KEFI AT THE WINERY.

It is my pleasure this week to write about Kominos Wines situated between Glen Aplin and Severnlea on the south side of Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, less than five minutes driving time from Das Helwig Haus B&B. The Cominos have been our neighbours for 16 years.

Kominos Wines at 27145 New England Highway at Severnlea.

It is 21 years since Tony Comino released his first vintage from vines surrounding the winery. Tony has specialized in sustainable agricultural practices, including at times grazing sheep amongst the vines. Tony and Mary export about 40% of their production.

Tony is delighted with the release of wines from the winery 21st vintage. He is confidant that the 2005 reds are the best they have ever released. Proof of the quality of these wines is that Kominos Wines won two gold medals for their 2005 Reserve Merlot at the New Zealand International Wine Show. In addition Kominos Wines were awarded the trophy for the best cabernet at the National Cool Climate Show.

Grapes hanging heavy on the vines in 2005

Tony is quoted in the Courier-Mail newspaper of 27-28 September as saying, “The shallow sandy soils of our Stanthorpe vineyard help concentrate the fruit flavours. I believe climate change may even be beneficial to the local wine industry. Global warming hasn’t harmed the industry. It may have made harvest time drier and therefore beneficial to the fruit.”

Mary has been quoted as remarking, “The 2005 wines are a milestone for us, so we are celebrating the winery’s achievements with three captivating new labales featuring local artists.”

Mary and Tony Comino

Each year as part of the Spring Wine Festival, this year renamed Primavera, the Cominos family have held a Kefi at the winery. Large marquees are erected, one for the serving of food and wine, the other for dancing. Come, join with Tony and Mary to celebrate twenty years of producing fine wines.It will be a fun night of fine Kominos wines, Greek cuisine and live bouzouki with Greek and Latin dance music.

Date:Saturday 4^th October, 2008.

Venue: Kominos Winery 27145 New England Highway, Glen Aplin.

Contact Details: 07-4683 4311 kominoswines@halenet.com.au

Bookings are essential.

We can offer Bed and Breakfast at Das Helwig Haus B&B to allow you to attend this great celebration on Saturday night.

Contact details: 07-4683 4227 helwig@halenet.com.au

Technorati Tags: cool climate, Kefi, Kominos Wines, Primavera, vintage

GIRRAWEEN – Place of Wildflowers

Although not yet 100 years old, Girraween National Park on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland will participate in the Centenary of Parks celebrations on Tuesday, providing a full day of activities for vistors and a wonderful opportunity for families to enjoy the park facilities during the Queensland State school holidays. Over the past twenty years I have frequently gone bushwalking and mountain climbing at the Girraween National Park, which is about 15km from Das Helwig Haus B&B and have encouraged many of our guests to visit this little known National Park. The word Girraween is of Aboriginal origin and means wildflowers. The spring wildflowers are particularly prolific but I have also seen ground orchids blooming there in mid summer.

These photos that I’m including today were taken in 2005 when I climbed the granite monolith, known as The Pyramid, with a young Korean girl who at that time was my wwoofer – a Willing Worker on Organic Farms.

Bower of the Satin Bower Bord

If in the treasure hunt you are asked to find something blue from the bower of a Satin Bower Bird you will find a bower close to the stream near the signs to The Junction, The Granite Arch and The Pyramid.

This stream is edged with beautiful bottle brush callistemon trees, just one of the many wildflowers you’ll notice when bushwalking through the park.

In the summer, when the days are warmer, many people are tempted to swim in this stream, but they find the water is too cold for more than a dip.

A mountain stream with The Pyramid in background.

The Pyramid has one of the steepest rock faces I have climbed.

Korean girl admires the view.

A stunted tree grows on the rock face of The Pyramid.

It is only when you reach the summit of The Pyramid that you realise it has a twin. There is a second pyramid mountain directly behind it.

The program for the Centenary of Parks Celebration Day, Tuesday 30th September, starts at 10.00am. It includes guided walks, history displays and a family treasure hunt. Instructions for the treasure hunt will be available from the Girraween Information Centre and families can carry out their search while they explore the Granite Arch and Circuit tracks. In other words, you won’t be expected to climb one of the granite monoliths like The Pyramid to find your treasure items.

There will be a sausage sizzle from 4.00pm to 5.30pm for those who have worked up a hunger from bushwalking and ranger Jolene McLellan and ranger in charge, John Cowburn, will present evening sideshows, which cover the history of the park.

