great feijoa t-shirts

Wear your love for feijoas proudly…

Feijoa, women’s t-shirt in 14 colours, by Sweet As Tees in the UK, £20.69.

Available from Sweet As Tees

I love feijoas t-shirts from Zazzle AU$30.80:

Available from Zazzle

I have a feijoa attitude long sleeved t-shirt from Cafe Press, AU$29.00.

Available from Cafe Press

feijoa paste

Tags

paste, preserves

This recipe for feijoa paste comes from the April 2011 edition of the New Zealand House & Garden and is another great recipe for anyone who is faced with a glut of feijoas. It has been featured in Stack of Recipes where the chef describes it as a foolproof recipe and recommended serving it with tangy cheese and freshly baked oat cakes. I also really like the sound of the second preserving option given below – little squares of fruity goodness dusted with icing sugar.

FEIJOA PASTE

Makes 800g

Ingredients

• 10 ripe medium sized feijoas (about 1kg)
• 3 cooking apples
• 600mls water
• 600g sugar

Method

1. Use a potato peeler to remove skin from feijoas. Roughly chop fruit and weigh: you need 300g of sugar per 500g of fruit.
2. Put feijoa peel and cores and roughly chopped apples into a pan; barely cover with water. Cook until soft and mushy, about 10 minutes.
3. Strain through a fine sieve, pressing firmly to get all the liquid from the apple. In a large heavy bottomed pot cook chopped feijoas in this liquid until soft. Push through a sieve or mash.
4. Add sugar to the feijoa pulp; stir until dissolved.
5. Cook slowly on the lowest heat, stirring every 2-3 minutes until thick. This will take about 3hrs – when it’s ready the spoon should start to meet resistance and the mixture will start to come away from the sides.
6. Pour while hot into straight sided sterilised jars and seal with lids.

*As an alternative, line a straight-sided flat dish with baking paper. Pour in mixture and smooth over with a knife. Give the dish a couple of taps on the bench to settle the paste. Leave to set for 2-3 days in a warm dry place, then cut into cubes when cold and firm. Dust cubes with icing sugar and pack in a tin or jar, or place in a box lined with waxed paper, with the added sifted icing sugar.

just around the corner

Tags

local trees

My local nursery has this glorious specimen at the rear of the grounds.

It’s in full bloom, although I checked last year and there was sadly no fruit.

In another pleasant surprise, I went to an open home the other day, a pre-auction inspection… it was a beautiful old home set in an overgrown garden. While I was dreaming about the writing room at the back of the house and climbing the stairs to the attic-style upper bedroom – the one with the sea glimpses – hubby walked back in and said “You’ll never guess what I’ve found?” Well, to cut the story short,  in the back yard was a terrific big old feijoa tree, all glorious and in full bloom. I was rapturous for a week, thinking perfect house perfect house, but in truth it wasn’t. At least I know where two fantastic trees are growing, not too far from here.

feijoa & orange cake

Tags

cake, orange

This cake looks deceptively simple but the photo says everything: golden brown on the outside, crunchy sugar topping and moist and fruity on the inside. Definitely a treat for afternoon tea on a windy autumn afternoon. With a lovely old vintage tea set, of course.

The recipe comes from Mushroom Lane, a quirky ‘fabric, fibre, food & flower’ blog written by Flower, a mother of five who finds time to showcase ‘vintage inspired goodness’ and other wonderful things. She calls it a proper mental feijoa cake which I think I can translate from Kiwi into really awesome.

Note: after looking through my huge stash of recipes, there is also a version of this in the feijoa forums at Stack of Recipes… it is written a little more clearly there so I’ve updated this. The version at Mushroom Lane doesn’t use the orange rind so if you want a little more orange/a little less orange, then you could include or omit the rind depending on your tastes.

Photo: Mushroom Lane

FEIJOA & ORANGE CAKE

Ingredients

• ½ cup sugar
• 100g butter
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon of golden syrup
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 tablespoons hot water
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 ¾ cups flour
• 1 cup feijoa pulp (or try warm stewed feijoas)
• juice and rind of 1 orange
• 4 tablespoons brown sugar

Method

1. Beat butter and sugar until creamy. Add egg and golden syrup and beat well. Mix baking soda in water and stir into the mixture. Add flour, baking powder, orange rind and feijoa pulp and mix lightly.
2. Pour into a greased tin and bake at 160°C for 45 min.
3. Dissolve brown sugar (try raw or demerara sugar if you prefer) in the orange juice and spoon over cake after 45 minutes.
4. Return to the oven for another 15 minutes.
5. Serve warm with cream or cold as you would a cake.

feijoa fruit leather roll-ups

Tags

feijoa, fruit leather, roll-ups

Mmm, chewy fruit leather. Who can resist? Especially when it’s feijoa flavoured. When I first saw this recipe on the glorious Frugal Kiwi blog, I initially thought how perfect for lunch boxes – but I soon figured it would be me sneaking to the fridge all hours for a treat that has the potential to last beyond the feijoa season.

If you’re not already a fan of Frugal Kiwi, then I recommend this blog as an inspiration for living simply (and saving your pennies) as well as providing a lovely lens on living in New Zealand. The blog’s creator Melanie is simply fearless in the kitchen when it comes to making things from scratch.

