Garden: the best laid plans and rehab gardening

Earlier this year I became a tad garden crazed.  It helped having a single tomato plant produce 666 individual cherry tomatoes.  I kept a tally of everything I harvested and the long warm autumn encouraged the mass planting of seeds.  I was determined to produce a lot of winter vegetables.

I got sick so at the end of May I planted the biggest seedlings in the garden and left the rest to die.  I planted the garlic very early and figured a few extra weeks couldn't hurt. Three months passed.  The first thing I checked when I got home from the hospital was the state of the garden.  The big storm in June was not kind to many of my plants in the front garden.  There was growth, but it was very small.  As I write most of the stuff that went in my garden in May is only getting close to producing anything now.  The exceptions were bok choi and Chinese cabbage - two vegetables I was specifically told not to eat on discharge!  Ironic.

I've been a bit bored recuperating.  I want to do stuff, but don't have the energy.  I do though have the energy for elaborate garden planning.  I'm on my third draft.  I've also been planting a few seeds.  By a few I mean:

• Sweetcorn
• Black popcorn
• Heritage large tomatoes
• Heritage cherry tomatoes
• Big Red tomatoes
• Sun cherry tomatoes
• Pumpkin
• Jersey Bennie Potatoes
• Courgette
• Apple Cucumber
• Watermelon - Ice Cream and Sun, Moon and Stars.
• Rainbow carrots
• Broccoli Romanesco
• Rockmelon
• Lettuce
• Dwarf Beans
• Red Cabbage
• Lettuce
• Capsicums
• Magenta Spreen
• Zinnias, Larkspurs, pansies, calendula, marigolds
• Coriander and Basil

And since it is too cold outside for most of these seeds I am gardening inside.  My bathroom (very warm room) and the spare room have become a nursery. 

The top of the cupboard is perfect for growing corn.

The bathroom sink is, fortunately, wide.  The left side.

We go through a lot of eggs in this house and I'm finding the containers useful

I'm sure that there will be space for everything (finger's crossed).

I am determined not to plant things out too late this year - a fatal error in previous years.  When I feel sure that we have passed the stage where frosts will come then I will be cheerfully filling in the garden.  My aim is to have one whole week this summer where I do not have to buy any veges or fruit.  The plum tree that I bought for $5 earlier this year is covered in blossom and my blackberry and raspberry canes are looking promising.  We have a huge amount of strawberry plants and this should be the year when we finally get some feijoas. I think a week without buying fruit or vegetables is a real possibility.

Garden harvest 2013 (January)

Somewhere along the way I've become a gardening nerd.  In the seven years that I have lived in this house I have indifferently gardened.  While we were still renters we did very little and then four years ago I started adding a bag of compost and mulch to the garden each year.  I've focused on growing vegetables but my desire to get a lot of variety means that I would grow too little of one thing.

This year I was organised.  I ordered the King's seed catalogue and planned in advance.  I even drew a little plan on the back of an envelope.  When the trees were harvested at the rear of our property it revealed new sunlight opportunities - we can now grow vegetables and fruit that require extra sunlight hours.  I dug two new gardens at the front of our house.  I read a lot, mostly anything by Linda Hallinan.

On holiday earlier this month I managed to get through about eighteen months worth of NZ Gardener magazines.  I'm ready!

I've planted the basics: lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries and carrots but also heritage varieties of peas, Picton Sno and Capucijners.  I learned how to get the best out of the indifferent berry bushes we have - and produced two raspberries and have about thirty blackberries ripening.  On the recommendation of a neighbour I planted courgettes and enjoy getting a new courgette to eat every three or four days.  I'm starting to get results from my rhubarb.  I've planted complimentary flowers to attract bees and have even started seed saving. I tend to take twice daily looks at the garden (this is how I know that I am obsessive).  I love ripping laterals from tomato plants.  I love that I know what laterals are.  And I love that tomato laterals will just sprout roots if you stick them in the ground.

Tomatoes ready for dehydrating and eventual freezing.

My children are starting to enjoy the garden.  Digging for jersey bennie potatoes with the children was a lot of fun - they enjoyed the treasure hunt and the youngest loved washing them in a bucket of water.  I produced a lot of strawberries - but the youngest loves them, as well as my three year old neighbour so they became experts at looking for and eating warm, ripe berries.  I barely rescued enough for a pot of jam. This evening they helped me to pull up carrots.  We brought them inside and rinsed them, then sliced them thinly for eating.  My oldest had hers on a cruskit cracker of all things. 

