Taste-and-Treats on the West Coast

Its that time of the year again..  My  green fig tree is laden with fruit. Unfortunately its not one of those kid of figs that have the juice inside, no its a fig purely created for making preserves. So here I go again. My first batch is 4kg which should make lots of nice pressies for family and friends. What will be different this year is that thanks to Pink the figs that turned brownish last year when cooked.. this year they have turned out in their natural glorious GREEN ! The magic potion she remembered from her gran was Vitrioel  which my man from the chemist told me is Copper Sulphate (reminding me of when your hair used to turn green in the swimming pool) 2 kg firm, ripe green figs ( leave the short stem on) 2 tbsp slaked lime 3.5 ltr cold water 2.5kg sugar 1 stick cinnamon lemon juice of about 3 to 4 large lemons (I left the pips in for a bit of pectin) Knife tip of copper sulphate to add during the boiling in order to keep the fig colour green Cut a cross ...

PRESERVED LEMONS MOROCCAN STYLE Last year I had the good fortune to travel  around Morocco with a bunch of wonderful women who have become friends. One of the specialties I have brought back with me is how to preserve lemons. With autumn here and my lemon trees once again bulging at the seams with ripe lemons I picked a few this morning and will show you just how easy it is to preserve them in order to make those wonderful tangines or use them in  many other dishes. Cut of each end of a lemon Then quarter them Next make one layer  lemons into a glass jar And over with coarse salt. Repeat until jar is full and seal with a preferably a plastic lid. For the next 3 days open the jars and top them up with more lemon pieces and salt,  this until you cannot get anymore in. Leave them to cure for 30 days. When you want to use them, rinse off in cold water and remove the flesh (tends to be bitter) I will post a Moroccan Lemon Chicken recipe during the course of...