Some pics from the Japan trip

Odd present, a travel bidé. But very nice actually!
Tvätta händerna medan den fyller tanken.
Man blir så ren och fin.

 

While walking in Kagoshima we saw some builders. Talk about Holland and their slim houses.
Tarm med tarmludd. Man måste äta all mat innan man får beställa mer.
Vi provar och det är ätligt men bara precis.
Lätt lunch, öl och soppa. Vi åt alltid med pinnar. Ingen kom på tanken någonsin att erbjuda kniv och gaffel.

 

På promenad i en gammal samurajby. En del hus och trädgårdar fick vi besöka.Det bodde folk i de flesta.
Samurai hus. Härlig öppen lösning.
En av samurajträdgårdarna

 

Last toast! Green tea at Kagoshima Airport.

Lilly Pilly cordial / squash / saft –ranting and raving

Searched the internet for a good recipe on Lilly pilly drink to no avail!

What is going on on the internet? Why have they no good recipes? Is nobody picking Lillypillies? No! The same silly recipe is flourishing all over! And that recipe is so bad because it takes away the Lillypilly´s great but subtle taste! Too much sugar and too much water.

Last year I cooked my own drink but somehow I did not write down the recipe. A bucket of berries gave 1 ½ l saft.

I have 6.7 kg of Magenta Lilly´s this year! Who in their right mind only has 2 cups?!! (We have 4 more L´s growing in pots that we will plant down by the creek somewhere.)

Check berries, winging it, to see how many bottles you need. So here is the recipe for Lilly Pilly Saft!

Saft because of the cordial-squash issue.

Recipe for Magenta Lilly Pilly saft

So: 6.7 kg rinsed Magenta Lilly Pilly,

Three large cooking pots or whatever you have.

Put maybe ½ a dl or a ¼ cup water in the bottom mainly to avoid anything getting burned.

Divide the berries between the pots, anyway you like to fit the pot.

Start cooking, mash some in the bottom as best you can.

Stir now and then to see if the berries have changed colour to something pale-ish.

Cook 5 min, turn down the heat a tad if you need to.

Check all the time that it will not burn in the bottom.

Stir so all berries get cooked.

Ohh, now it smells gooood!

I cooked the stuff 12 minutes.

Now all should have turned colour. Turn off the heat and start mashing as best you can.

I poured all mash into one pot and took berries from it to mash. Mainly to save space. Kitchen is a bit small.

Mash all berries so the juice comes out into the pot. I used a sieve and a big spoon.

Throw the pulp in the sink or another pot for now, then in the compost.

I mashed the berries over one empty pot and by the end I got about 2.2 litres juice.

No pulp and all juice? Ok, cook it up once and then run through a tea towel or so to get the last bit of pulp out or not, depends on your taste.

Time to measure the juice and to add the sugar.

For my 2.2 litres I used 7 ½ dl sugar. Mix it in and give a cook up so the sugar dissolves.

Meanwhile all this you cook up enough water to pour into clean bottles to disinfect them. Watch out for scalding!

Empty the bottles and caps and pour in the Lilly Pilly saft. Let cool.

Now if you want to add citric acid or whatever it´s up to you. This is my experiment and next harvest will probably see it tweaked some.

In short: Cook them, mash them, throw the mash, add sugar to taste, cook again quickly and add to bottles! 6.7 kg =2 ½ litres saft.

To drink dilute with water to your taste.

Avocado

Oktober 2016 hade vi 5 avokadokärnor som växt till sig. Vi planerade 4 på olika ställen i trädgården. En behöll vi i krukan. Av alla 4 överlevde 1. Men den förde ett tynande liv.

Nu har vi grävt upp den och tagit avocadon i krukan och planterade bägge i citruslunden. Vi har gjort allt för dessa små blivande träd hoppas vi. Nu är det bara att vattna och se. Det verkar finnas en underjordisk ström i närheten för när det regnar det minsta lilla så blir det genast slafsigt i närheten och i ett streck som går tvärs över hagen. Iallafall sista försöket!

In October 2016 we had 5 avocado seeds grown up. We planted 4 at different places in the garden. One we kept in the pot. Of all 4 survived 1. But it barely.

Now we have digged it up and taken avocado in the pot and planted both in the citrus grove. We have done everything for these little trees to be we hope. Now it’s just watering and seeing. There seems to be an underground stream nearby for when it rains the least bit, it immediately becomes sloshy in the vicinity and in a lineacross the garden. This is our last try!