Looking for a new way to celebrate this Australia Day? An afternoon spent picking new season apples and pears in the heart of country New South Wales sounds pretty good to us.

This Australia Day weekend marks the start of the 2014 Australian apple season and Pine Crest Orchard in Bilpin, NSW will again celebrate with their Australia Day Weekend Gala Day on Saturday, January 25.

Pine Crest has run their event for almost 10 years and with apple bobbing, farm tips and a classic Aussie sausage sizzle it’s s a great day out for the whole family. Pick-Your-Own apples, pears and plums are a highlight of the day.

Make a day of it and Pick-Your-Own fruit at the famous Pine Crest Orchard

• Gala Apples are in season and this stripy red, medium-sized apple has a crispness and sweetness that makes it one of Australia’s most popular varieties. Gala apples also store well in the fridge, but of course picking and eating one fresh from the tree is an experience worth experiencing!

• Williams and Sensation Pears, Nashi Pears and a variety of late-season plums will also be available to Pick-Your-Own.

Less than 90 minutes from Sydney, this special event gives everyone a chance to experience a fully operational fruit farm.

“Many people have only picked an apple from a supermarket and never straight from tree,” says John Galbraith, owner and orchardist at Pine Crest.

Having grown apples at Pine Crest Orchard for 40 years, John also teaches and lectures in horticulture and farming – specifically farming small areas.

“It is important people understand and value where their food comes from. Visiting a farm, walking through the orchard, seeing the growing process and eating the fresh produce at the end is a rewarding and easily accessible experience everyone can have.”

In addition to a full schedule of activities at Pine Crest this Saturday you can also chat with John and pick up tips on growing your own fruit.

Pine Crest is a family owned and operated orchard, there is no entrance fee for the event or for access to the orchard

• Pick-Your-Own fruit is $3.50 per kilo
• Jams, local honey, walnuts, cold drinks and Bilpin apple juice will also be available from the Pine Crest Orchard farm shed

Details

• Address: 2549 Bells Line of Road, Bilpin NSW (less than an hour and a half west from Sydney CBD)
• Time & Date: Gala Day – Saturday 25th January 2014, 9am – 5pm. The orchard is also open on Sunday and Monday of the Australia Day long weekend.
• Bring: Hat, sunscreen, camera, walking shoes. Your own fabric or plastic bag is encouraged.

Can’t make it this weekend?

Pine Crest Orchard will be open for Pick-Your-Own on Fridays, Saturday and Sundays from 9am-5pm during the fruit season.

For more details visit pinecrestorchard.com.au or facebook.com/pinecrestorchard or email John at john@pinecrestorchard.com

Happy picking!

Photos courtesy of Pine Crest Orchard

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The Australian Stonefruit season is in full swing with peaches, nectarines, apricots and plums being harvested across NSW, QLD, VIC and WA. It’s great news for our fruit bowls, but earlier this year local fruit had to work harder for space on shelves and tables.

For the first time in 20 years US stonefruit was allowed to be imported into Australia during the 2013 winter season. It is a move that as noted on Food Mag, “gave Australian consumers the opportunity to purchase peaches and nectarines in the winter period when they are traditionally unavailable locally due to seasonality,” and as stated on Fresh Plaza provided retailers with “the opportunity to create excitement in their produce departments and boost sales with this high quality fruit that is traditionally not available during Winter.”

Why pray tell — with all the local citrus, late autumn apples and pears, and Queensland-based tropical fruit available all winter long — is it remotely necessary to import summer stonefruit from California?

This move has not only opened the flood-gates for yet more overseas off-season produce to enter Australia, further increasing the lack of consumer awareness about what it means to eat seasonally, but caused an overlap during October where both local and imported stonefruit were both vying for shelf space.

Chairman of Summerfruits Australia, Andrew Finlay, shared that buying local not only means a fair pay for farmers, but also allowing consumers to indulge in the freshest and tastiest produce available. “Support our growers and help save our industry by double checking country-of-origin food labels and make sure what you take home is Australian made,” he said.

We are well aware that over 10,000 tonnes of Aussie stonefruit are exported to other countries and it is an important piece of the industry — however our beef with the new importation is more about the public moving another step away from seasonal eating awareness and the overlap of imports compromising local produce.

