Wild Blackberries as a gravy base

A couple of weekends ago we spent time at our friends second home on some land in the middle of nowhere. All the blackberries were ripe and so the boys and Aaron came home from a walk and swim very proudly bearing a bag of blackberries.

 Well yesterday there were still some remnants in the fridge. I made a pork roast with free range pork from my sisters farmlet. In the bottom of the dish I put a finely chopped onion, a finely chopped apple and the remainder of the blackberries. When I took the pork out to rest I put all the juices, onion, apple and berries through a sieve, pressed quite hard. Then into that liquid I mixed 1 Tablespoon of cornflour. It was deep red and delicious.

Having fun at the river just before picking blackberries.

I forgot to take an after photo but it was AMAZING. Quite subtle but fruity and it got he thumbs up from us all.

A Foraging Walk

My walk with Morris today had great foraging results. I found, what I hope to be, the beginnings of the mushroom season and Morris found a cricket ball.

I swear that Morris should be hired to a tennis or cricket club, that dog is so OCD about balls that he can find anyone you have lost. At Margo and Warwick's once he found 7 balls in the first half hour!!! Meisha could not find a one.

So happy me and happy dog.

Lovely little mushrooms

A stick and a ball - what more could an OCD dog want!

Urban Foraging - Christchurch

The finished cake delivered that night

On Sunday it was clean up day. Duncan, Debs and Jack left on Saturday and Robin and Sophia were leaving by plane late in the afternoon. So beds stripped, cleaning done.

First we made a cake for Aaron's new work colleague. He has moved his whole family down to Christchurch to work at RACE. Quite an upheaval. So a banana cake was made in the morning to cool down while we went out.

Then I took all the kids urban foraging. I needed lemons so we headed out to the old house at Aarnst Place in Christchurch. Lots of the houses have now been demolished so you can wander around the sections. We picked lemons from three different trees, got a pile of plums, some broad beans, a tiny amount of potatoes, lots of lovely roses and some bay leaves. We also found some HUGE walnut trees to go back to in the autumn as well as heaps of apple trees and a couple of pear trees. But sigh... only one feijoa tree and it was not flowering much. I forgot to take photos of us exploring. We had a fantastic time. Though it was hot and dusty. Next time take gumboots as the weeds are sometimes waist high. Also some secateurs as the roses were awful to cut without something.

But we filled all our bags, we were happy and on the way home we had the last real fruit ice cream for the holidays.

The results of our foraging

I link to parties here

A Foraging Paradise

Just arrived home from 13 fantastic nights away. Incredibly fluctuating weather from 33oC to thunderstorms and wind. But what did not fluctuate was the constant great foraging finds.

Gooseberries found and stewing

The foragers with the spoils - this time gooseberry

Gooseberry Jam made.

Hot scones to eat the gooseberry jam on.

Lots of plum trees laden 

Walnut trees ready to be collected in Autumn

Hazelnut trees budding

Hazelnuts in my handbag

I made this up when camping. Don't know if anyone else has a recipe the same but had to do it on the fly.

Gooseberry Jam recipe

We had 2 kg of gooseberries which I put 1 cup of water with and simmered until soft.

Then I measured out 3 cups of the gooseberries into another pot. To that I added 3 cups of sugar and then simmered for 10 minutes and put in jars that had been sterilising in boiling water.

That made a jar of jam for every family camping.

The leftover gooseberries I put 1/2 that amount of sugar with and we had a gooseberry sauce. We had that with scones and cream and the next day made gooseberry fool. Yummy yum yum.