Rhubarb Dessert

GET

One cup of oats
2 cups of ground almonds
One egg
5 tablespoons of yoghurt
Agave syrup
1 bunch of rhubarb 

Do
Preheat the oven at 180°c.
Grate almonds coarsely to flakes
mix egg and yoghurt and sweetener
add most of the almond flakes mix in.
clean, trim and finely cut the rhubarb.
Distribute the oats evenly on the bottom of a baking dish
Pour the mixture on and spread it out evenly.
Arrange the rhubarb on top and pour more sweetener onto it.
Cover with the remaining almond flakes
Bake on the 2nd shelf of the oven for 45 mins, turn the oven off and leave it in there for another 15 mins. 

 
Tips
The oats will cook to form a pastry base so it can be cut up like a fruit flan. You may like to bake it in a baking form.
Try it also with plums (maybe Davidsons plums) or apple halves, scored with a knife

Bello Linzer torte

The Linzer torte is a shortcrust pastry filled with jam and topped with a double lattice. In Italy the Crostata is a "rustic free-form version of an open fruit tart". In Greece, Egypt, and South America they call it Pastafrola. The history of the Linzer torte goes back to Egypt and the Roman empire. It usually contains  red jam, lemon and nuts as the main ingredients for taste. Exotic ingredients like cane sugar, cinnamon, cloves, vanilla and nutmeg were only added later in Europe.

The Bello Linzer torte is adapted for local NSW ingredients. Seasonal native Davidson's plums have been made into a prize-winning jam by Jan. And Ross baked the 'rustic free-form version' of the open fruit cake. Edible Culture found the result very delicious.

GET
A 26 cm cake form ca 4 cm high

350g davidson plum jam (or any thick jam)

200 g wheat flour
125 g butter or macadamia oil
150 g macadamias or almonds, grated
125 g honey
2 egg yolks
1 sm spoon of cocoa
½ tsp cinnamon
some nutmeg
a pinch of cloves
vanilla
½ lemon peel grated
some Kirschwasser
egg and lemon rind

DO

Mix honey, nuts flour and cocoa, cinnamon cloves and vanilla in a large bowl. Form an indentation and add the egg and the kirsch liqueur in the middle. Add the butter or Macadamia oil on the edges and quickly knead into a dough. Cover it and let it rest for an hour in the fridge. Heat the oven to 180 degrees. Take two thirds and roll it over the bottom cake form. Keep some for the sides, ca 2- 3 cm high, trim edges. Roll out the remaining dough and cut it into equal strips.

Cover the casing with a thick layer of jam and lay the strips into a double lattice across the jam. Cover the lattice and margins with a mixed egg, Kirschwasser and the lemon zest.
Bake for approx. 60 minutes at 180 degrees on the second shelf from the bottom.  Let it cool on a rack in its form.

Fruit and nut cake

Get
50g dried apricots
110g blanched chopped almonds
200g sultanas
250g butter
150g honey
7 eggs
400g flour
4 tbsp rum
Butter paper and wheatgerm for the form


Do 

Butter a bread form and sprinkle with wheatgerm.
Pre-heat oven to 190°c.
Chop apricots. Mix with sultanas and mix both with a little flour.
Beat egg whites stiff, add some honey and beat again till stiff.
Beat butter and honey until smooth. Add egg yolks on at a time while beating for a few minutes. Add alternately a little flour and egg whites until a smooth mixture forms.
Then add the rest of the floor and egg whites and carefully lift under the mixture.
Add the fruit and nuts and lift under.
Add the rum and lift under.
Pour into the bread form.
Form the top into an M shape.

Bake on the second bottom shelf for 40 minutes.
Cover with parchment paper and continue baking for another 20 to 30 minutes.
Leave it in the hot oven for a further 10-20 minutes in necessary.
Test if it is baked with a wooden skewer or small narrow knife. Even if the skewer comes out clean, leave it in the turned-off oven for 10 more minutes to ensure it does not have a soggy centre.
Remove from the form and cool . Wrap in paper.

This cake lasts well even in hot weather out of the fridge. Good for camping trips.
Optional: leave out the fruit and nuts for a dry cake ('sand cake').

The Vegan Chocolate Mousse Fruit

Sapote ripening

Sapote eaten after ripening

Black Sapote is known as the Chocolate Pudding Fruit. Diospyros nigra is a species of persimmon (Sapotaceae). Like so many fruit, it has been cultured by the peoples of the Mexico, Central America and Colombia. The tropical fruit “has more than three times the amount of Vitamin C than an orange does."

