The last bit of Summer

Summer is over!  Last week I cleared the last of the pumpkins and zucchinis from the garden.  There were enough zucchinis to make my last batch of pickles.

What is it about home-made preserves and pickles that bring out the warm fuzzy feelings?  For me it is a sense of satisfaction of a good crop, nostalgia plays a part, and of course the yummy factor.

Pickles, chutneys and relishes are firmly entrenched in my memory banks.  One of my most treasured memories of my father involves the two of us making relishes to sell at the local store every summer holidays.  I would do the chopping while he brooded over the mixture.  Then we would taste and make adjustments.  It is a precious memory.  Another precious memory is my first year away from home I boarded with my grandparents, every night at 9 the crackers, cheese and pickles would come out and we would sit around the fire munching away talking over the day.  Our digestion must have been sturdier in those days; I don't think I could handle that now!

Nowadays, I love pickles with cold meats and in Cheese sandwiches and rolls.  That is a habit I picked up in Britain when I was doing my OE (Overseas Experience a rite of passage for young Kiwis). Mine lasted 17 years!  When I was working in London I had to leave home at 6:30 as I had a lot of traveling to do to get to work by 8:30.  When I got off the tube at Kings Cross I had a 15 minute walk to the office and on the way there was a hole in the wall sandwich shop where I would stop and get a crispy roll stuffed with cheese and Branston Pickle that was my breakfast for a number of years.  It is strange I have brought imported Branston Pickle here, the same brand, and it is vile!

In the last few years I have revived the ritual of preserve making; it is a wonderful way of dealing with the glut of summer produce. And of course it makes me feel like I have been a good Proverbs 31 woman!  The glut that all gardeners have every summer is Zucchinis.  Last year I discovered a wonderful recipe for them as a sandwich pickle, and they make wonderful gifts.  Best of all leave in the cupboard till the middle of winter and bring them out and have on crackers with cheese or have the archetypal Ploughman’s Platter, something else I grew to love when I was in England.  As you sink your teeth into them you will be glad of the flood of zucchinis that made you tear with hair out in that effort to keep up with the abundance.  Best of all, you will have the taste of summer in your mouth!

 Zucchini Pickle

3 ½ cups white vinegar,

1 cup sugar,

4 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon dill seed or fennel seeds

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

1 teaspoon turmeric powder

3 whole cloves

1 kg (2.2 lbs) Zucchinis

6 small onions

1 large red capsicum, or whatever colour you have to hand.

Place vinegar, sugar salt and herbs and spices  in a pan and bring to boil.  Cool.  Wash zucchinni and cut into thickish slices or chunks (I like chunks.) Slice onions and capsicums.  Place the vegetables in plastic or glass bowl and pour over the cooled vinegar mix. Leave 1 hour.  Put all mixture into a pan and bring to boil and simmer for three minutes.  Pack into bottles and seal. Enjoy.

I usually find I have surplus liquid, so I keep it and use in my next batch, for sure as eggs you will have more zucchinis to deal with, or the demand of friends and family for more!  I find that you can start eating them more or less straight away.  But they do taste better if left a week or two.

So my friends do have a go, if you have a huge surplus of zucchinis (I have found that scaloppini are wonderful treated this way, and have even used marrows (zucchinis that have got away on me.)

Today is nice and fine with a good breeze so I will be doing loads of washing, getting the winter bedding out - I am strange even though it is clean I like to give it a wash and let it get some fresh air before using after it has been stored away!  After that I just might have some pickles and crackers for tea!

Have a great day.