait, I was very excited to get an email this month inviting me to participate, and sending me my assigned blog ... Kudos Kitchen by Renee.  This is a fantastic way to discover some new blogs, and more importantly get to know the lovely bloggers themselves.

Renee was definitely a "new-to-me" blogger, and it didn't take me much time browsing around her blog to realise that the hardest part of this challenge was going to be narrowing things down to just one recipe to make.  Renee has a lot of recipes which really took my fancy, and which have now been bookmarked to make in the near future.  But, with the last of the seasons golden queen peaches and blueberries to use up, Renee's Blueberry Peach Pancakes seemed like the perfect dish.

I did make a few minor changes.  I roughly halved the recipe as, unlike Renee, I didn't have a big family of hungry men to feed.  This still made easily enough for two (possibly three) for breakfast/brunch.  In the original recipe, Renee used a combination of plain flour and sprouted wheat flour - in the absence of sprouted wheat flour, I used all plain flour.  I left out ground flax seed and, in the absence of buttermilk, I used a combination of regular milk and yoghurt.  Lastly, I made the most of fresh seasonal fruit in place of frozen fruit.

These pancakes were delicious, so good in fact that I have made them again, and have even managed to freeze some peaches and blueberries so that I can make them again in the winter ahead.

Peach & Blueberry Pancakes Recipe
Adapted from recipe by Kudos Kitchen by Renee
Makes 2-3 generous servings

1-1/2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon coconut sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 large, free-range egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1/4 cups milk
2/3 cup plain yoghurt
2 tablespoons butter, melted, plus extra for frying
1 cup blueberries, plus extra for serving
1x large peach, cut into smallish dice (about the same size as the blueberries)
maple syrup for serving

Sift together flour, cinnamon and baking powder in a large bowl.  Add the coconut sugar and salt, and mix well to combine.

Whisk the egg lightly in a separate bowl.  Add the vanilla, milk, yoghurt, and melted butter.  Whisk lightly to combine.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and stir until just combined.  Add the fruit and fold in gently.

Set a non-stick frying pan over medium heat, and add a tiny knob of butter.

Add spoonfuls of pancake batter to the pan.  Once bubbles start to appear around the edges and on the top side of the pancakes (about 1 minute), flip them over and cook until the underside is golden (approximately another minute).

Remove cooked pancakes to a serving platter and keep warm in a low oven while you cook the rest of the pancakes.

Once all the pancakes are cooked, add another generous knob of butter to the pan, along with the extra blueberries.  Cook over low heat just until the blueberries are warmed through, and starting to soften and release their juices.

To serve, spoon blueberries and their juice over the top of the pancakes, and drizzle liberally with maple syrup.

Hope you enjoy the pancakes as much as I did, and visit the links below to check out all the other great dishes my Secret Recipe Club friends made.

An InLinkz Link-up

Crisp Pork Belly with Sweet Peach Salsa

Poking around in my fruit bowl yesterday, I found a few peaches which needed using with a degree of urgency, so in trying to decide on my contribution for this week's Cookbook Sundays I turned to Nigel Slater's Tender, Volume II, A Cook's Guide to the Fruit Garden for inspiration.

This is a wonderful book, divided in to chapters according to fruit varieties.  Each chapter offers:  firstly, some general information about the seasonality, origins and history of the particular variety;  secondly, some information about growing the particular fruit and available varieties;  then, using the said fruit in the kitchen - how to ripen it, cook with it, and other great flavour companions;  and lastly, a selection of recipes.  Recipes are generally relatively simple and uncomplicated (my kind of food), photographs are gorgeous, and everything is written in Nigel Slater's inimitable style, which makes you feel as though he is right there in the kitchen having a chat with you.

Leafing through the chapter on peaches and nectarines, I found myself wishing that I had several kilos of peaches kicking around the house, as there wasn't a single recipe that I didn't want to try.  However, as I had just three peaches on hand, I had to narrow the search somewhat and, given my weakness for porcine flesh, I just knew that I was going to love this Crisp Pork Belly with Sweet Peach Salsa.