Fay and Ok Sun at the top of The Pyramid.

If you would like more information about the program contact Girraween National Park on 07-4684 5157.

If you need a bed for the night contact Fay on 07-4683 4227 or email her at helwig@halenet.com.au to make your booking to stay at Das Helwig Haus B&B.

Technorati Tags: girraween national Park, Satin Bower Bird, The Granite Arch, The Pyramid, wildflowers

FOLLOW THIS PATH ON YOUR RIGHT

FAY ESCORTS YOU THROUGH HER GARDEN.

As the tour group alights from the bus and enters my garden I direct them to proceed along a sandy path between two garden beds blooming with annuals and perennials.

These are the ‘Petticoat’ aquilegias.

Petticoats

These are the ‘Granny’s Bonnet’ aquilegias.

Granny's bonnets near the gazebo.

It is my aim to lead my garden visitors onto a vantage point where they can lean on the veranda rail or look out from the Gazebo to photograph the roses while I take up a stance below them.

Already I will have heard them telling each other wrongly that the Sweet Williams are perennial flocks or foxgloves are Canterbury bells.

Foxglove spire.

The reality is that most of our garden visitors come from the coastal and tropical cities of our State and couldn’t tell a steer from a heifer, a colt from a filly or a flower seedling from a vegetable seedling.

Away from the country and out of a garden, I doubt that I would blunder so obviously to display my ignorance, because years ago my mother taught me that it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open my mouth and prove it. So, when I am in the company of experienced gardeners, I tend to remain quietly contemplative for I recognise that gardening is a lifetime of garnering knowledge and an apprenticeship which never ends. Thus long ago I made the decision not to deliberately waste my time or burden my brain by learning the Latin names of every plant in my garden. Not that I don’t know some, and not that I don’t respect the professional nurserymen and women who have memorised all that information, after all such knowledge is a requirement of their profession.

The difference is that I am not a professional gardener. I am a Philistine, who while willing to read garden manuals and listen to the voices of experience has borrowed from many philosophies to establish a garden that is Philistine in that it acknowledges no particular gardening tradition or style. I combine different leaf textures, colours, shrubs, trees, perennials and annuals to create different views for every season, as illustrated by these three photos of the view from our northern veranda.

Leaf textures and Tiger lilies adjacent to the northern veranda in January.

Early morning light diffused by fog, highlights the textures and colours of these trees and shrubs in April.

My garden is defined by most people as a cottage garden, because of the random nature of the plants. I once had a visitor describe it as a wild garden until he had wandered the paths for a period of time. Only then did he comprehend the order amongst apparent chaos. For instance on the northern side of the house I have chosen to plant many tall deciduous trees, thus creating lush green growth and shade for summer with autumn colour followed by leaf drop allowing the winter sunshine to warm our veranda. These trees are interspersed with lower growing conifers, thus providing some greening of the winter view and at all times of the year a diversity of foliage.

By May the deciduous Canadian Maple catches attention.

Once I have my group assembled to overlook the garden I give them the spiel about how Eberhard, my German born husband, and I moved to the Granite Belt in 1992 to establish a Bed and Breakfast style guesthouse amongst the wineries.

“At that time there was no garden, just a six year old timber house in the Australian homestead style.”

The day we sighted our future home was a cool and overcast day. Overnight rain had dampened the soil, stirring a fresh, earthy aroma from dank leaves. The house itself was not spectacular, just a three bedroom, rectangular, cypress pine homestead with a gable at both ends and verandas on the eastern and western sides. The wood was oiled a warm honey brown and the mint green aluminium roof repeated the colouring of the surrounding eucalyptus trees. Paint, the hue of sandstone, protected the gables and veranda floors from weathering.

“Eberhard assessed the house and knew immediately how he could add an extension, while I looked on the surrounds as a bare palette.”

This comment will bring gasps of awe and compliments from the group positioned to view the rose garden.

October roses

Technorati Tags: aquilegias, Australian homestead, floxgloves, roses

MUESLI

A CRUNCHY BREAKFAST TREAT.

I serve this muesli as part of our breakfast buffet at Das Helwig Haus B&B and all our guests rave about it. The basic recipe was given to me about 1973 by a Mrs. Newton who was then my neighbour in the town of Dalby.

I’ve taken the recipe a step further by growing the nuts and fruits that make it so special. I’ve gone through my photo file to extract views that will best illustrate the process of creating this particular muesli.

