Lemons & Plums Lemons & Plums

Well it is wet outside so I cant do much so doing another blog, I have been a bit busy as I visited my friend in Hobart who has the best lemon tree ever and I scored two large buckets of lemons to process.
I’m made two jars of preserved lemons one for me & one for my friend mum, the one for me has chilly in it yum, I haven’t put other ingredients in my preserved lemons before so thought I would experiment a bit.
I washed the lemons then cut them into quarters not cutting all the way through I then salted each one and stuffed them into a jar until packed rite in, I have seen some peoples on line and they look really neat because they haven’t squashed the lemons in but I am more room efficient I don’t really care how they look my jars are really as full as they can be without them becoming mush…..
Anyway I put a cinnamon stick in each jar, Tassie pepper berries (Tasmannia lanceolata), bay leaves (Laurus nobilis) and chilly in mine and then I covered them with lemon juice put lids on let them sit for a few months and that is.

It is a very simple process and there would be many different ingredients you could use depending on taste and use.
Also the Tassie pepper berries will take awhile to soak up the juice and they will become fat and start to release their gorgeous pink juices unfortunately this doesn’t show in these pictures yet.
I still have three quarters of a bucket of lemons left I may make a marmalade with them I think, I love marmalade.

Next I made a syrup I was hoping to get some elderflowers (Sambucus nigra) but I’ve arrived very late in the season and it is to wet to go look for them today maybe tomorrow I will go as soon as weather allows but I think I have missed the season for the flowers but not to worry the fruit wont be as lucky to get away from me
The good news is my mums has amazing plum trees in her yard and I want to utilize as many as possible they have become my main snack taking the place of the mangoes up north and I made a plum & rhubarb cake out of them earlier this week it was so good, I do love rhubarb.
I peel the lemons before juicing as I soak these in white vinegar & use as a cleaner or just as a fragrancer…. mmmm not sure that’s a word but you know what I mean the peels are trying to dry in the front window of my van….. come on the sun, I dry them before I put them into the vinegar.
I also put a few bits of the dried rinds in my herbal tea mix.

Wow that was a nice surprise I am sitting here at the back of my van with the door open with an umbrella above the door under the plum tree so I don’t get wet typing this listening to Bob Marley and I was visited by a blue wren n his mob of girls and a fan tail, how lovely what a nice welcome into the new year, there isn’t many native birds in my mums yard lots of black birds and starlings ect but looks like my native feathered brothers n sistas are utilizing the plum trees too

Back to subject in the syrup I added the fresh lemon juice, plum juice (which is made by adding water boiling and mashing them then straining the juice out), sugar, white vinegar, Tassie pepper berries & some of the dried rind which is strained out before bottling, this is boiled and bottled as in any other syrup recipe.
It is just lovely, it is tart & sweet but not to sweet just how I like it.