Cold Sour Cherry Fruit Soup

Fruit soups are customary in the northern hemisphere in summer. They can be made with any edible fruit, but sour cherries are the best seasonal option. There is no other cherry that has such a distinct flavour like this variety. Tart cherries or dwarf cherries also have many health benefits.


GET
600 g sour cherries (Prunus cerasus)
1 lemon
1 vanilla pod
1 cinnamon stick
Some agave syrup
600 ml of water or orange/cherry juice
(beware of sugar in fruit juices)
all organic


DO
Wash, pluck and pit the cherries. Remove vanilla from pod. Wash lemon and peel the rind very thinly. Squeeze out juice and remove pits. Boil water/juice and add, the vanilla /pod, cinnamon and lemon rind. Boil and immediately reduce the heat. Simmer for 5-7 min. Remove the lemon rind, the cinnamon stick and the vanilla pod. Add the agave, stir and let it cool. Refrigerate and serve cooled with yoghurt or ice cream.

The Australian 'sour cherry' (Syzygium corynanthum) might be an 'equivalent' from the southern hemisphere. I would add a lot of Davidson plum as well for tartness.

Baked Rice Pudding with Pear Compote

GET
1 l milk
250 g rice, round/brown
1 cup of currants or raisins
Some lemon juice
1 vanilla bean
50 g agave syrup
1 pinch of salt
2 Tsp butter
A pinch of cinnamon

6 ripe pears
agave syrup as required
½ cup filtered water
all organic

DO
Rinse the raisins with hot water, then soak in lemon juice and some water.
Wash the rice, heat the milk and add the rice. When it boils, reduce the heat and simmer for 45 min. Take pot from stove and let it stand covered for 15 min.
Add the remaining butter, salt, scraped-out vanilla and the soaked and drained raisins and stir.
Coat the baking dish with some butter and preheat the oven to 200°
Place mixture in the baking dish, sprinkle with a bit of cinnamon and a some of butter. Cook until the crust is golden. Serve hot or cold with pear compote or apple compote.

No Spotted Dick Please, We're British
In England the Spotted Dick is a pudding containing suet and currants or raisins. But rice pudding is enjoyed by many other cultures around the world, even without the kidney fat.

Pear compote

Peel and core pears. Slice into a cooking pot. Add boiling water. Cover. Bring to boil and simmer for a few minutes. Mix in agave syrup while still warm.

Jackfruit Dinner Music

The jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) originates from Asia. It is a fruit of the subtropical rain forests.

"The jackfruit is made up of hundreds or even thousands of individual flowers that are fused together. We eat the "fleshy petals" that surround the seed, which is the actual fruit." (source).

The fruit can weigh as much as 35 kg. The flesh has a very strong odour, and oozes a thick white sap. In India various dishes such as pudding are made out of it.

"There is also another tree which is very large and has wonderfully sweet and large fruit; it is used for food by the sages of India who wear no clothes." Theophrastus 300 B.C. (source)

It seems that every part of the tree can be utilised - food, dye and wood for musical instruments. The hardwood from the trunk is used to make drums for the gamelan.

As both the fragrance and taste did not agree with us, we prefer the percussive instruments made of the tree and the music generated on it. Dinner will be accompanied by the traditional ensemble music of Java and Bali, 'reverberations the influence' (video) of Steve Reich. (video)

Davidson's Plums with Cashew Cream

GET
Plums
15 Davidson's plums/ Oorays
1 Vanilla pod (forget extracts)
10 Tbsp maple syrup

Cashew cream:
120 g cashew seeds
5 Tbsp filtered water
3 Tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp cinnamon
A dash of lemon juice
A pinch of salt

Click to enlarge

DO
Soak the cashews 2 - 6 hours before in water. Preheat the oven. Wash plums, cut and remove seeds. Cut the skin very fine and the pulp can be chopped. Mix the content of the vanilla orchid pod and the syrup and add it to the plums. Place in a casserole and roast for 20 - 30 min at 190°C. Keep an eye on the roasting process. Stir if necessary or even add water. It is not to go black!

Place cashews in a sieve and rinse. Pound in a mortar (or blender). Add the remaining ingredients as you go. Taste and add more sweetener or water if necessary.

The plums can be served warm or cold with the cashew cream.

