Oh dear,
as always with diaries, something happens. This time it was a speed awareness test in Tunbridge Wells, a trip to my father's and a trip to Bath to a memorial service. I have not been doing any cooking at all, and am now exhausted and not feeling at all like cooking.
However, I still have one remaining recipie from last week's stockpile of cooking. The last thing I cooked was strawberry jam.
I found a whole tray of strawberries at the farm shop for £3.60 - and I hulled them (if they are ripe this is preferable to the new fashion for simply slicing the tops of) and chopped up the larger ones. Then I weighed an equal amount of sugar and poured some of it over them, to cover them. I left them overnight. The next morning I brought the now soggy strawberries to the boil in a tall saucepan, and when they were soft I added most, but not all the sugar, plus the juice of half a lemon. I put the squeezed half lemon into the pan to add a bit of extra zip. If you add equal amounts of berry and sugar it is, to my thinking, too sweet; I then boiled until I reached the "Jam" mark on the sugar thermometer, and then I boiled and tested and boiled and tested. The "wrinkle test" is fairly well known, a tiny drop of juice on a cool clean plate, blow on it - see if it wrinkles slightly. Push it with your finger, does it wrinkle? Continue doing this until it does. Then turn off the heat and put rapidly.
Jam making is much less messy if you have a jam funnel. I usually ladle jam into a large jug and then pour it down the wide funnel into the jars. My jar preference is to re-cycle old jars, get water soluble labels off with hot water, non-water soluble labels need scourers and all sort, possibly the "Sticky stuff remover" product, or nail varnish remover to disolve the gum. This is worth doing if you have attractively shaped jars and are thinking of giving jam as presents. The best way to get the jars ready is to run them through the glass cycle in a dishwasher if you have one, otherwise, wash them, rinse in very hot water and dry them upside down in a low oven. This almost sterilises them! Boiling water if you're not faint-hearted.
The jam was utterly delicious - and I think I'll probably make some more.
What I ate
Thursday: scraps, then after the course went home via a nice pub and ate a platter of fishy things and a nice seafood risotto. I had a glass of wine too.
Friday: I can't remember - bits and pieces mostly. In the evening I heated up some rice and broccoli left overs and added the last of the mushroom soup making a very satisfactory mush. I then drove to my father's and had a very strong g&t.
Saturday: Due at a 2.00pm memorial service we anticipated cake perhaps. So we had bacon, scrambled egg on toast and mushrooms. I foolishly put a drop of milk in the scramble- makes if very soft... prefer not to do that again. At the memorial I ate a cheese and tomato sarni, and 3 egg sarnis. When I finally got home Ned had chosen snacks for me - sadly all wheatbased - so I ate the couscous to please him, but eschewed the pasta. I also ate some very nice salmon pate with chili rice crackers and some tomato. Not the most balanced and healthy diet, but not too bad.
as always with diaries, something happens. This time it was a speed awareness test in Tunbridge Wells, a trip to my father's and a trip to Bath to a memorial service. I have not been doing any cooking at all, and am now exhausted and not feeling at all like cooking.
However, I still have one remaining recipie from last week's stockpile of cooking. The last thing I cooked was strawberry jam.
Jam making is much less messy if you have a jam funnel. I usually ladle jam into a large jug and then pour it down the wide funnel into the jars. My jar preference is to re-cycle old jars, get water soluble labels off with hot water, non-water soluble labels need scourers and all sort, possibly the "Sticky stuff remover" product, or nail varnish remover to disolve the gum. This is worth doing if you have attractively shaped jars and are thinking of giving jam as presents. The best way to get the jars ready is to run them through the glass cycle in a dishwasher if you have one, otherwise, wash them, rinse in very hot water and dry them upside down in a low oven. This almost sterilises them! Boiling water if you're not faint-hearted.
The jam was utterly delicious - and I think I'll probably make some more.
What I ate
Thursday: scraps, then after the course went home via a nice pub and ate a platter of fishy things and a nice seafood risotto. I had a glass of wine too.
Friday: I can't remember - bits and pieces mostly. In the evening I heated up some rice and broccoli left overs and added the last of the mushroom soup making a very satisfactory mush. I then drove to my father's and had a very strong g&t.
Saturday: Due at a 2.00pm memorial service we anticipated cake perhaps. So we had bacon, scrambled egg on toast and mushrooms. I foolishly put a drop of milk in the scramble- makes if very soft... prefer not to do that again. At the memorial I ate a cheese and tomato sarni, and 3 egg sarnis. When I finally got home Ned had chosen snacks for me - sadly all wheatbased - so I ate the couscous to please him, but eschewed the pasta. I also ate some very nice salmon pate with chili rice crackers and some tomato. Not the most balanced and healthy diet, but not too bad.
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