Pork belly is marinated in a paste of garlic, soy, chilli and Chinese five-spice, then roasted in a hot oven until the skin is crispy.  Nigel suggests marinating the pork for at least four hours, and maybe even overnight.  As it turned out, I only had two hours, but the flavour was still exceptional.  For the salsa, peaches (I used a combination of yellow and white peaches) and cherry tomatoes combine with chillies, limes and coriander, to make the perfect accompaniment to the pork.

Crisp Pork Belly with Sweet Peach Salsa Recipe

Adapted from Nigel Slater's

Tender II, A Cook's Guide to the Fruit Garden

Serves 4

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

1 to 1.5kg (2 to 3 lb) pork belly, skin finely scored

Marinade:

3x cloves garlic

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon sunflower oil

2 teaspoons salt

generous pinch dried chilli flakes

1 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder

Peach Salsa:

2x spring onions

1x small red chilli

3x peaches (white, yellow or a mixture of both)

(nectarines would be a good substitute if peaches were not available)

8x cherry tomatoes

small bunch of coriander (cilantro)

2x limes

3 tablespoons olive oil

Put the piece of pork belly into a shallow glass or china dish.

Peel the garlic, put into a mortar and pestle, sprinkle over the salt, and crush to a paste.  Add the soy sauce, oil, chilli flakes and Chinese five-spice, and combine everything well.  Spread this paste liberally over the skin and underside of the pork belly, rubbing it in well.  Cover with cling film and set in the fridge to marinate for at least two hours - longer if possible  Overnight is good if you have the time.

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C (425 degrees F).  Place the pork in a roasting tin, skin side up, and cook in the preheated oven for about 20-25 minutes.  Reduce the oven temperature to 200 degrees C (400 degrees F), and cook for a further 40-50 minutes, until the skin is dark and crispy.  Remove from oven, and allow to rest for at least 10 minutes before carving.

Meanwhile, make the salsa.  Finely chop the chilli (feel free to de-seed first if you don't want the heat).  Finely chop the spring onions.  Peel the peaches, slice the cheeks off the stones, and finely chop the flesh.  Finely chop the cherry tomatoes and coriander.  Gently mix everything together in a bowl.  Squeeze over the juice of the limes and add the olive oil.  Toss everything again to combine.

Serve with the pork belly.  Steamed rice and bok choy make great additional accompaniments.

I'm sharing this recipe with Cookbook Sundays - do stop by and see what else is cooking.  Maybe you'd even like to dust off some of your own cookbooks and join in.

Peach & Blueberry Breakfast Quinoa

Are you sick of me and quinoa yet?  Well, I just couldn't close the chapter on this wonderful ingredient without sharing one more dish with you.  I've got to tell you that trying this one was stepping way out of my comfort zone, but that's what Make it with ..... Mondays is all about and I'm so thrilled that so many of you have really taken the challenge over the last couple of weeks and done just that.

I came across this recipe for Warm & Nutty Cinnamon Quinoa on Heidi Swanson's wonderful blog, 101 Cookbooks.  It looked so beautiful and tempting that I really wanted to try it for Make it with ..... Mondays challenge quinoa, but I have to admit that I was more than a little nervous about it.  You see the original recipe calls for cooking the quinoa in milk and water.  Well I hate milk, and two things that really make me gag are rice pudding (or any kind of vaguely "sweet" rice dish) and porridge.  Actually I can't even be in the same room as porridge - just the smell of it nearly makes me barf!  I'm sorry, but it's true - it's completely uncontrollable - put a bowl of porridge in front of me at your own peril.

So I was somewhat scared that this dish might turn out to be vaguely reminiscent of either of these dreaded dishes, but it looked so good in Heidi's photos I decided to "man-up" and give it a try.  I used almond milk instead of regular milk, and that added a lovely sweet nuttiness.  I thought about using coconut milk, and that would certainly be an option, if you prefer.  Like Heidi, I chose a red quinoa for this, but regular would be fine.  I also happened to have some beautiful, perfectly ripe peaches and blueberries on hand, so I used those instead of berries.  The other minor change I made was drizzling at the end with honey, instead of agave nectar.  I'm guessing that rice syrup or maple syrup would also work well.