The good news is that there is no more imported stonefruit on our shelves at time of writing and, due to a kind winter and a drier and warmer than average start to the season, Aussie fruit will be abundant and very sweet this year.

12 gorgeous stonefruit recipes to inspire you this summer

Now there’s nothing wrong with eating a luscious white nectarine (my favourite of the bunch) straight from the bowl — juice running down your chin and dripping onto the hot pavement — but on the off chance you want to do a bit more with your stonefruit we’ve found 12 gorgeous recipes to get you started!

Photos property of respective websites as noted and linked below

1. Nectarine Meyer Lemon Butter — Local Kitchen Blog
2. Peach Upside-Down Cake — Fat Free Vegan Kitchen
   
3. Peaches and Coconut Cream Pops — The Scrumptious Pumpkin
4. Lemon Raspberry Plum Galettes — The Candid Appetite
5. Plum Ice Cream — Passionate About Baking
6. Spiced Plum Cordial — Seasonal Sunday Lunch
7. Peaches and Cream Stuffed French Toast — Two Peas and Their Pod
8. Pickled Nectarine Salad with Burrata — Bon Appetit
9. Nectarine Parfaits with Walnut Crumble and Lemon Cashew Cream — Gourmande in the Kitchen
10. Apricot Cornmeal Cakes — Daisy’s World
11. Plum Clafoutis — Taste.com
12. Spiced Nectarine Cake — Epicurious

Did you know?

Around 800 growers in 26 regions spread across Australia produce more than 100,000 tonnes of nectarines, plums, apricots and peaches from the beginning of October to April each year.

Australian Stonefruit Growing regions

• QLD: Granite Belt, Sunshine Coast Hinterland
• NSW: Araluen, Bathurst, Central Tablelands, Coffs Harbour, Forbes, Hunter Valley, Medowie, Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, Northern Tablelands, Tumut, Sydney Hills District, Orange, Young
• VIC: Goulburn Valley, Cobram, outer Melbourne Metropolitan Area (Dandenong and Yarra Ranges), Mid Murray, Sunraysia, Swan Hill, Woorinen
• TAS: Huon, North East and South East Region, Coal Valley
• SA: Adelaide Hills, Riverland, Barossa Valley
• WA: Dwellingup, Donnybrook, Manjimup, Perth Hills, Gin Gin

 Photo Credit: Jennifer Jenner unless otherwise noted

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Looking to grow your own produce this year? Whether it’s in a backyard, on a balcony or even over a windowsill there is free Sydney workshop to help you on your way.

Green Villages is an initiative by the City of Sydney to grow a more sustainable Sydney. The website features bright ideas for sustainable living with information about workshops, community gardens, grants and tips for greener, cleaner living.

As part of the Green Villages regular event series there are sessions for budding urban gardeners trying to make a go of producing their own food in small urban spaces.

“You don’t need much space to be an urban gardener”, Sydney City Lord Mayor Clover Moore says. “Just a balcony, patio, window or small backyard that receives a few hours of sun.” Moore shared that “over 85 per cent of people who attend these [Green Villages] workshops make use of the lessons they learnt, meaning every season more fresh food is being grown across our city.”

Upcoming Free Workshops

Seed to plate. Edible garden in small spaces

• Saturday 9 November, 10am – 12.30pm
• Sydney Park Pavilion (beside the oval in Sydney Park), Sydney Park, St Peters

What’s eating my basil? Natural pest management

• Saturday 9 November, 2pm – 4.30pm
• Sydney Park Pavilion (beside the oval in Sydney Park), Sydney Park, St Peters

Composting and Worm Farming

• Saturday 16 November, 10am – 12.30pm
• Sydney Park Pavilion (beside the oval in Sydney Park), Sydney Park, St Peters

Register for the free workshops at the Green Villages website.

Self-confessed gardening enthusiast Sarah Bates from Newtown loves coming home from work and seeing cherry tomatoes growing in her own backyard. “It’s wonderful to nurture a seed and watch it flourish into an amazing foodstuff, not to mention the fact that home-grown produce is significantly cheaper and fresher than the supermarket,” Ms Bates said. “A lettuce in the supermarket costs around $2, but for an initial outlay of around $5 for a pot of lettuce, the produce will be growing the whole season and often into winter as well.”