Davidson's plum sauce
Cinnamon biscuits filled with Davidson plum jam

Creeping Cucumbers, Cucamelon or Mouse Melons

The Mexican miniature watermelons (Melothria scabra) are an edible fruit. They look like 'mouse' melons but appear like little cucumbers when cut up. The skin is rather tough and the center is like a juicy center of a cucumber.

Our mouse peeled them and chopped them into a salad.

Another method was to pour boiling water over them, let them stand for 30 min. Cut the tops off and press out the 'cucumber' pulp into dressings or salads. Capsicums, cut into thin strips were also mixed in a salad with the cucamelon pulp.

The fruit of the pretty, high-yielding vines are also very suitable for pickles.

Yet again another meso-american cultural product.

Champagne Melon with Finger Lime 'Caviar'

The Champagne melon (Citrullus vulgaris) is a watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) with yellow flesh. It has seeds just like most of the red watermelons. On a hot day slices of refrigerated melon, sprinkled with tangy finger limes, make a refreshing dessert.

Finger limes (Citrus australasica) are from the Australian subtropical rainforest and make the ideal vegan 'caviar'.

Rather than extracting the ovaries from an ancient survivor (Acipenseridae) and driving wild sturgeons into extinction, it would be wiser to allow the 'living fossils' to continue to be on the planet.

Mango with Finger Limes

Failure to act on a habitable climate will bring more unbearable heatwaves across Australia. They are becoming hotter, lasting longer, occurring more often and starting earlier.

In the present heatwave only chilled fruit helps. In this case a gigantic deep red mango is cut in half and sprinkled with green finger limes.

The varieties of mangoes are dazzling, each having a different taste and structure. There is no such thing as 'the mango'. The non-organic fruit tried this season had an awful aftertaste which I think is due to pesticide. Organic seems to be the answer with Australian mangoes.

Another issue is the declaring of native wildlife a 'pest' that might 'steal' suburban exotic mangoes. In the Northern Territory mango farms shoot magpie geese.

As a consumer one should take care that not too much pesticide or blood clings to one's fruit crop.

Cold Drinks from Finger Limes and Passionfruit

Get
1 litre of cold mineral water
or cold filtered water
4 finger limes
1 lime

Do
Pour water into jug. Cut finger limes lengthwise, discard seeds. Scrape vegetarian caviar into water and stir. Cut washed limes into halves. Juice one half and add to the water. Cut the other half of the lime into 6 thin slices and stick a few on the edge of the glass. Pour mixture into glasses and enjoy on a hot day.

Get
1 litre of mineral water
or filtered water
8 passion fruit
2 Tbsp of agave syrup

Do
Cut pulp out of ripe passion fruit and press through a fine mesh sieve. Add agave syrup, stir. Place in jug and pour cold water on top. Mix and serve cold.

More Finger limes

Pink Grapefruit with Finger Limes or Granita

GET
1 Grapefruit
2 Finger Limes (Microcitrus australasica)


DO
Refrigerate fruit. Cut the grapefruit in halves. Cut around the edges with a grapefruit knife, cut along each wedge. Cut finger limes, in this case one of pink, one of lime colour lengthwise and distribute 'citrus cavier' over the grapefruit. Ready to eat on a hot day.

 More time... for a semi-frozen dessert?

Granita from Pink Grapefruit decorated with Finger Limes

GET
4 Pink Grapefruit
5 Limes
4 Finger limes
100 ml Orange juice
5 Tsp. Agave syrup

DO
Juice grapefruits and limes. Add flesh. Stir in the syrup with the orange juice, mix in the other citrus juice. Place in freezer. After 30 min. check for ice crystals. Stir with a fork. Repeat the process... A pleasure on a hot day.

After 4 hours distribute into glasses and serve. Decorate with various colours of finger limes or lime wedges.
If you distribute the mixture into  2 - 3 containers it freezes more quickly.

Dragon fruit - Pitaya Cactus with Lychees

Another fossil fuel powered heatwave calls for just fruit. Pitaya or "dragon fruit" is a night-blooming cactus with an edible fruit of various colours. This Hylocereus is yet again another food developed by Mesoamerican culture.

It has to be just ripe, overripe leaves an unpleasant taste behind. The seeds have a similar crunch to that of the Kiwi. The skin should be bright and even-colored. One can cut it in half and scoop it out (for further dessert processing) or peel it and cut it into chunks. The skin is discarded. When cut into slices, cookie cutters  can make decorative shapes.

