ANZAC Day

Photo by Spedding-Stock

At the going down of the sun,

And in the morning,

We Will Remember Them

Lest We Forget

Keeping Chickens

For me, having a flock of chickens is the most rewarding thing I could do in my backyard. I get my own personal feathery army of weed destroying, bug eating, mobile fertilisers with the added bonus of fresh 'happy' eggs each day.

I want to share the joy of keeping chickens with...well everyone! It's not difficult to keep chickens and it doesn't need to be expensive either. They make wonderful pets and children love having the opportunity to collect their own breakfast!

I'm starting up what hopefully will be a weekly blog entry called Keeping Chickens [original I know!], which I hope to cover the basics of keeping chickens and some extra stuff including health, incubating your own eggs and a few myth busting posts.

If there is anything you would like me to cover, please feel free to leave me a comment any time.

So stay tuned for the first one...soon. :)

April Garden Update Photos

My pot of garlic cloves I planted to harvest in Spring/Summer.

Broadbean seedlings surrounded by self seeded parsley

My lone Calendula which survived my summer of not watering and is currently thriving [and more parsley].

Cauliflower seedlings

Pak Choy seedlings...with a few more parsley popping up.

Lots of beetroot!

One of two types of broccoli planted. One is an early harvester [12-16 weeks] the other a later one [16-20 weeks].

Snow peas! My favourite! Four types of peas were planted, snow peas, telephone peas, sugar snap peas and dwarf peas.

And the mouth the veggies above will hopefully feed!

Quince Jelly and Quince Paste

Quinces.

A hard yellow, apple like fruit, is often associated in Greek mythology with the goddess Aphrodite. When raw they are almost inedible, but once cooked they have the most delicate scent and flavour.

A few weeks ago, whilst driving in the Adelaide Hills I came across some quince trees with fruit on the side of the road. On Friday my friend Kyri and I went back and picked all the quinces we could get from the trees. It was a lot of fun, using sticks to pull the fruit down from the higher branches and in some cases chasing dislodged fruit down the road! We got about 5 kg of fruit from 2 trees.

We used the fruit to make quince jelly and quince paste over the course of 2 days. It is rather time consuming and not really something that can be done in a day.

Cooking quince jelly and quince paste!

The first issue we had was finding a recipe to deal with about 4 kg of cut, peeled and cored fruit. Most recipes were for '6 quinces' or '8 quinces', not actual pound/kilogram measurements. After a phone call to Kyri's grandmother we finally managed to get started.

Poached Quinces
The first step to making quince jelly and quince paste is to poach the quinces.

You will need quinces, water, a jelly bag and a reasonably large pot, preferably aluminium-as aluminium cookware enhances the deep red colour quince goes when cooked.

1. Peel, quarter and core the quinces, place into a large pot and add enough water to just cover.
   
2. Tie some of the quince cores and skin into a muslin bag and add to the pot. They contain a lot of pectin which will help the jelly set.
   
3. Cook over a medium heat until the quinces are falling apart.
   
4. Using a jelly bag [or in our case a clean sterilised pillowcase], strain the liquid from the pulp into a clean saucepan overnight. Don't be tempted to squeeze the bag to hurry the straining process along, as it may make the jelly cloudy.
   

Quince Jelly
The second step is to make the jelly from the poaching liquid. The liquid won't be clear yet but as it is boiled with become clear.

You will need the poaching liquid, white sugar, a pot, clean empty jars with lids and something to skim the scum from the top [a skimmer or a large spoon will work fine]. If you have one, a sugar/jam thermometer is handy-we didn't have one, so used to traditional method of a cold saucer to check when the jelly was set.

Quince jelly on the stove. Note the white scum on the surface-this needs to be skimmed off.

1. Measure the poaching liquid and add 950g of white sugar to every litre of poaching liquid. Place into a clean pot, heat and stir until all the sugar is dissolved.
   
2. Keep on a slow boil, constantly skimming the surface scum off. The more of the scum you skim off, the clearer the jelly will become. As it boils down, the colour should deepen to a deep red colour.
   
   

   

   Quince jelly freshly poured into hot sterilised jars.

3. Once the jelly has reached 104 °C (219 °F) pour into hot sterilised jars and seal.
   
4. If you do not have a thermometer, you can test the jelly setting by putting a drop of the jelly onto a cold saucer [we put ours in the freezer] and see if it gels. If it stays liquid, it needs to cook for longer. 

Our tray of cooling quince jelly.

 

 Quince Paste
The third step is to make the quince paste. This can be done at the same time as the jelly, if you have room on the stove.

You will need the quince pulp, white sugar, water, a pot, greaseproof paper and trays/containers to set the paste in.

Quince Pulp on the stove

1. Weigh the pulp and use 3/4 of the pulp's weight in white sugar.
   
2. Place the quince pulp into a pot, mash well and add a small amount of water if necessary to stop the pulp sticking to the bottom of the pan. Try to add as little water as possible-the more water you add, the longer the cooking will take.
   
3. Start heating on low heat, once it has warmed slightly, start adding the sugar in portions and stir until dissolved.
   
4. Keep on a low heat, stirring occasionally to make sure it doesn't stick. As it reduces it should turn a red/brown colour and get rather sticky. This can take a long time-we had 2kg of pulp and it took roughly 5-6 hours to reduce down enough.
   
   

   

   Quince paste after being cooked on the stove. Ready to go into the oven.

5. Remove from heat and spoon into trays lined with greaseproof paper. Place in a warm fan-forced oven for approximately 2 hours. This dries it out somewhat and darkens the colour a bit more.
   
6. Once cool enough to touch, cover with cling wrap and allow to set in the fridge.

Finished quince paste ready to be cooled and cut.

Thank you Kyri for the photos!

First Eggs...Just In Time For Easter

My Marans and Araucanas are now 6 months old and are ready to stop free loading and start laying. On Friday [Good Friday] I found my first pullet egg laid by one of my Marans.

First Marans pullet egg with some of my Wyandotte eggs.

Followed very shortly on Saturday with a white pullet egg. I was unsure of who laid this egg, but narrowed it down to two possible suspects. My Araucana or my black crossbreed.

Clockwise from top: Marans pullet egg, mystery pullet egg, Silver laced Wyandotte egg, Gold laced Wyandotte egg.

This morning [Easter Sunday] I found four eggs in the coop, two of them being from my pullets. And excitingly one of them was green!

No I don't have an alien chicken! Araucana's lay eggs with shells have a green-blue tinged shell. I had a chat with a knowledgeable chicken friend and the white egg was most likely her egg as well as sometimes they start off laying very pale/white eggs.

Left to Right: Marans pullet eggs, Araucana pullet eggs, Gold laced Wyandotte eggs, Silver laced Wyandotte eggs, Gold [top]/Silver [bottom] laced Wyandotte eggs.

 So for Easter this year, instead of chocolate eggs, I got real eggs!