The result was wonderful - not at all like any kind of porridge or rice pudding - the quinoa has a lovely nutty flavour (enhanced by the almond milk) and retains some chewiness.  The little bit of sweetness that comes through from the almond milk and honey, as well as the cinnamon, is a nice complement to the tangy, fresh fruit.  This was flavourful, filling and nourishing, without giving that feeling of heaviness that you can sometimes get after eating other cereals.  The second day, I ate this with a combination of blueberries, apricots and plums, which was also delicious.  I think pretty much any fruit would work in this, and even stewed, dried fruit in winter would be fine. Maybe banana and shaved coconut would also be good, especially if you used coconut milk as part of the cooking liquid.  You could also experiment with different nuts here - walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios, macadamias would all be good alternatives.

Peach & Blueberry Breakfast Quinoa Recipe

Adapted from 101 Cookbooks

Makes 2 generous servings

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

Gluten-free, vegan option

1/2 cup almond milk

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup red quinoa

(rinse thoroughly in lots of running water)

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 cup fresh blueberries

2 fresh peaches, cubed

1/4 chopped pecans, toasted

2 teaspoons honey

(use agave nectar, maple syrup or rice syrup for vegan option)

Put quinoa, almond milk and water into a medium saucepan, set over high heat and bring to the boil.  Turn heat down to medium-low, cover and simmer until liquid is almost completely absorbed (about 15 minutes).  (Note:  I suggest you don't walk away - the milk bubbles up a lot, and makes a horrible mess if it boils over.  I found I had to leave the lid of my pan slightly ajar, and lift it off at regular intervals.  Maybe I should have used a slightly bigger pan.)

Remove pan from the heat, and allow it to stand, covered, for 5 minutes.  Stir in the cinnamon and then the fresh fruit.  Transfer to serving bowls, top with the toasted pecans, and drizzle with honey.

Delicious while still warm, but also just as good cold the next day.  If desired, you could reheat briefly in the microwave the next day, and you may also want to add a little extra milk to loosen.

This post is a contribution to Make it with ... Mondays challenge quinoa - the linky is still open until Monday 31 January, so keep your quinoa posts coming, and don't forget to check out this week's special ingredient which is paprika.

I'm also linking this to the Decidedly Healthy or Horridly Decadent Blog Hop and to next week's Hearth & Soul Blog Hop, also to the Fit Foodista February Blog Carnival.

Lemony Peach Cake Recipe

Okay, I realise that I may be in huge danger of losing my credibility here - I know that I told you, just a little over a week ago, in this post for Gabrielle's Sticky Lemon Bars, that I don't bake, and now here I am bringing you a cake.  So, just in case you are thinking that I have suddenly become an avid and frequent baker, let me set the record straight - I actually made this cake back in March and, great cake though it was, it got assigned a title and has been sitting around in my draft posts folder ever since.

Anyway, it's a cold Sunday afternoon here, perfect for settling down with a good coffee and a piece of cake (even if it is just a virtual one), and so I thought it was time to dust this one off and share it with you.  Seems like a good time to share a peach cake recipe too - since those of you in the northern hemisphere will probably just now be enjoying the very last of the season's peaches, while down here in the southern hemisphere stone fruit season is just around the corner.

This recipe is from the Donna Hay "Seasons" book, which was one of my favourite new cookbooks this year.  I love Donna's very simple, yet ever so stylish approach to food.  I love that the majority of her recipes use a very small number of ingredients, treated in a very uncomplicated way, relying on good quality, seasonal produce, and delivering great food that you don't have to spend hours preparing.  She epitomises for me the ethos that great food just doesn't have to be messed with and doesn't need to be complicated.