The lychee fruit (Litchi chinensis) are best refrigerated and peeled just before consumption. The tastes vary from sweet to sour. Some have very large stones, some hardly any.

Black and White Sapote

Black Sapote

Black sapote, (Diospyros nigra) is like the best chocolate mousse without all the animal matter and sugar. When ripe it is one of the most delicious desserts. The tropical Chocolate Pudding Fruit or Chocolate Persimmon has been cultured in Mexico and Central America, but is now widely grown. A light cooling in the fridge, cut in halves and served with a spoon.

Black Sapote

The white sapote, (Casimiroa edulis) was also cultivated in the same region. When ripe the flesh tastes like vanilla custard. The seeds are larger than in the black sapote. One could use the pulp in a smoothie or desserts. With both fruit over ripeness is to be avoided.
 

White Sapote

Quinoa Salad with Finger Limes

This Quinoa salad is very similar to Tabbouleh made with bulgur wheat.

GET
1 cup uncooked quinoa
½  red onion
2 tomatoes
1 small red bell pepper
1 small 'Lebanese' cucumber
2 large bunches of flat-leaf parsley
1 bunch of fresh coriander
3 pieces of garlic
olive oil
lemon juice
2 Tbsp. Finger lime (Microcitrus australasica)
1½ cups water 

DO
Boil the water. Place quinoa in a fine sieve and rinse well under running water. When the water is boiling, add the grain and cook for 5 min. Turn down the flame, cover and simmer for another 10 - 15 minutes. When the quinoa is cooked, turn off the heat and allow to stand for a while.

Chop the onion and pepper very fine, peel the tomatoes and cut them and the peeled cucumber into small cubes. Chop the green herbs finely.

Mince the garlic and make a rich dressing from the oil, lemon juice and the garlic.

Cut the finger limes lengthwise and scoop out the pulp.

Fluff up the quinoa in a bowl with a fork. Add the dressing, mix and then add all the vegetables and herbs and mix gently. Allow to settle for a while, mix again and sprinkle the citrus caviar over the dish. Serve hot or cold.

Once in demand overseas even Australians pay attention: Citrus caviar plucked from the obscurity of the Australian rainforest... 14012015

Infusion of Raspberries and Passionfruit

get
5 ripe native raspberries
1 ripe passionfruit
Some lemon juice
4 mugs of filtered boiling water

do
Wash berries, scoop out passionfruit and put into a jug. Add a few drops of lemon and pour over the boiling water. Mash fruit a bit with a spoon and allow to stand for 3-5 min with a cover.
Strain into cups (hot) or glasses (when cold) and decorate with some extra berries or lime wedges.

The drink is nice as a hot 'tea', but can also be served cold with endless variations.


See
Queensland Raspberries
Native Raspberry Leaf Tea and Fruit (Rubus rosifolius)
Cold drinks from finger limes or passion fruit

Queensland Raspberries

Rubus probus is a widespread tropical raspberry that occurs in Queensland and in Papua New Guinea. Like the NSW Rubus rosifolius it is edible. It can be used like all other raspberries either raw - it has a slight crunch - stewed or in cakes. It also is cultured on the north coast of NSW. It is rather prickly and can form impenetrable thickets if left unpruned.

see
Native Raspberry Tea and Fruit (Rubus rosifolius)
Infusion of Raspberries and Passionfruit
Green salad with Native Raspberries and Violets

Jabuticaba - The Brazilian Grape Tree

Jabuticaba (Plinia cauliflora) is a tree from the Amazon, that bears large grape-like fruit directly on the trunks, limbs and main branches. The fruit is 3–4 cm in diameter with one to four large seeds.

Some people do not eat the skin and suck it out like a dark grape and discard the seeds. Any type of food like jams, sauces or juice and wine could be made from the fruits.


Being from the subtropical rain forests and cauliflory, it calls to mind many Australian cauliflorous trees that flower on the trunk.


Bumpy satinash (Syzygium cormiflorum)

Davidson's plum (Davidsonia pruriens)

Durobby  (Syzygium moorei)
and many more...

Update
Design of antiseptic formulations containing extract of Plinia cauliflora

Cherries that survived the snow and Paeonia

Paeonia (Paeoniaceae) in all varieties. Perfumed lilac and Lily of the Valley fill the air

Cherry blossom that stood in snow, now gives forth some cherries despite the climate disruption