Green Villages: Growing a more sustainable Sydney by connecting and inspiring Sydneysiders. A City of Sydney initiative. Image Credits: Green Villages

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October is a tricky month for garden produce in Australia. In the community gardens in Katoomba, spring ingredients like peas, reseeding greens like Mizuna and Mibuna may already be bursting to go. Or they might equally have been blown over by a gale, subsumed by frost, dug up by local animals or ripped out by accident!

When you don’t know exactly what is going to be in the garden you can always rely on the pantry. Spring is a pretty good time of year for eggs. My hens at home are laying regularly in spring and so there’s always an oversupply of eggs, which is why I’ve chosen this Spring Green Tart to share with you. It’s a great base and very easily adapted to become a winter warmer with roast veggies, or a light fragrant tart showing off your garden greens’ seasonal personality.

Spring Green Tart features a boatload of happy hens’ eggs — we don’t bother using shop bought ones they just don’t taste the same. If you’re not hooked on hens at home yet, get to know your neighbours and you’re bound to find someone in your area with hens willing to sell or barter some eggs. (Editor Note: scour Farmers’ Markets for true free-range ethical eggs if you are apartment bound like so many of us these days. Not only is it better for the chooks but the eggs really do taste better!)

Spring also comes with peas and mint and all the new shoots. Broadbeans planted in autumn well before frost can be grazed for this dish too — you can pull the top tips off, which keeps the plant bushy as well as providing you with stopgap greens in early spring.

Photo Credit: Kat Szuminska

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I can’t quite place when my obsession with chilli began, but last summer things really got out of hand as every weekend BBQ and dinner out in Chinatown became an opportunity to up the ante.

So now, as the weather is starting to warm up again, I thought I’d share this quick and easy sauce, which can be easily adapted to suit any level of tolerance. You don’t get much more versatile than sriracha, and it goes great with any seafood, meat or rice dish – or even eggs at breakfast.

One of the reasons I really love the home-made approach is control over the amount of sugar used. I often find store-bought varieties are not only lacking in eye-watering heat, but notoriously sweet as well.

A bit like any acquired taste, once you get over the initial scalding shock, you start to notice subtleties and flavours in different types of chilli condiments that were missed by your singed tastebuds before. If your first mix isn’t quite on the money, try a different variety, or add some red capsicum (bell pepper) to fill out the flavour.

There’s a lot of satisfaction to be gained from cultivating your own chillies. You can buy a plant from your local garden centre or in Australia you can order seeds from The Chilli Factory. I’m lucky enough to have a friend who is more committed to the chilli cause than me, and so raided (read: cleaned out) his habanero bush…

 Image credit: Rhys Taylor

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Relegated for years into the ‘something only grandmothers do’ category of culinary skills, preserving or canning is back in vogue, big time.

Whether it has been driven by farmers markets and the increased awareness of the seasonality of foods, a reaction to isles and isles of over-processed packaged goods, or simply a longing for a simpler time, both home cooks and restaurant chefs alike are wholeheartedly embracing preserving.

Canning is an activity that can be done all year-round – take for example this brilliant Cointreau Spiked Tangelo Marmalade – but it is especially handy during the summer and early-autumn months when there is an abundance of fresh produce every way you look.

The third annual National Can-It-Forward Day will be held in New York City this coming Saturday, 17 August 2013.

An initiative of Jarden Home Brands, makers of Ball® Brand home canning products, National Can-it-Forward Day teaches the joys of fresh preserving and celebrates fresh local ingredients.

This year sees award winning chef and celebrity personality Ted Allen joining the event.

“Fresh preserving is one of the summer’s hottest culinary trends with chefs from New York to Los Angeles canning their own pickles, jams, chutneys and more to enjoy and serve year- round,” said Allen, “I’m thrilled to be participating in National Can-It-Forward Day to show home cooks how easy it is to preserve your own foods to use in cooking and entertaining.”