(Available from Amazon and Fishpond NZ)

Just in case you think you need a few more reasons to get this book, go and check out my post some months ago in which I gave a brief review of the book and shared with you this recipe for Grilled Fig, Haloumi & Pomegranate Salad.

So, back to the cake.  Yes, I am definitely making this again as soon as peaches come into season here.  It is a very simple cake to make - perfect for someone who has my limited level of competence in the baking department.  It was light and moist;  I loved the "lemoniness" which seems to really lift the flavour of the peaches;  and, it's just perfect to finish a meal with, or enjoy with a coffee and a good friend (or a good book if you don't happen to have a friend)!

Lemony Peach Cake Recipe

Adapted from

Donna Hay "Seasons"

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

175g (6 oz) butter, softened

3/4 cup caster sugar

grated zest of 2 lemons

3 eggs, ideally free-range

1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted

1 teaspoon baking powder, sifted

1/4 cup natural yoghurt

3 peaches, sliced

icing sugar, to dust

Preheat oven to 160 degrees C (320 degrees F).

Lightly grease a 25cm round cake tin, and line with non-stick baking paper.

Put butter, sugar and lemon zest into food processor or bowl of an electric mixer, and beat until light and creamy.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add flour, baking powder and yoghurt, and beat or pulse until just combined.

Spoon into the prepared baking tin, top with the sliced peaches, and bake for 1 hour or until a skewer tested in the middle of the cake comes out clean.

Cool for 10 minutes in the tin, then turn out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.  Dust the top with icing sugar, and serve with whipped cream or yoghurt.

Note:  I haven't tried it, but I'm sure this would be just as good made with nectarines, plums or cherries.

I'm submitting this post to Cookbook Sundays.  Why not go visit and see who else has dusted off their cookbooks - you'll almost certainly find some great recipes, and maybe you'll discover a new book you'd like to add to your collection.

I am also sharing this post with Sweet New Zealand, which is this month hosted by Mairi at Toast.  Do check out all the other sweet entries.

Remembering Paros & Dried Fruit Compote

No prizes for noticing that I haven't blogged for a couple of months - well, I've got a good excuse - well, for some of that time at least.  As many of you know, I have just had a wonderful trip to Europe, thus managing to escape a good chunk of this New Zealand winter.  Add to that a couple of weeks before I went away of being "too busy" to blog, and then coming home and taking a couple more weeks to get back into regular routines - you know how it goes - "I'll start blogging again tomorrow", but tomorrow keeps becoming the next day and the next day and so on.  Not being a natural writer, I have found it surprisingly difficult to get back into it - I know that once I sit down and just start to write, things will start to unfold, but somehow I have been a bit afraid to just sit down and get started, as though I don't know where to begin.  But anyway, enough excuses, here goes ...

So what exactly have I been doing while I was away?  I began my trip with several days in Barcelona (quite possibly my favourite city in the world, so far) - an opportunity to shop, to enjoy great food and make daily visits to La Boqueria market (absolute foodie heaven) (you can see more of my photos from La Boqueria here) ...

... to enjoy the cultural and artistic history of this wonderful city, including a visit to the Fundacio Joan Miro (a museum housing an extensive collection of the works of Joan Miro, one of my favourite artists) ...

... and, on my last evening in Barcelona, take in a cooking class at Cook & Taste.  As well as a tour of the market, we cooked a typical four course Catalan meal which included Chupito de Sopa de Tomate al Aroma de Idiazabal (shots of tomato soup flavoured with idiazabal smoked cheese), Tortilla de Patatas y Pan con Tomate (potato omelette with tomato bread), Paella de Marisco (seafood paella) and Crema Catalana (Catalan cream) - yes, I promise to share some of these recipes with you in the future.  The cooking school kitchen is lovely, and our tutor, Ignasius, was immensely knowledgeable and informative, as well as being very warm, friendly and entertaining.  The other students (mostly from the US, but surprisingly also another couple from New Zealand) were equally friendly and amusing.  In groups of 3 or 4 we all got a hands-on turn at cooking one of the courses, and then we all got to eat together the meal we had created.  The food was delicious, and there was plenty of good Spanish wine to wash it down with.  All in all, this was a wonderfully fitting way to end my stay in this beautiful city.