I'm loving making meals of the food from the garden.  Tonight we had the last of the jersey bennies and a salad including lettuce and carrots from the garden with our meal.  In the next couple of months I should be harvesting cucumbers for pickling, miniature red cabbages, bok choi and a lot of tomatoes.  A serious amount.

In a previous post I mentioned a concern about garden costs.  I'm keeping a running total of expenditure and I'll try and see how that balances out at the end of the year.

January:

• Courgettes = 7
• Strawberries = 6
• Tomaccio tomatoes = 17
• Lettuce = harvested leaves three times
• Blackberries = scrumped 30 cups worth
• Carrots = 20
• Rhubarb = 3 cups worth, stewed
• Garlic Bulb = 1 (not an awesome amount but 100% better than previous year)
• Herbs = I've harvested parsley and thyme three times.

Tomaccio - it is hard to see but there are about 185 tomatoes on here!

Delicious blackberry curd and blackberry barbeque sauce

The first batch of blackberry recipes has been quite popular and by the time I wrote it all up I needed to add a couple more recipes. There is no end to blackberrying - and my husband is suggesting doing some more blackberry picking once the girls are in bed tonight!

For the first time today we encountered competition!   My husband spotted a new blackberry patch while out jogging (when your partner takes up exercising there are benefits for the whole family) and we visited there after visiting the beach this afternoon. We took our gumboots, sheet of cardboard and the hockey stick.  The girls helped pick the low berries and my husband and I worked together to get the trickier ones (me lying on the cardboard across a large thorny branch while my husband used the hockey stick to pull a prolific branch closer.  After we had half a smallish bucket we noticed a Mum and her son further along.  A small creek bubbled along and while we were on the bank the mother and son were in the creek.  We were very envious (and look forward to the day we can send our children into creeks to assist with berrying). I asked about their berry recipes (blackberry muffins with fresh blackberries mixed with cream cheese for icing) and we respected our various spots.

Another car drove slowly by.  They pulled in behind our car and I instantly knew what they were considering.  They continued on, I guess noticing that the area was well covered and likely picked bare.  They drove off and I didn't think about them until a couple of minutes later, when I realised that they had gone on to the private driveway above the creek and were picking from there.  As we left, two members of their group circled back to check out the patch we had just covered!  They were not going to find any!

-----------------

 A friend asked what I do with all the caterpillars on the blackberries I picked and it occurred to me to write a few blackberrying facts:

Blackberries and caterpillars:

• Just about every blackberry will have a tiny caterpillar on the inside.  I found spreading them on a tray while fresh and picking them off every time I walk by the most effective method of removal.
• If you soak the berries it can drown the caterpillars.  I suspect though that many caterpillars drown still inside the berry.
• If you freeze them the caterpillar remains inside the berry.
• Inadvertently eating tiny caterpillars is an inevitable fact of cooking with blackberries.

Picking blackberries:

• Keep your eye out for blackberry patches every time you are out driving.  They love creek beds and overgrown bush.  
• Blackberry bushes are thorny - wear running shoes or gumboots and old clothes.  Expect scratches and thorns stuck in your fingers.  Wearing gloves makes it hard to pull off the berries.
• Take along a hockey stick - it can help you reach high up branches
• A bucket looped over your arm makes picking easier.
• Consider how likely it is that the berries have been sprayed.  You will need to wash them well if they have been sprayed (add a small drop of detergent to the washing water, then rinse with clean water)
• Children get very bored with picking berries quite quickly and are likely to stop after the first prickle.  We took a lot of snacks to keep them amused.
• Manage your expectations for the amount of berries you are likely to get.  Altogether we have picked about 40 cups of berries....but probably spent about ten hours altogether doing this over many trips.  Picking berries for up to an hour is fun, picking for much longer a chore.
• Take a first aid kit with plasters, splinter probes and tweezers.  Insect repellent is also a good idea.  My legs look like I've been subject to a vicious cat attack, interlaced with red shiny mosquito bites.  Attractive.

Storing blackberries:

• Rinse them straight before using them, not when you get home.  If the berries are kept dry and cool they are much less likely to go mouldy. Even refrigerated, washed berries are likely to get mouldy overnight.