Fresh sun ripened figs.

However, you can of course buy nuts and dried fruits to add to your mixture.Apart from the sultanas, the three ingredients I like to add are fruit leather made from persimmons, dried figs and pecan nuts, all of which we produce in our own garden.

Here you see a French Wwoofer girl cuddling our cat Patches while ripening persimmons hang like Christmas decorations on a small Nightingale persimmon tree. Patches is never far from the action and we always say she is supervising the workers.

Preparing figs for drying.

Dried figs on racks.

The figs must be split prior to drying in a dehydrator for approximately twelve hours.The persimmon fruit is placed in a blender with a little sugar and reduced to a pulp. Greaseproof paper is laid over the mesh screens of the dehydrator and the fruit pulp spread across it. Again after approximately twelve hours the paper can be peeled off the fruit leather, which is then cut into narrow strips with kitchen scissors. Like the nuts and figs, the dry pieces of fruit leather can be stored in airtight jars until required. The nuts are broken into half the fruit leather cut into squares and the figs quartered

MUESLI

1kg oats

4 cups shredded coconut

2 cups sesame seeds

1 cup sunflower seeds

4 cups wheatgerm

1 cup oil

1 spoon salt

500g brown sugar

Combine all ingredients. Place on trays and brown in the oven stirring occasionally.

Cool and add 2 cups sultanas plus other dried fruit and nuts.

* In the USA and Canada sultanas are usually called raisins, which I discovered when my friend Margaret in Ontario baked a Raisin Pie.

Technorati Tags: figs, fruit leather, muesli, Patches, pecan, pecan nuts, persimmon, recipe

SPRING BLOSSOM SEASON ON THE GRANITE BELT

Terry’s all original album at Whiskey Gully Wines

September is the month that cherry, peach, apricot and nectarine trees blossom across the hills of Glen Aplin south of Stanthorpe. We had a cold winter on the Granite Belt providing the required winter chill factor for these deciduous trees to produce an abundance of flowers and subsequent fruit set.

Nectarine blossom in the Das Helwig Haus garden

Our spring garden is proving a delight. As the golden daffodils fade masses of Spanish blue bells appear to brighten the garden. During so many past winters our magnolia flowers have been frosted, but not in 2007 when spring began in mid-August. That year there were no September frosts. Again in 2008, following the coldest August for seventeen years on the Granite Belt we are now experiencing a delightfully warm September and once more the magnolias haven’t suffered damage from late frosts.

Magnolia flowers in the Das Helwig Haus garden

Apart from the attraction of our spectacular garden, one of the reasons you could enjoy a visit to the Granite Belt any weekend is the wine, food and music at Whiskey Gully Wines every Friday and Saturday nights. The multi-talented Warwick-based singer songwriter Terry Clark will launch his first album at this Friday’s Whiskey Gully Wines What’s Cookin’ night at Severnlea.

Terry is a popular performer around the district with songs like “Paranoia Blues” and “It’s My Party And I’ll Die If I Want To” but, until now, he never recorded them.

“I purchased a digital recorder with the intention of putting my songs down,” Terry explains. “Really I just wanted to do it for my own satisfaction and for posterity.”
Terry wrote, recorded and produced the project, which ended up as two albums, called “Paranoia Blues” and “Missing You Tonight”, with 24 songs in total.

He played all of the instruments on the tracks including mandolin, several acoustic and electric guitars, bass guitar, percussion and harmonicas. The only outside involvement was the graphic design of the album covers by his friend Karina Devine.
“The songs are about experiences I have had and things that interest me. I wanted this to be a personal project and putting everything together was a great challenge,” says Terry.

The project suited his self-sufficient lifestyle – he lives in a solar-powered house that he built himself, high on a rural ridge outside Warwick.  Terry was born in Britain and came to Australia as a 14 year old. He moved out of home at 18 and, for seven years, did a variety of labouring jobs before winning a scholarship and taking up full-time study in Brisbane to become a teacher. He moved to Warwick 13 years ago to build his house and find a better life. He has certainly done that. These days he teaches music as well as being a specialist in remedial reading.

Join Terry, entertainer Lee Williams and the Whiskey Gully Wines crew at the vineyard this Friday, 7pm, Turner Road, Severnlea and find out What’s Cookin’. Everyone is welcome and Terry will perform several tracks from the albums.

