A few weeks ago months ago (man times flies), I headed to the country in pursuit of an old 50's bond wood caravan. I found one on gumtree which was 3 hours away. I know totally nuts, who drives 3 hours to look at a old caravan? Me, thats who! I put it down to my mid life no scratch that my quarter life crisis, most people buy fast red cars, not me I go looking for the old vintage stuff.
So I headed off to the country with my Mum, who I persuaded to come along with me for the company, that and I need a car with a tow-bar on it. See totally nuts I don't even have a car that can pull a caravan!! Anyway we headed off and because we where out in the county I figured that would be the place to find an old caravan just incase the one we where off to see wasn't right, which sadly it wasn't. So this is how the trip went the whole way there and back, yep 6 hours of it, well something to this effect.
Mum is that a caravan?
No its a truck
Is that a caravan?
No its a sheet on someones clothes line
Mum is that a caravan?
Yes but too modern
Is that a caravan
No its a goat
Is that one?
No its a car
Is that one?
Yes but too modern
Until...
Is that a caravan??
No its not a caravan its just an over grown carport
Are you sure, it looks like a caravan to me?
So Mum jumps out to have a look and sure enough its an old wooden caravan.
The owner a older gentleman, Joe, happened to be in his garden and comes out. He shows me the caravan which sadly had been sitting there a very long time and the whole back of it had fallen out and the contents of the caravan were slowly finding there way to the great outdoors. It was a bit far gone for my handy woman skills.
Joe lives in a little town about 1.5 hours from Melbourne, where he has an amazing garden filled with all types of veggies. Joe and my Mum got on like a house on fire, as they both share a love of gardening, we were at Joe's for about an hour with them discussing the way to plant different types of plants. We left Joe's with a few rather large bags of plant cuttings for my Mum to plant.
Dotted all along the road side near Joe's where blackberry plants which reminded me of where I lived as a child, there were no blackberries on the bush, however it gave me a craving for that sweet juicy taste that only blackberries have, so when I got back to Melbourne I decided I would whip this next recipe up for you, which unfortunately uses canned blackberries rather than fresh ones but hey, its sweet and delicious.
Blackberry Slice
Filling
1 can blackberries with liquid (415g)
1 cup sugar
Pastry
200g butter
2 cups flour
1/3 cup almond meal
1/2 sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon water
Pre heat oven to 150C
Place the blackberries and sugar into a saucepan and simmer until the mixture starts to thicken. Remove from the heat and set aside.
Place the butter, flour, almond meal and sugar in a food processor and pulse until it resembles fine bread crumbs. Then pulse in the egg and water until a dough forms. Remove from the processor and knead a couple of times. Press half the dough into a lines 25X20 cm tin. Pour in the filling and then roll out the remaining dough and cut into strips, lay these over the top to form a lattice pattern. Place in the oven and bake for 30mins or until golden.
