The Red Wren

Today Col and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary at the Kellybrook Winery Cider Festival!

It was lots of fun! Cider, more cider, apple themed desserts, pork and apple rolls, mulled cider….did I mention there was cider?

I suspect these apples were pressed for juice.

These are the Britannia Morris Dancers. It looks like lots of fun!

Col with mulled cider – a few too many cloves in it for my liking.

Lots of apples! I quite like the crates.

All in all, a wonderful day!

I made jam! I’ve never made it before and it’s so yummy!

I used the recipe on the back of my packet of Jamsetta which I would link to, but apparently Fowlers Vacola don’t have a website (or it’s very well hidden!).

When I was a young lass I used to read the Babysitters Club books where they’d talk about strange desserts like pumpkin pie. ‘Pumpkin Pie?’ I’d think, ‘Who’d eat a dessert made from a vegetable?’

Years later Melbourne was lucky (?) enough to have USA Foods open where we can buy everything from cookies masquerading as breakfast cereal and Libby’s pumpkin pie filling. Out of sheer curiosity I made a pumpkin pie and liked it. This one is a bit different as I made it from a pumpkin rather than the caned stuff and are a bit surprised that it looks successful. I’m yet to taste it though.

To make:

Half a pumpkin. I used a Queensland Blue, but a Butternut would probably work better.

1 tbs Pumpkin pie spice. I got mine from USA Foods, but you can mix your own from cinnamon, nutmeg and all spice.

1/2 cup cream

2 eggs

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 pie crust (I used a frozen Sarah Lee but in the past I’ve used crushed biscuits and butter)

1. Cut up the pumpkin, wrap in foil and bake until soft.Cool.

2. After the pumpkin has cooled, puree it.

3. Remove water from the pumpkin by wringing it out in a cloth.

4. Mix pumpkin with other ingredients.

5. Pour into shell and bake at 180′C for roughly 40 minutes. If the crust starts to burn wrap foil over the edges. The pie is cooked when a knife comes out clean.

Refrigerate and enjoy with cream or ice cream.

Who can guess what my Sunday projects are? I’ll give you some clues-

1. Has taken the crafting world by storm and *everyone* is making them.

2. Is something not so popular in Australia, but the American’s will be munching on it over the next few days.

Tonight’s dinner was not really planned to be awesomely fantastic.  I took some sweet potato, sliced it up and baked it for half hour or so. Took two fillets of ocean trout* and fried them up in the frying pan. Then I made The Sauce. The sauce was a last minute afterthought to stop everything being bland and my gosh – it was divine!

mustard/maple sauce:

I don’t have exact quantities, so this is rough.

1/3 cup maple syrup (real maple syrup that your lovely American friend sent you home from America with. Thanks Harmony!)

1 tablespoon butter

3 teaspoons wholegrain mustard

splash of balsamic vinegar

Heat all ingredients in a small saucepan, then pour over the cooked trout and sweet potato. Delicious!

*We’d bought ocean trout because it was cheaper than salmon the day we shopped. The sauce would be equally yummy on salmon.

Blogtoberfest – Post 24