From Barcelona I travelled to Athens for a night, and then on to the island of Paros for a four week yoga intensive with Graeme and Leonie Northfield, which was the whole purpose of my trip.  It is almost impossible to put into words what a deeply profound experience this was, and I am not even going to try.

I can, however, tell you this.  I have been privileged to have Graeme and Leonie as my teachers for several years now.  I appreciate enormously the vast amount of experience they each have, and the knowledge and wisdom that they bring to their teaching.  I appreciate their passion for teaching students to develop a practice which is both safe and which will endure.  I am grateful for the wise and intuitive way in which they have guided my practice, helping me through injuries, and encouraging and leading me forward when the time is right.  Most of all, I'm incredibly grateful for their warmth, love and compassion.  And they're also good fun ...

I'm also incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to practice with some of the most wonderful people I have ever had the privilege to meet, and who I now feel I can call friends.  Fellow students who, despite coming together as strangers, opened their hearts and without reservation offered love and support for each other when it was needed.  I could not help but feel very humbled.

But, enough, I know you just want me to get right to the food!  The first thing I can tell you is that the Greeks really, really know how to do vegetables and this is a great place to dine out for a vegetarian.  All the cafes and tavernas I dined in had probably at least 20 vegetable dishes to choose from, and then several salads as well.  Everything was fresh, in season, and simply but deliciously prepared - nothing "chefy" about this, just really simple, honest food bursting with flavour - special favourites were peppers and tomatoes stuffed with rice, wild greens simply steamed and served with loads of lemon juice and black pepper, artichoke hearts braised with broad beans, courgette fritters (I think these were everyone's favourites), and aubergines Imam (cooked in lots of olive oil and filled with tomatoes and feta).  Of course no meal is complete without the ubiquitous Greek salad - we managed to have these on an almost daily basis without ever tiring of them.

We had regular group pot luck dinners - always celebratory affairs, with beautiful food, plenty of local wine, and of course much laughter.

We dined in beautiful tavernas so close to the water's edge that the fish could have almost jumped onto our plates - of course you nearly have to take out a mortgage to pay for the fish here!  As fish stocks in the Mediterranean diminish, so the prices seem to escalate.  From what I observed fish seemed to be usually served whole in restaurants, rather than by the fillet, and accordingly are charged by the kilo, with prices starting at 55Euros per kilo (that's NZ$110 per kilo - yes you are reading that right) and going up to around 110Euros per kilo (NZ$220 - gulp)!  So if you're planning to eat seafood here, expect to have to really cut a lot of moths loose from your wallet.  On the other hand, if you are happy to eat a little further down the food chain, you'll do yourself and the planet a favour.  Seafood such as sardines and calamari are plentiful and sustainable, as well as tasting great -you could eat a beautiful dish of grilled sardines or calamari for around 7Euros a plate.

Although I have never been that much of a breakfast person, it was in fact breakfast that became my favourite meal of every day.  As is so often the case, good food for me is as much about connecting with others as it is about what's on your plate.  It became our morning ritual, having finished our yoga practice, to enjoy a refreshing swim, after which everyone would disappear to their rooms to prepare their breakfast, emerging a little while later to eat breakfast together in the garden - usually a bowl of thick, luscious Greek yoghurt;  a mountain of fresh fruit (peaches, apricots, melons, cherries, strawberries were all very abundant);  a drizzle of local honey and some nuts.  It was fun each morning to peer into each other's bowls and see what assortment everyone had come up with.  Breakfast was a leisurely affair - usually a couple of hours when we would sit and talk, laugh, occasionally cry - a time to share and support, and a time to plan the rest of the day - should we have a sleep first and then go to town for a coffee, or maybe go for coffee first and then sleep? - or maybe an excursion to the supermarket to get some ingredients for one of our potluck dinners is in order.  Oh the tough decisions you have to make when you're on holiday!

