Fruit and Vegetable Harvest

Nectarines

The tree did not produce enough fruits this year, but the harvest has gone a long way.  Some of the fresh nectarines were shared with two families, and my home baked nectarine muffins were shared with friends.

All together about seventy odd nectarines harvested, and a few fruits were left on the tree for the birds to enjoy, and they did.  So we did well indeed.

Mini nectarine muffin is excellent and healthy for snacking.  The recipe is here for you.

Nectarine Muffins

Makes 24 small

Ingredients

3 cups self-raising – flour

¾ raw sugar

¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 cup milk

½ cup oil

2 eggs

a pinch of salt

Chopped almonds 

5 fresh nectarines, wash, seeded, cut and add in ¼ cup sugar and Cook for a few minutes.  Let it cool (the fruit will be soft, and contain juice)

Method

Heat the oven up to 175 degrees C (a fan forced)

Place the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

Add in the mixture of milk, oil and eggs, and also the nectarine + the juices

Mix gently but quickly, don’t over mix (about 18 folds and 2 stirs)

Spoon onto well prepared lined, and butter small muffin tins add chopped almonds on top

Bake in the prepared oven for 13 minutes

Take it out, and transfer on a cooling tray

To serve

Dust the muffins with icing sugar.  Variation: spread with white chocolate and dust with icing sugar on top.

It makes 24 small muffins, and you could make a lot more if you bake in mini muffins.
Variation: replace the nectarines with other fruits.


Because of the small harvest, sharing the nectarine muffins were the way to go instead of the fresh fruits. It was my Feb's baking, the monthly baking which I promise with myself to share, and we want to do so. My apology to people, I did not explain that the muffins were lined with paper, Oliver said that he accidentally ate the paper (jokingly).

A lot of time we take home the harvest from people (our club) who share their fruits and vegetables from their garden.  Today we had zucchini and tomatoes from Liz, last week we got spaghetti squash, herbs and basil from Ann and Max and early this month Sheila brought boxes of beautiful golden kumquats.  Tomatoes, lemons, apples from Irene and Oliver, and more vegetables from Dorothy. The red blood plums from Geoff, I cooked for plum sauce, it is going to be handy for dipping and delicious to serve with pork.  I am sure more people shared their harvest which I did not or forgot to mention here, Thank you all.



Vegetable Harvest
We have a vegetable garden which is sufficient enough for our need.
The spaghetti squash plants from Heather is growing well, so far, two fruits are almost ready to be picked.  I saw some more young fruits, I think out of two plants they can produce more than two fruits, or the young fruits are too late to become mature as next month is already Autumn.

Three potted tomato plants of self-seeds are fruiting, I harvested some of the Roma tomatoes, the other two are yellow cherry tomatoes which are doing Ok. We have been eating the red Roma, and I picked the last crop this afternoon.
Fresh herbs are readily available in the garden, which goes very well with tomatoes and the squash in cooking.

Beautiful colour, beautiful shape my yellow cherry tomatoes which I harvested for the first time are going to be for our mix salad.


Pleased with the vegetable harvest, also with the fruits, but occasionally getting fresh veg and fruits from the market is still needed.  Last week we went to the Farmers market to get extra fresh produce.

Figs

Other fruits in the garden are the potted figs, the new one is a brown turkey.  Incredibly, such a small plant has about sixteen fruits. Today three of them are ready to harvest, the colour of the fig is brownish already.  It pleases me as I planted only last year.

Using the figs: serve as it is, or serve the fruits with fresh ricotta cheese and honey.








Use as a garnish for middle eastern rice dishes.

Grilled figs and honey, is another way to serve the figs.

Serve it mix with antipasto, with cheeses.



I hope in two months we shall harvest some apples.  Rayner's apple tree doesn't do badly this year,  how good it is to have a fresh apple from our own garden.

Celebrate the fresh fruits, the harvest from Local and Farmers Market.

Until Next Post
Thanks for Stopping By
Susy