Blackberry curd is a brilliant use of eggs and blackberries.  You can use the curd as you would lemon curd (e.g. to make lemon meringue pie) and to flavour home made ice cream (just add a generous scoop or two of the curd).  Blackberry curd is better than blackberry jam for making ice cream as the jam tends to result in more ice crystals throughout the ice cream. 

Blackberry curd:

500 grams blackberries
300 grams caster sugar
4 eggs, lightly beaten.
90 grams butter

Take 500grams of blackberries and quarter a cup of water and heat together in a pot until boiling.  Once boiling reduce to a simmer and cook for about twenty minutes.  Squish the berries while cooking.  Place a sieve over a bowl and press the mixture through using a wooden spoon.  This will take about five-ten minutes - you want to end up with nothing but a dry, seedy mixture left in the sieve.

Most people use a double boiler arrangement to cook sweet curds but I do not have the patience.  You need to know that you will be able to pay full attention to the curd while cooking if you do it in a pan.  Heat the berry juice in the pot on a medium low heat.  Add 300 grams of caster sugar and stir until dissolved.  Beat four room temperature eggs lightly, then temper by adding a spoonful of the berry juice to the eggs and stirring.  Repeat tempering a few times (otherwise you will scramble the eggs when you tip them into the pot).  Slowly add eggs to the pot, stirring constantly.  Add 90 grams of butter and keep stirring.

Bring the heat up slightly to medium, but never enough where the mixture starts bubbling.  When a very thick ribbon forms (this happens quickly) take off the element and pour into sterilised jars.  The mixture should last about two weeks in the fridge.

Recipe inspiration:  From Stephanie Alexander's A Cooks' Companion and Cream Until Fluffy

Blackberry BBQ Sauce

500grams blackberries
4-5 plums
4-5 apricots
1 cup tomato sauce
2 cloves of garlic
Dash of hot sauce (or a finely diced red chili)
Half a cup brown sugar.
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper


Put the berries and fruit in a pot and simmer for about thirty minutes (I simmered for nearly an hour, but had dashed to the shop and forgot that I left the pot going, thankfully my husband was still here!  Push the sauce through a sieve to remove berry seeds and fruit stones.  Be aggressive with sieving, keep going until the leftover seeds are a dry thick paste.  Add garlic, tomato sauce, hot sauce and sugar.  Season. Simmer for about twenty minutes for taste.  I found the original mixture too heavy on the vinegar so I added 2 TBSP of the blackberry cordial I made earlier.  You can just add extra sugar if too acidic.  If too sweet you can add more sugar.  Use a stick blender to make sure the garlic is incorporated and then pour into sterilised bottles.

Chinese New Year

I keep trying to celebrate holidays with meaning to our family in ways that the children can understand. This often means using food, crafts and stories. Food is quite easy to understand for kids. Duck is a special occasion food in our house so we decided to introduce the kids to duck pancakes.

If you can find a decent sized Asian grocer you can buy duck pancakes frozen. They are though the easiest bread to make so google yourself a recipe - it is usually flour and boiling water!

Finely chop some cucumber and spring onions in two inch length slices. Get yourself some plum sauce - I like a thick dark savoury sauce (tonight I used Watties Bit On the Side Plum). Some prefer the thin, pale orange plum sauce that you can purchase at Asian food stores.

Buy or cook a lacquered red duck. Shred the meat.



Spread the plum sauce down the middle of the pancake, add shredded duck (a bit of skin, a bit of flesh), cucumber and spring onion. Fold up the bottom and then the sides. Eat.

Happy Year of the Dragon.



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Stone fruit overload/ Upside down plum cake

I do love a great deal. When a daily deal site offered half price off a 7kg box of mixed stone fruit, delivered, I was in. It is quite a lot of fruit actually, perhaps a little more than I appreciated.  It is quite tricky to get through it all as there is only so much stone fruit each family member can eat before being felled by a sore stomach!

I don't want to waste any fruit, but am forced to concede that the summer heat is trying to claim the fruit. I didn't want to preserve any of this batch either, as the fruit, while cheap, was not cheap enough for me to pass up the opportunity of eating the fruit fresh.  I remembered the recipe below from a recipe I copied out long ago.  I made it quite a few times about three summers ago and can't think why I haven't made it more recently.  This is delicious and simple, as long as you have a heavy oven proof frying pan.  I have an incredibly heavy cast iron pan that I hate cleaning that is perfect for this recipe.

