Taking the apple challenge

We have two prolific apple trees which gave us almost ten crates full of apples last Autumn. Many apples still remain under the house in cool storage and I am trying to put them to use before the next season floods us with another harvest. This weekend I made a double batch of apple and ginger chutney which smells delicious. I am downsizing Christmas spending this year and intend to give those that will appreciate it some of my pickling bounty. So far I have pickled onions, made onion jams, Burmese pickled mustard greens, mustard green Kim Chee and apple and ginger relish to give as stocking fillers.

I haven't tasted the mustard green Kim Chee yet - it has to sit somewhere warm for week before use. My mustard green Kim Chee was an inspired invention after failing at my attempt to dehydrate mustard greens to make homemade wasabi. Once dehydrated the mustard greens lost their eye watering goodness. My batch of cabbage Kim Chee made a few months ago has been a surprising success so I hope the mustard green version lives up to high standard of the cabbage variety.

We finished harvesting our leeks but half way through got quite sick of eating them. So I have dehydrated the second half of our harvest too keep in jars for adding flavour to winter soups. Now I am waiting for the pea bush seeds I planted last weekend to sprout so I can plant them in the space left in the garden by harvesting the leek crop. There has been alternating days of warm weather and rain here in Hobart the last few weeks which is perfect growing conditions.

My roses look divine, massive plump skirts of crimson, pink and yellow. I inherited the roses form the previous owner and even my husband, who previously called the roses weeds and threatened to put them through the chipper, has embraced their spring glory.