Switching Gears

Autumn, such a beautiful time of the year. Days get shorter, morning sunlight changes to that beautiful golden colour, leaves change, fruit and vegetable ripen. It becomes cool enough to go for picnics, bush walks and to wander through all of the markets and fairs that seem to pop up this time of the year. Not to mention Easter! All of that beautiful baking, crafting and chocolate making! I just love it!

It's a time to slow down and appreciate life just that little bit more. We've definitely been switching gears around here. Evening walks after dinner have started back up after a looong hoooot summer with maximums being reached at around 5-6pm! Today we visited a local school fete and purchased some second hand books for the girls and My Little Ponies.

One of the best thing about this time of the year is the abundance of fruits! The other weekend we went and picked a bucket full of olives from a grove of trees on the side of the road. They currently reside on my kitchen bench soaking in salty water waiting to be put into jars for our pizza nights. I did a bit of googling on preserving olives and this is the "recipe" I decided to follow using an accumulation of what I found.

Preserved Olives

bucket of olives
salt
water

Fill a bucket of olives with water. I put enough to cover the olives but not too much that it spills every time I move it. Add 1 cup of cooking salt. Change the salty water daily for at least a week. Bite test and if still bitter keep soaking in salty water until they reach your desired taste, be it salty or still a little bitter. Put into clean sterilised jars and fill with salty water to cover. From what I can gather these should last for a few months, but I'll let you know how we go! I'm sure you could do it with a smaller container as long as the olives are immersed in the water and just adjust the amount of salt you use :)

Another fruit that is perfect at this time of year is lillie pillies! I think they may also be called chinese apples?? I'm not sure...maybe it's just an Australian thing?

Either way my Mum and Dad have a tree FULL of them so during the week while Chloe was at school Eva and I popped down for a coffee and picking session! My Dad got out his ladder and we filled a bucket.

Eva ate a decent amount too! I decided to turn them into jam using a jam sugar. It is absolutely delicious but we aren't particularly jam people so I'll be gifting a lot to my Dad I think! Mind you it'll go well with the fresh sour dough that's rising in the sunshine at the moment! I'll do a post on my sourdough soon too when I discover if it's worked or not! Off to do some eating now I think!










What's your favorite thing about this time of the year? Autumn or Spring depending on the hemisphere you live in!! :)