 Further information: contact John Arlidge 07 4683 5100; 0419 789 447; email: john@whiskeygullywines.com.au <mailto:john@whiskeygullywines.com.au>  
http://www.whiskeygullywines.com.au

Stanthorpe, Severnlea and Glen Aplin.

Whiskey Gully Wines and Beverley Vineyard Restuarant are only 5 minutes driving time from your Bed and Breakfast at Das Helwig Haus. For further information: contact Fay Helwig 07 4683 4227; email: helwig@halenet.com.au  http://www.webstation.com.au/accom/helwig

COME, WALK THROUGH MY GARDEN.

Fay escorts you through her garden

When I designed my garden it never crossed my mind that every year I would be opening it to the public throughout October and November. Instead of creating a seasonal spring garden I planned a garden which every month of the year would offer something special for our Bed and Breakfast guests.

Eberhard and I had spent the spring months of 1990 in Europe and when we moved to the Granite Belt, the coldest district in Queensland 1992 I realised that I could propagate many of the plants that I had seen growing in the Northern Hemisphere.

In 1993 I asked Eberhard to plough the field in front of our house to allow me to establish a wildflower meadow like I had seen in Germany. I realised that in the cool mountain climate of the Granite Belt I would be able to grow the red poppies, blue cornflowers and the other European flowers which had given me so much pleasure during our travels.

This photo of the geese amongst the poppies of our wildflower meadow was taken on the 26^th October, 1995 by photographer and friend, Errol Walker.

Geese in the wildflowers at Das Helwig Haus

My powers of observation came into play and I noted that it took sixteen weeks from when the poppy seed was sown for the plant to reach flowering. I recognised that it would be possible to germinate the poppy seedlings to time the flowering to begin mid October and continue on to the end of November.

With Eberhard’s approval I suggested to the Stanthorpe RSL that we should plough up our wildflower meadow and at the end of June seed it with wheat, poppies and cornflowers to represent the way the wheat fields of France had looked before the devastation of World War One. Then we would open our field to the public for a $2.00 gold coin. The RSL agreed to collect the money. They raised a thousand dollars, which was donated to Brisbane Legacy, an organization which normally earns money by selling the artificial poppies.

Several country newspapers covered the story. One of these was the Queensland Country Life. Kate Wilkie, the young journalist, wrote a feature on the village of Glen Aplin. When I read the article I noted that the district had four red products – cherries, strawberries, wines and our red Flanders poppies. I sought the support of these other tourism businesses and launched the Red November promotion, which brings numerous coach tours to these Granite Belt attractions throughout October and November.

Red wine, red strawberries, red cherries and red poppies.

Selectors for the Australian Open Garden Scheme visited our garden. They described it as young but inspirational. They asked, if we would be prepared to open under the AOG banner the following year and we agreed.

This Open Garden event resulted in a demand from coach companies and numerous clubs requesting us to open our garden over a six week period. This has grown to become an annual event for the Glen Aplin region of the Granite Belt.

During the next few weeks I will escort you through my garden pointing out to you the highlights of the spring season and answering the questions asked by my coach tour visitors.

As I do this I will explain how I constructed the garden from scratch, designing the layout, sourcing the landscaping materials and establishing one section at a time over a period of five years

Fay escorts a garden tour group in 2007

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Technorati Tags: cool mountain district

SELF-SUFFICIENCY WASTE NOTHING

HOW TO USE GINGER NUT BISCUITS

Although most of the recipes I will provide under the self-sufficiency category will be related to preserving, storing and utilizing produce from my garden, there will be other recipes like the ones I’m including today.

My daughters share my love of food and on a visit for my birthday back in April they decided to show me a quick and easy way to prepare Lemon Cheese Tartlets. For these they needed three ingredients.

• 1 packet of Ginger Nut Biscuits
• 1 jar of lemon butter
• 1 container of cream cheese.

Lemon Cheese tartlet ingredients

For the filling, blend the tub of cream cheese with the jar of lemon butter. Place biscuits in the base of lined patty pans. If they are too large heat 2-3 biscuits at a time in the microwave for about 10 seconds. The heated biscuits are pliable and can be moulded as a tart shell into small pans. Work quickly with the biscuits before they cool and then repeat the process with the next couple of biscuits.

Preparing Lemon Cheese Tartlets

Top the biscuit with the filling, and place the pan in the freezer. Remove from the freezer and garnish with raspberries or other fruits, and dust with icing sugar to serve. To serve our tartlets we decorated them with preserved mulberries and fresh mint leave before dusting with icing sugar.