Turned out on to a plate.

In the skillet.

Upside-Down Plum Cake

Use a cast iron skillet (23-25cm) * You could substitute with something similar but it must be something that can be used on the stove element and in the oven.

185g butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
9-17 plums (these will be cut in half and placed on the base of the pan - you need enough to fit)
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs (room temperature)
250ml buttermilk (room temperature) (in a pinch you can use milk, buttermilk just tastes heaps better)

Heat the oven to 175C. Melt 60 grams of the butter in a 25cm skillet on a lowish heat. Sprinkle the brown sugar over evenly and leave for three minutes.  Arrange plums cut side down in the skillet.  Remove from heat.  In a bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.  In a separate bowl cream the remaining butter and sugar.  Add vanilla (i used vanilla syrup with seeds, could use extract) then eggs, one at a time.  Add buttermilk then fold in the dry ingredients gently.  Carefully spoon the mixture over the plums.  Bake for one hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.  To remove, run a knife around the edge and turn out on to a plate, fruit side up.  Serve with yoghurt or cream.

Tips:

•  Refrigerated products are best at room temperature for baking - the ingredients come together better and can 'curdle' if one ingredient is too cold.
• Do not add too much vanilla - I tend to go heavy with vanilla as I feel it benefits most recipes.  It does not benefit this recipe.
• I cooked for 45 minutes then turned off the oven and retrieved about an hour later.  The cake was cooked through and still warm enough to easily remove from the pan.
• If your pan isn't very deep or the mixture comes nearly to the top before cooking then place a tray underneath to catch the overflow! 
• This dish is really best served warm and on the day made.  

Sliders

One of the blogs I subscribe to belongs to Ruth Reichl.  Ruth is a very gifted writer with the most amazing food knowledge and experience.  I first read about her in the Sunday Star-Times.  It contained an excerpt from her recently published book, Garlic and Sapphires.  To summarise, while the restaurant critic for the New York Times she adopted a number of characters and dressed up when she went to review restaurants.  She did this to determine what the service and food was like for the actual person attending - not just an influential food writer.  In many cases the gap was startling and reflected poorly on a number of restaurants who did not deserve to be in the 'hospitality business.'  The account is amusing and insightful and for those of us who haven't lived in New York a good introduction to the restaurant business.

Anyway, Ruth was discussing food trends for 2011 and the one I didn't recognise was 'Sliders.'  Two seconds of internet research later and I had my answer: tiny meatball sandwiches.  Basically, cocktail or two-three bites worth of hot meatball sandwich. 

I liked the idea of making something tiny and my friend's annual New Years Day BBQ seemed like a good idea.  My Make-Do Mum version was a little simpler.  I started with the intention of making meatballs but as the day got away with me I made tenderised steak versions.

Slider method Make-Do Mum style:



Make tiny buns.  You can probably find some commercially but I thought that it would actually be easier to make some.  Most of the online meatball slider recipes I read specified a garlic flavoured bread.  I roasted some garlic and had the best intention to knead it into the bread on the second rise.  This didn't happen because I forgot.  I used a standard breadmaker recipe (used three cups of flour) and divided the dough into fifteen segments.  I brushed with milk and sprinkled some poppy seeds over the top.  I could probably have gone a little smaller - making about twenty if I'd been a little less slapdash.

Filling.  The filling is obviously whatever you want.  I caramelised some onions with balsamic drizzle and the last of my avocado oil.  Once caramelised I drained the excess oil and mixed the onions with mayonnaise and some roasted garlic.  I fried some tenderised steak in the drained oil and once cooked cut into small pieces.  Each slider contained the onion mayonnaise, meat and baby spinach.  Because they had to travel each slider was held together with a small skewer then transported via tupperware and pram around the block to join the other food at the BBQ.

I would definitely do these again for parties or pot-luck (shared meals).  I'd like to see how mini I could go!


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Christmas leftovers/ dinner platter

I can't work out why I didn't come up with this earlier.  This is the ideal Make-do Mum meal.  If I had a rating system it would probably get five stars.  You know how you have all those leftover items from Christmas (in my case ham and unopened hummus/ pate)?  Well if you arrange them all on a big platter and add some crackers and fresh rye bread then you have an awesomely social meal where everyone can have a little something that they like.  The baby loves capsicum, ham and fresh peas while her big sister enjoyed the celery, smoked salmon and rye bread.  It was the perfect non-dinner dinner.


