Being in the Hypnotic Moment

My hypnotic moment came to me today when I discovered a lovely cumquat recipe for a delicious homemade jam.  I was in my garden and had picked all the cumquats and did not want to waste them.

 

It was a very beautiful sunny day here in Perth today. We had a beautiful high blue sky with not a cloud in sight. It made me realise spring will soon be here and the cold dark days will be a thing of the past.

I had been tidying my garden after the winter storms and admiring my lovely cumquat trees. I planted them in big blue pots, 30 years ago and their gorgeous orange fruit has been so plentiful this year.

This year one of my goals was to make time just to be more in the moment and in tune with nature. So having picked the fruit, I decided to make some homemade jam and preserves. There was still plenty to share with friends.

I thoroughly enjoyed such a meditative experience. Picking the fruit, then cutting each cumquat in half and removing the seeds. It took a long time; however, it was so special to find joy in such a wonderfully simple thing.

Home-made Jams

I made a few different recipes. One normal one with tangy lemons from the lemon trees in my tiny courtyard garden, and another one using “Perfect Sweet” – an all natural sugar-free sweetener called xylitol.

The third recipe was a bit different – with this one, I cut the cumquat fruit in half, removed the seeds and placed them in a saucepan with a little water.  Cumquat seeds are high in pectin which helps set the jam. Over a high heat, I brought the seeds to boil, then strained the liquid and added them to the fruit.

These were cooked for around 30 minutes. For an exotic hit, I added six star anise for 10 minutes then removed them and blended the cooked fruit.

The blended cumquats went back into the saucepan, I added sugar and cooked until the jam reached setting point. You can tell it’s set if the bottom of the saucepan shows for a few seconds when you stir the mixture in the pot.

Then into my sterilised jars, straight from the dishwasher.

You can find the full recipe here.

It’s been lovely being able to share some jars of my jams with friends.

Seasonal fruit

Our wonderful universe provides us with so much and I realised how important it is to have lemons, oranges and cumquats all providing vitamin C when so many are out there in the community with colds and flu.

My neighbour behind has lots of fruit trees in his huge garden and gave me some grapefruit. I was pleased that I could give him a jar of jam in return. I ate some of the grapefruit and then I juiced the remainder and put them into ice cube trays for later.  I’m going to do the same with the lemons so that I will still have some for later, although lemons seem to bloom all year round.  I also have a lime tree which bears fruit in the summer months, so I feel very lucky. I recently learnt from a friend who has an orchard that limes are ready to pick when they turn yellow and at that time, they have more juice too. Cumquats are in season in July for our winter here in Australia.

I am looking forward to making some yummy strawberry jam when strawberries are plentiful and in season in our summer.

Jen x