Good morning Maw and fellow jewels...
Well, it is still
HOT here, so I am making the most of the pool. I now have a wonderful tan.. got a little at a time, not I need a cruise to show it off on :lol
all four of the gardenia bushes have gone into a flower frenzy... they are totally covered in blooms. the scent is heavenly.
Einstein is right about yesterday, Monday I was busy with outside errands, on one of them I saw that the lady selling strawberries was set up, so I stopped and bought two flats. She has not been there since, so I am sure that with all this hot weather.. it is the end of the season.
So yesterday I got up ready to make jam.
I love homemade strawberry jam because it goes so well with my scones :grin I make some mock Devonshire cream, and all is right with the world.
So why is it that something that takes 10 min to process takes half a day, destroys a kitchen, and has every ant on the continent strapping on backpacks and heading to our house? :grin
The washing, cleaning jars, lids... and the topping, chopping, mixing, cooking part is the worst. But I love the feeling of satisfaction I get when I am spooning it into the jars.
Maw, I made one batch of strawberry, and then went out and picked some rhubarb and made a batch of Rhubarb and Strawberry jam. I can not wait to see how it turns out.
Usually I do not mix the both together. I actually do not like Strawberry and Rhubarb pie.. I think it a waste of Rhubarb :lol I love the Rhubarb taste so much, that I do not want to cut it with anything. But I thought that in a jam, the Rhubarb might give the strawberries a lift.
Now if I could ever find my old recipe for marmalade..
I "lost" the book some time ago.
All I remember is that it was one each orange, lemon and grapefruit.. But the difference was that you mixed it up, and I think you measured the fruit and then added the same amount of sugar.. then cooked it for x amount of minutes, turned off the heat and let it sit there until the next day, when you heated it up again, allowed it to simmer for x amount of min, cut off the heat.. and allowed it to sit there again for another night. Then you brought it back to the boil and added it into jars as usual.. It was a real tasty recipe, closest to old fashioned thick cut marmalade.
Oh well.. and the Autumn compote recipe is yet another great recipe I would love to find again. it was so good on ice cream...
heck, what am I doing cooking? I need to stick to water :grin
Talking about food..
I read a couple of books this week that I enjoyed, even as they horrified me with what goes on with the animals we consume... They are by Martha Grimes.. she usually writes about Richard Jury.. a Brit Police detective, and I have always loved those series. This was totally different, and engrossing..
the first was called "Biting the moon" and the second was a continuation of the main character called "Dakota"
Great books. I recommend them to the readers out there.
I have spent some of the morning editing and printing out some more recipes.. just in case my sis can come down this next holiday... But I have been having trouble with a few programs on this computer, now my "Word" program is acting up. I type the recipes in "word" and then print them out for my favorites book, plus I then save them in my cooking file. I am so frustrated.. as I wanted to do this all this morning. :lol
We have been viewing the NASA program on tv, and I look forward to seeing the next episode this Sunday.. actually we will tape it, so we can FF through the commercials :grin
I had hoped that when they showed the part with Armstrong having to splash down in the east China Sea.. that they would have shown him coming into port.. They came in on a small ship into Naha Harbour.. and I was right there. I was hoping to see "me" only younger :lol
Well, I will try to see if I can get "Word" to work for me again..
everyone take care.
Cheers :cheers