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My happy place/ Boysenberry jam.

When someone offers you 2kg of freshly picked boysenberries in exchange for an airport pick up you throw the kids in the car with a sandwich and a toy each and drive.  My kitchen smells amazing, and the dark purple jars on my windowsill are showing off my spoils to the neighbourhood.




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Eta: changed blackberries to boysenberries!

Right now in the backyard: the seahorse and the bumblebee.

The weather this week has been amazing. My five year old comes home hot and bothered each day so today I set up the little ball pit in the shade and put in a couple of buckets of water.



The bumblebee escaped to pick daisies on the lawn and the seahorse dominated the ball pit quite cheerfully.





The seahorse asked if she could eat dinner in the pool.  I've had to decline - I can't imagine trying to keep track of the active little bumblebee on the lawn long enough for her to eat anything!

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Boysenberry meringues

I've been rather busy lately trying to adapt to the new routine of the Sweetheart's school run.  It feels as though she has been at school for ages; it will be three weeks tomorrow.  So I have been rehashing all the family standard meals and put food experiments to one side.

But then yesterday I decided to try Ray McVinnie's beef and asparagus salad recipe (published this Sunday past).  It involved a dressing that contained two egg yolks, leaving two lonely egg whites.  Ten minutes later these meringues were in the oven.

Take your standard meringue recipe and once whipped add some freeze-dried berry powder (I used the 'Fresh As' brand (purchased from Moore Wilsons).  This berry powder is awesome for icing, macarons and smoothies.  Sometimes I add it to cakes when baking.  Since it is just pure berries it is a nice way of adding a little something different.

I think that the best colour with this powder comes if it is dissolved in liquid first.  When I put it in the meringue mix it left beautiful pale purple streaks - on breaking the cooked meringues open they were a pale lavender colour on the inside.

It was the perfect day for boysenberry meringues with cream here in Wellington - so hot.



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Grapefruit curd ice cream, rhubarb jelly and good intentions

Rhubarb jelly - is there a more beautiful colour?

Grapefruit curd vanilla ice-cream

Are you from Wellington? Was it HOT where you live yesterday? It was hot here. So hot. We went to the supermarket after the school run yesterday to cool down my overheated and super cranky five year old. She now knows the joy of cooling yourself in the freezer section. While there we decided to make cheeseburgers for dinner.  I'd made Nigella's rhubarb jelly and prepped the ice cream maker* so we also got some ingredients to make ice-cream.





The ice cream took a long time to make.  It wasn't completely solid at the end, but I just called it soft serve and gave it to my daughter to try while I went to give the baby her last feed of the day.  A couple of minutes later there was a worried call from the Sweetheart.  Turned out she wanted more.  Sadly for her I'd added a couple of dollops of grapefruit curd and made the single best batch of ice cream ever. It may be the flavour that I have waited my whole life for.  The Sweetheart didn't like it, what a shame.

And the good intentions?  I got a migraine and went to lie down for twenty minutes around 7.30pm.  Next thing I knew it was 3.45am and the baby was crying.  I hate falling asleep in my contacts!  My husband arrived home and was left to fend for dinner himself (lucky I hadn't tidied up so the sauce on the bench and the bag of open hamburger buns was a good clue) and he didn't find the ice cream.  So tonight, on a much cooler night we will finally have our jelly and ice-cream.

*We got a cheapy ice cream maker from K-Mart.  I wasn't sure that I wanted to commit to a major purchase, and for $22 and a one year warranty I thought that it should be OK.  The more expensive machines may not require this, but the ice cream maker bowl needs to be put in the freezer for twenty four hours prior, and the mixture needs to have been refrigerated for a couple of hours before churning.  It is not something that you make on the spur of the moment.

Postscript:  I also used our bunny rabbit mould.  Sadly, a few moments after removing the mould the rabbit's head rather freakily decapitated itself.  It just pulled off.  I hid it away rather quickly, least any children get nightmares!

Elderflower cordial and Elderflower champagne

Three years ago there was a lovely feature story in the Dom Post one Saturday regarding elderflower trees.  The author wrote beautifully about her childhood, then gave recipes for elderflower cordial and elderflower champagne.  I wish I'd clipped the whole article rather than just writing down the recipes.