There are plenty of ways you can take part

Featuring a day of instructional fresh preserving, entertaining and crafting demonstrations, National Can-it-Forward Day takes place in the New York City Union Square Green Market from 10am-2pm (EST) on Saturday 17 August.

1. Events from the day will be streamed via a free live webcast at FreshPreserving.com and Facebook.com/BallCanning. Viewers will be able to ask questions and post comments in real time to be answered by canning experts.
2. Hold a canning party at home – anywhere with a stovetop and a bit of counter space works perfectly. You could even celebrate with a lazy seasonal lunch feast after the work is done.
3. If you are in Manhattan that day make sure to stop by the markets to watch the demos in person!

On Twitter you can follow along with the hashtag #canitforward, recipes and craft ideas from the event webcast segments will be available on the Ball brand home canning Pinterest page.

We’ve started a group Canning & Preserving Pinboard too, if you’d like to join simply follow the board and include a link to your Pinterest profile in the comments!

Some Canning & Preserving resources we love

• Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving the experts at Ball have written a book destined to become the “bible” of home preserving.
• Ball Jar Heritage Collection Pint Jars with Lids and Bands these gorgeous blue jars are available for a limited only – get your hands on them while you can! Even if you don’t preserve they’d look perfect filled with wild-flowers to dress up a Seasonal Sunday Lunch table.
• Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round from blogger Marisa McClellan, stories of wild blackberry jam and California Meyer lemon marmalade add a personal touch to more than 100 recipes learned from generations of the original foodies.

Don’t miss our first ever giveaway of A Fresh Legacy’s Bottling the Goodness: Preserving from my Garden e-book, enter today and happy canning!

Images provided by Ball Canning

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Preserving allows me to enjoy the produce from my garden all year round.

I only started growing my own vegetables a few years ago. I am not an expert but what I lack in years of experience I make up for in enthusiasm and love of the ingredients. I find preserving a satisfying way to make use of excess fruit or vegetables, and to savour the flavour of my home grown goodies for as long as possible after the season ends – however I do not preserve more product than my family would consume within 6-8 months.

Summer is the main period I have produce from my own garden, but preserving is not an activity that is confined to abundant summer crops. You can preserve at any time of the year, and across the remainder of the seasons I source good quality local produce. I admit to being a little addicted to preserving, last spring I planted extra produce purely to have it available to preserve.

Following a flurry of activity around March this year, I have been back into the swing of preserving again this month, taking advantage of the winter citrus fruits. Winter is the perfect time to stock up your cupboard with marmalade and you can find my Cointreau Spiked Tangelo Marmalade here.

Preserving is not difficult and you do not need any specialty equipment, the main reasons I like to preserve are:

• I feel a need to know what is in the food I eat and feed to my children, family and friends. If I have grown the ingredients I know they are not sprayed with any chemicals. I know the quality of the seeds used to grow the plants, and I know the quality of the other ingredients used.
• Home preserved food tastes better than any store purchased product and is hugely satisfying.
• I enjoy eating the produce I love even when the season is long past.
• It is an economical way to use excess produce that you have grown. This not only avoids waste but also has a positive environmental impact based on sourcing your food at your back door rather than having it transported to a store, packaged, marketed etc.
• Preserves are a convenient base for many meals including pasta, curries, dips, stir fries, and so much more!!
• I can create recipes to suit my family’s tastes. I select the ingredients and the quantities and can experiment with a range of flavours that I may not otherwise try.
• They make great gifts for friends and family.

As a special treat for Seasonal Sunday Lunch readers I’m giving away two copies of my preserving e-book!

I have taught myself to preserve and have collated a variety of my favourite preserves recipes in my e-book Bottling the Goodness – Preserving from my Garden.

The e-book is an easy guide to jams, sauces, relishes and chutneys, and allows you to get started straight away – no special equipment required.

Enter below to win a copy of Bottling the Goodness – Preserving from my Garden:

• Leave a comment on this post sharing: What fruit or vegetable would you most like to have past it’s seasonal availability? Do you use a method to preserve it, or just wait until it is available again the next year?
• Log your entry in the tool just below using Facebook or an email address: Record your comment entry in the widget to reveal all sorts of other ways you can enter.
• That’s it!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Only entries recorded in the widget will count. Giveaway open until 11.59pm Friday 16 August (Sydney time). Prize includes a copy of ‘Bottling the Goodness – Preserving from my Garden’ by Kyrstie Barack. Giveaway open worldwide, two winners randomly selected  from valid entries.