Since I've returned home, I've found myself still needing to have my "Greek breakfast" and contemplate my day at a leisurely pace.  I have never before been much of a yoghurt lover - I often use it as an ingredient, but seldom eat it straight.  Oh, how my head has been turned since eating real Greek yoghurt!  You can buy a variety of "Greek style" yoghurts here, but they're not quite the same - you can, however, almost approximate it:  firstly, line a seive with a paper towel;  at least 3 hours before you want to eat it (overnight is ideal) spoon a serving of yoghurt into the paper towel;  set over a bowl (in the fridge) to drain.  That solves the yoghurt issue, but what about the fruit?  In the depths of winter here stone fruit, berries and melon are simply not an option.  Yes, I guess you could have a selection of apples, oranges and pears - but, I'm sorry, they just don't do it for me.  Although they are all fruits that I like to use in salads and sometimes even in desserts, but just as fruits for their own sake - no, not for me - I am without question a summer fruits girl.  My solution is a dried fruit compote - full of peaches, apricots, figs, cherries and prunes, infused with lemon, vanilla and star anise, in a syrup thick with honey (for a New Zealand twist I used manuka honey) - topped off with a sprinkling of chopped pistachio nuts, I ended up with a breakfast that even in the depths of the New Zealand winter transports me back to Paros everyday, and helps me to to still feel connected to new found friends at far flung corners of the world.

And, of course, I strongly recommend good coffee on the side!

Dried Fruit Compote Recipe

Makes 6-8 generous servings

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

There are no precise quantities required here - those given are approximate and should be adjusted to suit your personal taste

4-6 cups of dried fruit, whatever you like

I used approximately one cup each of dried peaches, apricots, figs, cherries and prunes

I also left all of my fruit whole, but if you like little pieces by all means go ahead and chop

For the syrup:

2 cups of cold water

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup honey (I used Manuka)

1 vanilla bean

2 star anise

3-4 strips of lemon peel (or orange would also be good)

To serve:

Greek-style yoghurt

chopped pistachios

Put the cold water, sugar and honey into a medium sized saucepan.  Split the vanilla pod lengthwise, scrape out the seeds, then add the seeds and the pod to the pan, along with the star anise and the strips of peel.

Set the pan over medium heat and stir until the sugar and honey has dissolved and the syrup begins to simmer.  Allow to simmer for about 5 minutes, then add all of the fruit to the pan.  Allow to simmer gently over low heat until the fruit is just soft - around 15 minutes.

Remove fruit from the pan to a bowl, then continue to simmer the liquid for a few more minutes until it has a thick, syrupy consistency.

Remove pan from the heat and pour the syrup over the fruit.  Cool completely and refrigerate overnight.  (Of course you could eat this straight away, but I think leaving all the fruit to steep in the syrup overnight really allows all the flavours to develop and mellow out).

To serve - put a generous dollop of Greek-style yoghurt in the bottom of a bowl and drizzle generously with some of the syrup.  Place a good serving of the fruit over the top and finish with a sprinkling of chopped pistachios.

Kali Orexi!

Making the most of summer's bounty

Well it's that time of year when my love affair with asparagus has given way to summer fruit. Really nothing says summer to me more than an abundance of apricots, peaches, nectarines, raspberries and strawberries, and this year (perhaps because the summer weather has actually been pretty crappy!) the fruit seems to be especially good. Interesting parallel - worst summer I can remember for about 15 years, best summer fruit I can remember for about as long.

So, needless to say, I have of course been indulging in plenty of unadulterated fresh fruit - big bowls of it every morning, but I've also been cooking with them and trying to set some aside to enjoy a bit of summer in the middle of winter.

I've made lots of sorbet ...