Elderflower cordial is one of the most refreshing drinks you can have in summertime.  It tastes like a beautiful, carefree summer day you are experiencing while wearing a floaty dress and straw hat.  It is just lovely.  It is great with soda water, lemonade or vodka.  Once you have made the cordial you can also use the cordial as an essence, flavouring sorbet or panacotta.

Making this is so satisfying.  It looks pretty while it is being made.  I've got a bit of a production line going as I'm making small bottles to give as gifts to all of the Sweetheart's creche teachers next week.  I didn't have enough stored bottles (they are all full of grapefruit cordial and in various households in the region) so I bought some from New Zealand's premier bottle/ jar/ closure supplier!  They are in the street opposite where I live.  If you want to buy one bottle or a thousand they will do it.  I could have purchased dozens - particularly of the gorgeous jam jars!

Elderflower champagne, the second recipe, is also very charming.  Elderflower heads can sometimes (and sometimes not) be filled with a natural yeast.  For this reason it is quite delightful for making brewed drinks.

To those of you reading this who know where I live: the elderflower tree is open for business!!!  First in, first served.

Elderflower cordial

20 Elderflower heads
4 cups caster sugar
1.5L boiling water
2 lemons (juiced and sliced)
1 orange (sliced or chopped)
50g citric acid (this is quite a bit - about quarter of a packet).

Wash the flowers to remove dirt, bugs and spiderwebs!  There are the smallest black bugs on these, particularly later in the season.  Elderflower are best picked after there has been sunlight on them for a couple of hours - and the cordial best made within an hour of picking the flowers.

Put the sugar in a heatproof large bowl and pour over the boiling water.  Stir and leave to cool.  Add the fruit, citric acid and flowers.  Leave for 24hrs in a cool spot.  Stir occasionally.  Strain through a muslin and bottle.  Refrigerate.

To serve: one part cordial to four parts water/ vodka.

Elderflower champagne

4 or more large heads of elderflower
2 lemons
1kg of sugar or honey
10L cold water
4 TBSP white wine vinegar
1/2 tsp dried yeast (optional)

Wash and juice the lemons.  Peel off rind thinly.  Put flowers, lemon juice and rind in a large clean container.  Slowly add sugar and vinegar, do not crush flowers.  Pour in water and gently stir.  Cover and stand for 24hrs, stirring every six hours.  If no signs of fermentation, add yeast and stand another day.  Strain and bottle (old soft drink bottles).  It is ready in two weeks.  Store in a cool place.

Frozen lemon slices

One little trick I forgot to mention when dealing with all the fruit was freezing lemon slices. I thinly sliced four lemons, put the slices on a sheet of baking paper and froze them.






Once frozen I stored in a plastic container. I'm hopeful that there are hot days ahead, and it will be nice to have some ice cold lemon slices for tall glasses of water.

Dispatching the first twenty grapefruit

I really want to get as many grapefruit processed as quickly as possible - I need my floor space back!  I figured the easiest way to do this was to start of making marmalade.  I quickly learnt that marmalade uses surprisingly few grapefruit to make a surprisingly huge volume of jam.  So the first four grapefruit, plus two lemons are chopped up and soaking.  I'm using the Edmond's cookbook recipe - there are billions out there to choose from.  I think I'm going to make another batch - but a bit more lemony and with some ginger - I think it will be lovely with chicken.

Next I decided to make Grapefruit Cordial.  I first had this at a friend's house, and she pointed out that the recipe came from Cuisine magazine.  This makes a really refreshing drink - perfect with sparkling water.  I made a double batch.  These grapefruit are super juicy - I stopped bothering with the juicer and just squeezed with my hands.  I used ten grapefruit for this recipe (couldn't get zest off a couple of them).  I think I'll be making another couple of batches as it is a great way to use them up, stores well in the fridge and has been one of my past Christmas gifts for friends and family.
 

One of the recipes I found requires juice - I'm going to make a grapefruit and mint vinaigrette.  But I don't need it know so decided to freeze blocks of juice.  With the skin I decided to create grapefruit peel - this was really fun.  I wanted something that I could just leave in the cupboard (as I suspect my freezer will soon house a lot of frozen juice).  The peel I will use in baking, and to decorate my planned grapefruit curd cupcakes.

I feel really bad about all the leftover grapefruit.  My worm farm doesn't take kindly to citrus, so it is all going in the bin.  Any ideas? 

The first twenty are done.  And I've got a friend who is keen for some.  Lets see how quickly I am inspired to do something with the next batch!