Lemon Cheese Tartlets as dessert

My daughters say these are great to keep in the freezer for a standby dessert. As a result of their visit a small quantity of the Ginger Nut biscuits were left behind in my pantry. Seeing them there this week and remembering the saying, “Waste not, want not,” I recalled a recipe my mother had given me many years ago, that required Ginger Nut biscuits.

MEATBALLS in GINGER RAISIN SAUCE

• 500g beef mince
• 1 egg
• ¾ cup soft breadcrumbs
• ¼ cup flour
• 1 onion finely chopped
• ½ teaspoon salt
• Pepper
• 6 Ginger Nut biscuits
• 3 cups water
• 2 beef stock cubes
• ½ cup brown sugar
• ¼ cup raisins
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• Combine meat with the next 6 ingredients, using the hand for mixing.
• Shape into 24 small balls.
• Place ginger nuts and water in a pot and bring to boil.
• Stir in beef cubes, sugar, raisins and lemon juice.
• Add meat balls.
• Cook uncovered over low heat for 10 minutes.
• Turn meat balls, spooning sauce over them.
• Cook 10 minutes longer, stirring occasionally.

Meatballs in Ginger Raisin Sauce

Because this is a sweet sauce I chose to serve the meatballs with plain boiled rice. If you have left over products in your pantry and want my advice on how to Waste Not, Want Not, please write to me. For many years I have been recognised as ‘A Woman Who Knows Things’.

Technorati Tags: biscuits, cream cheese, fresh mint leaves, ginger nuts, icing sugar, lemon butter, mulberries, raspberries, tartlets

I’m still new to this business of writing my blog and today I missed including the autumn photo showing a German Wwwoofer, Ursula, picking rosellas.

Technorati Tags: rosella

THE SEASONAL RYTHM at DAS HELWIG HAUS

The four seasons.

2008 was the coldest August recorded on the Granite Belt for 17 years. The winter was also dry. We weren’t short of water for the garden as we experienced a huge flood in January 2008, which filled our waterhole on the Severn River. We have an irrigation license allowing us to draw water from the river source.

This view shows one of the dams we built on a gully watercourse below our house at Glen Aplin. We have never needed to use water from this dam for irrigation purposes. We constructed it to beautify a swampy area formerly covered in tussock grass and to provide a refuge for wild waterfowl. It is much enjoyed by ducks and geese.

Another benefit is the tranquility afforded to guests relaxing on the verandas of Das Helwig Haus http://www.webstation.com.au/accom/helwig. They take pleasure reclining in comfortable cane chairs overlooking the spectacular garden, with their view extending down under the skirts of the pine trees to this expanse of water.

The flooded dam below the house.

Big summer rains lead to an abundance of fruit and vegetables. The rosella bushes, which are a form of hibiscus, are so attractive that I scatter them through our garden, rather than confine them to the vegetable patch. Because they are a tropical plant we have to get fruit picked before the first frosts arrive. In 2008 I lost my rosella crop when an early frost on 30th March devastated all the field crops of the Granite Belt. In this cool mountain climate the rosella bushes require five months growth to become productive. I try to get my plants into the ground in October. The red flesh of the flower calyx is the portion used for jam or jelly and next autumn when we are hopefully harvesting a crop I will include recipes for the jam and jelly.

Following heavy summer rains an abundance of grass grows across our countryside. As we don’t have any livestock, like sheep or cattle, we are obliged to slash the grass to keep our property tidy. Each year I gather some of this cut grass for composting and mulching purposes. Usually the frosts begin in May, drying the grassland and turning it the colour of straw. Each August farmers on the Granite Belt are advised to conduct burn-offs of grassy areas as a preventative measure against bushfires later in the season. I am a great believer in the cleansing power of a controlled fire so each year take advantage of the weather conditions to spot burn our land in the manner of the original settlers – the Aboriginal people.

This fire burnt the land between the house and the dam.

This blackened appearance of our land did not last long as the heat of the fire drew up moisture from deep within the soil and triggered immediate green shoots of grass. As I had hoped we received some rain and the grass responded and the area is now greening rapidly. A winter fire like this is called a cold fire as there is usually insufficient heat to scorch the leaves on the eucalyptus trees or the trunks of deciduous trees.

The removal of an overburden of grass encourages the perennial coreopsis to burst forth with a luxuriant growth of green leaves. The yellow daisy-like flowers rapidly follow and by the end of October the countryside is turning gold.