Bottling the Goodness – Preserving from my Garden includes:

• Twelve easy recipes that have been tested and enjoyed many times over
• A selection of recipe types including sweet and savoury Jams, Chutney, Relish, and Sauces
• Instructions for sterilising, storing and testing for setting point, as well as many other tips I have found helpful since I started preserving
• Handy printable jar labels
• Simple conversion information for metric/imperial
• An easy to read, portable PDF format ready to print or view on an iPad or laptop while you are cooking

You can click here to purchase a copy for just $4.95

[Editor note: Thanks again to Kyrstie for supplying two copies of her book for our first giveaway! Make sure to check out her Cointreau Spiked Tangelo Marmalade recipe.]

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This month I was devastated to realise that my summer stock pile of jams was finished. I expected my supply to last me, at the very least, through the winter months. While I like to put a very fine layer of jam or marmalade on my toast, just enough to savour the flavour and still experience a crunch, Mr Fresh is one of those people who slathers on a very thick layer. He also introduced my young children to dollops of berry jam on their cereal… thus the fast disappearing jam issue I was faced with.

I cannot bring myself to purchase a jar of jam from the supermarket so I set to work to re-stock the pantry with marmalades, utilising some of the glorious citrus fruit currently in season in Australia. It could be said that I have been a little overzealous in my endeavour – making two varieties of tangelo marmalade, an orange marmalade, and a blood orange and rosemary jelly.

The lovely little tangelos that I collected from a local farm-gate have a candy-like flavour that is not quite as sweet as orange, and I like to cut the sweetness of the fruit by adding another strong flavour. We like our marmalade to be similar to the texture of jam so I tend to remove much of the peel prior to potting. I freeze the peel that I remove from the pot in ice cube trays and use it in baking as required. Remember it is important to ensure that you use spray free fruit when making marmalades and jams, and source them from a reputable supplier.

Are you heavy or light handed with your marmalade application?

[Editor note: Kyrstie has been kind enough to provide a copy of her e-book ‘Bottling the Goodness – Preserving from my Garden’ for us to giveaway to Seasonal Sunday Lunch readers. Read her thoughts on preserving all year-round and enter to win!]

Photo Credit: Kyrstie Barack

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My search for something new to make for Seasonal Sunday began with pear recipes. I saw some great pears down at our local fresh produce grocer, Todderellos, and picked a few up ready to transform. Having made quite a few apple crumbles in my time, when I came across a recipe on Taste that combined two seasonal favourites – apple and pear – I thought it was a great opportunity to extend an old classic.

 Photo Credit: Angela Jann

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All towns are small towns at their soul.

Even when I lived in NYC, a city of over 1.6 million people all squeezed into less than 23 square miles (60 square kms), it was remarkable how often you’d bump into the same person again and again. Whether is was rounding a corner, or walking into a meeting, or being introduced to a friend of a friend, the universe somehow kept reminding you how very small the world is.

In the same way, when you believe in something you tend to somehow find like minded individuals heading in the same direction. I recently attended an event where I was introduced to the ever-networked Tony. Upon mentioning Seasonal Sunday Lunch to him he hopped straight on Twitter and connected me with Grant and Socoloco. A few weeks later Grant and I caught up for lunch and the wheels started to turn. He had not only just kicked off an initiative called ‘Seasonal Saturdays‘ but was working on a web app that, amongst other things, made it easier to find out what produce is in season and link to relevant recipes.

We decided to combine our efforts and I’m so excited to welcome Grant’s Socoloco Seasonal Saturdays community to Seasonal Sunday Lunch!

Over the next few months we’ll be adding recipes that previously appeared over on Socoloco as well as new posts from new contributors. One day soon we may even be looking for people to have a play with our new web app…

Our little community may be growing but it remains a small town at its soul. We hope you’ll continue join us in celebrating seasonal food by hosting a Seasonal Lunch, cooking recipes using seasonal ingredients, and contributing to the site – you never know who you might bump into!

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