Journalist and chef Jaci Hicken.
Photo by
Jaci Hicken
Jaci Hicken, our seasoned journalist and trained chef, shares her wealth of knowledge on growing, cooking and preserving homegrown produce. In this edition, Jaci is planning her 2026.
It is the 18th year of tending to my vegetable garden, watching the seasons, paying attention to what grows when, what needs what feed and care, when to harvest and how to preserve the bounty.
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And it feels, in 2026, that it has started to become second nature.
On top of that, as my hair becomes more salt than pepper, I want to spend more time enjoying my bounty, spend less pulling out weeds and consolidate what there is to share.
This consolidation means sharing more of fewer things.
We will start with sharing everything tomatoes.
We will be vacolaing tomatoes, making tomato sauce for the top of your meat pie, spending a couple of days making tomato paste by hand and cooking my favourite green tomato relish.
If you have a chutney recipe for me to try, maybe the one with Ezysauce, maybe your mother’s personal or a favourite recipe, then get in touch — I’m always on the hunt for new recipes to try with this season's tomatoes.
We could visit a tomato farm, learn how to grow tomatoes better and what makes the perfect tomato.
That will get us to Easter.
Then I’m thinking of moving on to pastry, specifically tarts.
It will take us weeks to build a French fruit tart.
First, there will be the pastry, then the custard, followed by deciding what fruit to put on the top — do we do strawberries, peaches, apricots, plums or a combination of everything? — finally sealing our tart with glaze.
And if we have built a French fruit tart, should we take the next step and build a lemon meringue pie?
We have already made the lemon curd for a lemon meringue pie, so we are a quarter of the way there already.
Jaci can cook lemon curd.
Photo by
Jaci Hicken
Lastly, I’m stepping back into yesteryear, channelling my inner grandma, and diving into everything bottling, what we can bottle and preserve, and the different preserving methods.
Things like the differences between water bathing, cold packing, hot packing and pressure canning, and why you would do one and not the other.
Jaci can cook — why I vacola.
Photo by
Jaci Hicken
Maybe see what other experts are out there and ask them the questions you want me to ask, so we can all have the answers we need to do things properly; well, at least not give ourselves food poisoning.
We all really want to know why you can’t put spaghetti in a vacola jar anymore, as my grandma use to do, let alone how long it can sit in the cupboard before anyone, if anyone ever, eats it (and it was in the cupboard at Grandma's for a long, long time).
I am on this Jaci can cook food adventure for 2026 — if there is anything you want me to explore, to find out or cook, let me know and together we can explore it.
See you all in the kitchen soon!
– Jaci
Is there anything you would like Jaci to explore, cook and share in 2026? Drop her a line and let her know at jaci.hicken@mmg.com.au
