An Ode to Autumn

The harvest is now over. All the grapes for the 2011 vintage have been picked, except of course the 4 rows of Riesling which we hope will turn into sticky.

This is a risky business and we need the weather to be just right. We are also wondering if the weather as affected the mushrooms. For some reason the mushroom harvest this year has been particularly poor. Yesterday Simon and wandered about “shrooming” but we only gathered enough to add to the lamb shank casserole.
It has been a wet Easter weekend so there has been little activity outside. A couple of days rest means I am now eager to tidy up the veggie garden. My vegetable garden has been quite unproductive this year. I still can find potatoes and a few cherry tomatoes from the glass house. However the focus this year has been on growing flowers for Meg and Henry’s wedding. Although that was 6 weeks ago we have marigolds, salvia and dahlias galore.

Dahlias have been an absolute highlight for me this summer. They have flowered continuously for weeks.

Marigolds

More dahlias

Dogwood

The Dogwoods are now dropping their leaves. They have been very showy this year. Indeed the autumn colours are lovely. The pear tree is laden and the swans have made a little track across the pond paddock to feast on the windfalls.
We have removed many of our feijoa trees to make way for my firewood coppice but we still have enough to ensure a good supply for eating and cooking . Our good friend James Hall from SPQR was down visiting a week or so ago and he sent me a feijoa cake recipe that has lived on his fridge for some time. Today I made it and include the recipe here for you. I am not sure who created this recipe but it has probably came from the NZ Herald.
The Best Feijoa Cake
125g butter
200g white sugar (approx ¾ cup)
2 eggs 
165g flour (approx 1 1/3 cups)
2tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
30g ground almonds (about one packet)
225g sour cream
1tsp almond essence
Approx.500g ripe feijoas – skinned and cut in a half or thirds
1 Tbsp heaped coarse grained sugar (demerara is ideal)
A generous pinch of ground ginger

Pre-heat oven to 200C. Prepare a 22cm cake tin. Cream together the butter and sugar very well. Beat in the eggs one at a time until well combined, then lastly the essence. Sift the dry ingredients over mixture and add at the same time the sour cream and ground almonds. Fold in carefully until well combined. (Mixture is quite thick). Spoon into prepared pan and very lightly press in the fruit cut side up. The fruit should be in a single layer. Sprinkle sugar and ginger over fruit. Put the cake into the oven and reduce heat to 180C. Bake 50 mins, turn oven off and leave in oven for an hour or overnight. Serve warm.

(The cake is quite pudding like but very tasty and a change from other recipes I have tried which are more carrot cake in style.)

So Easter is almost at an end. Arabella is back to university tomorrow but has taken all the photos for my blog. We will have to pack away all our Easter chicks until next year. However we love autumn, the perfect season for redheads, and there is nothing quite so nice at the end of the day as drawing the curtains to sit in front of the fire with a glass of pinot noir .

Jane