Golden wildflowers beneath a blue spring sky.

The Granite Belt is noted for enjoying four different seasons. Here I have shown you a lush green summer view, a Wwoofer – Ursula from Germany, harvesting rosellas in the autumn, the dramatic difference of recently burnt grassland and the golden glory of the spring season as Mother Nature follows her yearly rhythm. The Granite Belt is becoming famous for its cool climate wines, but many of the sixty district wineries are boutique sized and Australians are only able to purchase the wine by visiting the district. For this reason many excellent accommodation businesses have been established during the sixteen years since we moved to the Granite Belt to establish Das Helwig Haus B&B http://www.webstation.com.au/accom/helwig .

The residents and tourist operators of the Granite Belt, all know that summer is a delightful season. From the moment the spring storms moisten the fallow land of the Granite Belt the perennial coreopsis flowers begin to bloom, reaching their peak with a golden carpet of daisies across the paddocks in November. The Snow in Summer melaleuca – commonly known as a paper bark tree, provide a mass of white, honey scented blossom along the river and creeks while the apple gums – Angophora floribunda flourish in the forests on the hills at Christmas time.

Technorati Tags: composting, cool mountain climate, coreopsis, das helwig haus, Glen Aplin, granite belt, jam, jelly, mulching, rosella, severn river, wildflowers, wines, wwoofers

WWOOF at DAS HELWIG HAUS

Everyone who visits my garden asks me how I manage all the work. My answer is, “With the help of Wwoofers”. Wwoofers are Willing Workers on Organic Farms and Das Helwig Haus B&B is a WWOOF host farm. Our 14 hectare farm has a huge garden producing fresh fruit and vegetables organically grown.

 As I write about my garden I will feature these remarkable young people and show my readers the type of work they undertake and how they enrich my life.

Yuki is Japanese by nationality. She arrived in the winter of 2007 planning to stay only two weeks, but enjoyed our company so much that she stayed two months. We are one of the WWOOF host farms within Australia approved to ensure that young International travelers with Work/Travel Visas are able to meet the conditions required to enable them to obtain a second year extension to remain in Australia.

In the photo above Yuki had stopped pruning a weeping mulberry tree to give it a hug.

When she was joined for a short time by another young Japanese girl, they decided to cook a Japanese meal for our household. In this they were aided by a third Japanese wwoof girl from the nearby Mt. Stirling Olive farm. We feasted on soup, vegetable pancakes and sushi.

Japanese Wwoofers at work in the kitchen

The sushi is prepared

After a quick visit back to Japan, Yuki rejoined our household for another two months before leaving us for employment in the tourism industry in Cairns.

It was with great pleasure that we welcomed her back for a winter visit this year. She said she wanted to experience ‘cold’.

Due to the altitude the Granite Belt is the coldest district in Queensland. Visitors come here hoping for starry night skies and frosty mornings when the ice will crunch under their feet. Yuki was not disappointed.

One day when it was too cold to work outdoors we decided to make up a batch of Raspberry Jam as my supplies were getting low. In the peak of summer when I have an abundance of fruit I frequently freeze produce until such time as it is needed. Also, if I’m only picking a small quantity of raspberries each day it is easier to freeze them until I have sufficient to make a full batch of raspberry jam.

Please note: a recipe for Raspberry Jam is available in the Australian Women’s Weekly book of Preserves, but we omitted the suggested Framboise.

Yuki learns to make Raspberry Jam

I explained to Yuki that most jams require equal quantities of fruit and sugar, plus some lemon juice to add pectin. We used 4kg of raspberries. As you can see from the above photo, I have a large stainless steel boiler with a copper base for making my jam. I consider this pot beyond value and have used it for more than thirty years. Yuki thawed the raspberries and placed them in the boiler over a low gas flame where she stirred them until mushy. The 4 kg of sugar and 5 tablespoons of lemon juice were added. The gas flame was turned to high and the jam was stirred as it boiled rapidly. Until the sugar is added to jam the pectin in fruit may be destroyed by high heat, but after the sugar is added it is essential that jam be cooked quickly to ensure a bright colour for the finished product. When the jam thickened, we poured it into jars, sealed it while hot and turned the jars upside down for two minutes. This action not only creates a vacuum seal for the lid, but the heat of the hot jam sterilizes the air within the jar.

Technorati Tags: coldest district in queensland, das helwig haus, Japanese, Organic Farms, productive garden, Willing Workers, WWOOF