... raspberry, white fleshed nectarine, and apricot. My apricot sorbet is made using this recipe from Stone Soup. For my nectarine sorbet I used David Lebovitz's recipe - David is after all close to Godliness, in my opinion, in matters of frozen desserts! That's my nectarine sorbet in the top right corner of the picture above, which as you can see is quite a lot paler than that in the picture on the recipe link. I suspect that is because the nectarines I had were white fleshed ones, and that yellow fleshed ones would deliver a deeper pink sorbet, though I still think my pale pink version is very pretty. My raspberry sorbet is made using the following recipe adapted from the "River Cafe Italian Kitchen" cookbook. This has really intense flavour, and the colour is just drop-dead gorgeous.

Raspberry Sorbet Recipe

Makes about 1.5 litres

vegan, gluten free

800g fresh raspberries

1 whole Meyer lemon, preferrably organic, plus

juice of 1/2 lemon

350g caster sugar

Wash the lemon thoroughly, and if you are not using an organic lemon give it a good scrub to remove any wax that might be on the skin. Then cut the lemon (skin and all) into smallish pieces, discarding any pips, and put into a food processor. Put the caster sugar into the processor with the lemon, and blitz until you have a thick puree with little bits of lemon peel still visible. Add the raspberries and blitz again until everything is combined. Add the lemon juice, and taste. At this point you may add a little more sugar if the raspberries are too tart, or you may want to add a little more lemon juice - the lemon flavour should be noticeable but not overpowering.

Chill the puree for several hours (I like to leave it in the fridge overnight). Then pour the puree into an ice-cream maker and churn according to your machine's directions.

First note: You may want to strain the puree before churning to remove the pips. Personally I don't - I think it is inherent in the nature of raspberries to have pips, and I like the slightly more rustic nature and texture of an unstrained sorbet.

Second note: If you don't have an ice-cream maker - go and get one today before summer is over. I promise you won't regret it. Contrary to what you may think, this does not have to cost you a lot of money. Whilst it is true that I covet a "serious ice-cream machine", with a built-in refrigeration unit, that might set me back $1,000-$2,000, Mr Snowy here does the job just fine and he only cost about $40. I think normal retail for this is about $80, but I picked this up in one of those 50% off electrical goods sales that Briscoes have just about every second weekend. Or there are literally dozens of similar machines available on TradeMe at almost any time.

Of course the sorbet you make now is not going to keep all winter - after a while it starts to go all icy and the texture changes. But I'm very excited to have come across this recipe for Roasted Apricot Sorbet on Couldn't Be Parve. I haven't actually made this recipe yet (though I did pass the link on to a friend who has made it and declared it to be "absolutely divine"), but I have roasted several batches of apricots (6kg in all) and put them in the freezer to make into sorbet during the winter. Let me tell you that when I had a wee taste of the first batch I almost went weak at the knees - they taste soooooo good!! I know that these are going to make the most heavenly sorbet, but they would be divine as they are on good vanilla ice-cream, or dolloped on top of crumpets instead of jam, or used to fill a tart ... or just eat them straight out of the pan when no-one's watching.

I have plans to also roast some nectarines and some peaches this week, as I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to treat them exactly the same way. Will keep you posted on progress.

And speaking of jam, I've made some Apricot & Vanilla Jam using this recipe from Trish Deseinne.

I made this jam, exactly according to the recipe and I will definitely make this again. There is absolutely nothing that I would change about this - it is probably the best apricot jam I think I've tasted for years. It is not too sweet and the set is just perfect - I think it's the lemon juice that helps on both these fronts. I ended up with about a dozen jars, and don't you just love my special labels I produced ....

I'm so excited I have been labelling everything in my pantry!! These are relatively inexpensive, and available in any quantity - even very small quantities (just half a dozen, or even just 1 or 2) if you want them. If you're interested in some labels of your own for your pantry ingredients or preserves send me your query via the "Contact Me" box on the sidebar of this blog. I know that's a little bit Martha, but then for someone who is obsessive about folding (my folding of fitted sheets is legendary), this should come as no surprise.

I hope this has inspired you to do something with all that beautiful summer fruit that's out there right now. Please leave me a comment and let me know what you've been doing with summer's bounty.