The week started off with a little playground action.
Visited the our wonderful local council nursery. So many great plants to buy. Also got some good tips for my worm farm.
Actually I am loving our local council nursery, an un-utilised resource for people. I’m trying to spread the word but I have seen a few glazed eyes as I tell people how great it is. Most people still like to keep to what they know and that’s a chain hardware/nursery supplies shop.
…..then we had some playground action.
The old favourite banana cake was made once more. Tried and true and eaten in a day. Its too easy not to make when those bananas are racing out the door in their black coats. And you can dress ’em up or dress them down’.
Depends on my mood whether it’s a sweet banana cake made with brown sugar and is lovely, light and fluffy or it can be a healthy little brick that involves a whole lot of pepitas, sunflowers seeds, linseed meal and honey. I like the brick but the boys like the fluffy.
After the cake was polished off, the monkeys and I had a little more play ground action.
Then some white nectarine jam. I wasn’t sure about this one. I’m not a big fan of white nectarines to begin with. I find them, not particularly juicy and the flavour is a little perfume-y. So when a whole lot of end of season fruit found their way in to my kitchen, I was unsure of what to do with them. So jam it was.
1kg white nectarines
600 ml water
600 gms sugar
juice of 2 lemons
1 large strip of lemon rind
It has actually grown on me. I thought initially it was too tasteless and just sweet in taste. However the next day after it had had time to think about things a little, the subtlty of the nectarine is a bit more apparent. The consistency is great too. Thick and delicious. Actually it was the consistency that made me re- think the whole jam and find something else to like about it. I don’t love it, but it still sure beats a generic shop one.
That ended our week, right after we went to the playground.
cityhippyfarmgirl 
Sounds like you had the perfect week… 🙂
No sugar in your nectarine jam?
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oops!! Thanks for that. Yes, 600 grams of sugar. Thats what you get for finishing a post at 6am- omissions.
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Shame, I was hoping you’d come up with some clever new way to make sugar-free jam. 🙂
Pete makes all the jams at our place, and he always mixes nectarine with other fruits – his latest batch was white nectarine and raspberry. Do you and the monkeys ever make it to Flemington markets? If you go around lunch time on a Friday, it’s quite civilized.
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Nectarine and raspberry would be lovely. I have done nectarine and plum before- but just tasted of plum and I did have White Nectarine and Almond on my mind when I was about to make it- but at the 11th hour I couldn’t find any almond essence. Not sure if it would have worked though. Flemington is a bit of a hike for me and the monkeys, would be great if it was closer.
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great to see all the photos weaving their way through.. 🙂 Theres a sugar-free preservation technique similar to using ‘foulers’ but with ordinary jar. You heat the fruit, jars and the lids then they seal (pop-down) as they cool – but as far as im aware its more suited to cut fruit pieces rather than jams as such. Will have to track down a recipe one day, have helped out with the process and done a workshop with it in there.. (calling on experienced food preservers here for more elaboration perhaps.. !?!)
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I’m a newbie to preserving of any kind but having recently attended a preserving course and a few jars of grapefruit curd now adorn the shelves of friends. I love the colour of your nectarine jam and suspect that the perfume of the fruit would have been a wonderful addition to the breakfast table.
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