Before you start, these leather roll-ups need a lot of feijoas – about 8-10kg, if you follow the recipe exactly. That’s perfect when your tree drops a few hundred kilos on the back lawn and you are scratching around for ideas on what to do with them. Can’t wait to make them, when my trees oblige.

And while you’re there, check out Frugal Kiwi’s amusing guide on how to eat a feijoa. I wish I’d written it myself.

FEIJOA FRUIT LEATHER ROLL-UPS

You will need

• feijoas
• saucepan
• blender or stick blender
• slow cooker
• cookie sheet/s with lip
• baking/parchment paper
• oven

How to

1. First, gather your feijoas. You’ll need a lot. [A small slow cooker holds roughly 8-10 kg of fruit as weighed before processing.] Slice your feijoas in half crosswise and scoop out the flesh with a spoon and empty them into a heavy saucepan. When you’ve sliced and scooped them all, place your saucepan on medium heat and bring the feijoas to a simmer. You are wanting to cook them enough so when you blend them up in the next step you don’t stress your blender.
2. Blend the feijoas in the blender in appropriate sized batches or in the pot with a stick blender until the fruit is puréed.
3. Pour the purée into the slow cooker and cook, with the lid off on High until the purée has reduced by 75%, expect this to take 6 or more hours. Stir every 15-20 minutes or when you can remember. If you forget, a skin will form on top and a thickening may form on the bottom of the cooker. Next time you remember, stir extra thoroughly. Fruit leather making is a good task for a rainy autumn day when you’ll be home, puttering around the house.
4. When purée has reduced by 75%, pour into lipped cookie sheets lined with baking/parchment paper in a thin, but fully covered layer for each sheet. Bake at 70°C (140°F), on fan bake (convection) if you have it, until the leather has a firm surface. Expect the cooking time to be multiple hours, but it will depend on the thickness of your layers. Make as many cookie sheets of leather as you can in the oven at the same time, as you will use the same amount of energy whether you make one or three.
5. Store in an air tight container in the fridge or freezer, if they last that long.

anchovy and garlic lamb with feijoas and pumpkin

Tags

Amanda Laird, anchovy, feijoas, garlic, lamb, pumpkin

An adventurous fusion of autumn flavours from one of my favourite Kiwi food writers, Amanda Laird of the New Zealand Herald.

Photo: Babiche Martens

ANCHOVY & GARLIC LAMB WITH FEIJOAS & PUMPKIN

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 400g pumpkin, peeled and sliced
• olive oil
• salt and black pepper
• 8 feijoas
• 2 fresh bay leaves
• 12 lamb cutlets
• 4 garlic cloves, sliced into 16
• 4 anchovies, sliced into 16

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Drizzle the pumpkin with olive oil and season. Arrange in a baking dish and cook for 15 minutes.
2. Peel the feijoas and halve. Add to the pumpkin with the bay leaves and continue to cook for a further 15 minutes or until both the pumpkin and the feijoas are soft and caramelised.
3. Turn the oven up to 220°C. Make 4 small but deep incisions into each cutlet with the point of a sharp knife.
4. Insert a piece of garlic with a piece of anchovy into each incision. Season each cutlet well. Brush with olive oil and bake in the oven or grill on the barbecue for 3 minutes on each side – depending on the size of the cutlets.
5. Serve the lamb with the feijoas and the pumpkin.

flower & fruit gallery

This gallery contains 14 photos.

The beginnings of fruit.

Annabelle White’s feijoa cake

Tags

Annabelle White, cake, feijoa

I have come across this recipe multiple times in food forums and cooking blogs and its popularity suggests that it is a goodie. Annabelle White is a popular TV and radio cook in New Zealand. She has published eight cookbooks and appears regularly on TVNZ’s Breakfast show. This recipe comes from the TVNZ website where you can find more of her recipes.

ANNABELLE WHITE’S FEIJOA CAKE

Ingredients

• 125g butter
• 200g white sugar
• 2 eggs – number 6s are fine
• 165g white flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 teaspoon salt
• 30g ground almonds
• 225g sour cream
• 1 teaspoon almond essence (opt)
• approx 400-500g ripe feijoas – cut in half/thirds
• 1 heaped tablespoon coarse grained sugar (Demerara is ideal)
• a pinch of ground ginger

Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 200°C.
2. Line the base of a 9″ (22cm) cake tin with baking paper and anti-stick spray the paper plus the sides.
3. Cream together the butter and sugar very well. Beat in eggs one at a time until well combined, then lastly the essence.
4. Sift dry ingredients over mixture and add at the same time the sour cream and almond meal.
5. Fold in carefully until well combined. (Mixture is quite thick.)
6. Spoon into prepared pan and very lightly press in the cut fruit (cut side up).
7. The fruit should be quite crowded but in a single layer.
8. Sprinkle Demerara sugar/ginger evenly over fruit and put cake into oven and immediately set temperature to a reduced 180°C.
9. Bake for 50 minutes, turn oven off and leave in oven for an hour.
10. Serve warm.

Notes

1. You can use other stoned fruit (plums, peaches, apricots) instead of feijoa and if using fresh figs change the almond essence and use rose water instead. If making it an apple cake – add cinnamon to the Demerara sugar.
2. Freezes well. Cut into portions before freezing.
3. Serve with a “side” of some of the same fruit – poached – and a dollop of either whipped cream or yoghurt.