Fig Paste and Quince Paste

This year the 3rd year of my orchard I had enough quince and figs spare off the trees to make enough containers of paste to give away to family and friends. Part of the dream of owning a small farm and all the hard work to establish it from overgrown bushland is the feedback you get when people see the progress you have made. Although I only made 21 containers of quince past and 14 of fig paste that means at least 14 people get a gift of the set and give their feedback on the progress. Let's call it motivation in a tub.

Last year readers might recall I had an oversupply of Rosellas so I froze a few bags for this year and used them in both pastes. I used the husks of the rosella with the quince to insure the paste came out a deep red colour as my quince tree still being young doesn't yet produce fruit that go a real deep red of commercial brands of quince paste even after 3 hours of cooking. With the rosella seeds I boiled them in water to release the natural pectin to use with the fig paste and help it set allowing for less sugar to be used and maintaining more integrity of the fig flavour. Integrated farming is not only the management of the relationships between animals and plants and the best use of space, integration is also reflected into the usage of what you produce and using the rosella in this way is an example.


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