Smoothberry jam

Four pots of smooth strawberry jam equals one happy husband!    After finding 1100mls of strawberry puree in the freezer,   I added an equal amount of sugar plus   4 tablespoons of lemon juice and  some 15 minutes or so later had the test batch on a saucer to see if it was done.  'The wrinkle test'  my book calls it,  but  when the jam didn't move even with the saucer tipped sideways,  I knew it was ready for bottling.

Made a loaf of wholemeal bread as well,  so that is breakfast sorted for tomorrow - and a few more days as well I hope.

The next challenge......what to do with today's  kilo of strawberries that I picked this afternoon.   Maybe  another boozy offering,  a friend suggested strawberry gin instead of using sloe berries,  but  I'm a vodka girl and found lots of sites for how to make strawberry vodka.   That does sound right up my street!   Seems you just need a bottle of vodka and about a pound or so of strawberries,  cut them into quarters and put into the vodka for anything between 3 to 7 days.    By then all the colour and flavour has gone into the vodka,  you strain it through a muslin or coffee filter,  chill and drink. It works best if you use a  glass jar with a lid,  then put it back into the bottle for chilling and serving.

So my next step is to check the vodka supply! 

Strawberry Margaritas.

Following on from lumpy strawberry jam and - depending on your point of view - possibly having too many of them as well,  there have been some suggestions for drinks using the surplus.   A friend has posted a link in the comments on the 'lumpy'  post  but even before we saw that  John made  these this evening....

 

Strawberry Margaritas....  

This is not something we drink very often,  maybe on a special sort of a day and only then if we have tequila,  and lime juice,  and  cointreau - or a taste-a-like own brand -  but today we've been out  doing a big stocking up shop and just thought we'd chill in the evening sunshine  with a slightly different drink. 

Very nice,  very different to my usual glass of wine,  and no lumps  :)

Tomorrow I'm going to make non - lumpy jam for him using the puree from the freezer.   No reason why it shouldn't work  and no reason why it should taste any different to normal jam, so I'll let you know!

Lumpy strawberry jam.

It's definitely strawberry season here,  Saturday I picked 700 grams and this afternoon another 800.   Now, I love strawberries.  Probably my number 1 favourite fruit after fresh pineapple,  or a crunchy granny smith,  but those we have to buy so I guess it's the most cost effective favourite fruit.   And all these are still coming from plants of plants of plants from the original 3 we bought about 7 years ago.  A good investment.

Back to strawberries and what to do them all?   I could eat them any time of day,  lovely straight from the plant all warm and sunny,  with yoghurt for breakfast,  in a fruit salad,  just a handful to nibble whenever.  John likes them sliced and sugared and left to marinate for a while and in a fruit salad,  but when Saturdays 700 grams appeared on the table there was a   "any chance of strawberry jam?"  request.   So that's what I made on Sunday,  when it was cool enough I dolloped some on a slice of buttery bread said  'try this.' 

Now I know everyone is different - the world would be very boring if not - but he does like his jam to be  - quote - not lumpy.   So raspberry seedless,  or bramble jelly,  I make peach jam and that's not a jelly and he enjoys that,  but when I asked how was the jam he said 'didn't manage to get rid of the lumps then!' 

I hoped he was joking but ....... 'You can't have strawberry jam without strawberries'   I said,  'otherwise you'd have to just use the juice  (how, I don't know)   and then it would be strawberry jelly.  The clue is in the name of it.'

In the freezer are a couple of pots of strawberry puree from last year that I was keeping for maybe using in a trifle or some other pudding out of season.  Next time I'm shopping I'm going to buy John a bag of sugar,  defrost the puree,  and leave him to experiment with a smooth strawberry jam.  I'm sure it'll work and taste exactly the same,  but to me strawberry jam has strawberries in it.    Lumps in other words.

Cute kid :)

Remember the grazing goats from the end of April?   They were out as usual last night but just half an hour or so ago when we went past there was an extra one,  quite a recent addition I think as it was quite wobbly still on it's legs.    Looking at mama I wonder if there is another to come yet?

Winning the battles.

I think we're winning the battle this week - or battles perhaps that should be.    2 weeks ago John was away for a couple of days and 4 days after he got home he got the dreaded lurgy that seems to occur after airline travel.  The sore throat,  stinking cold,  chesty cough,  aches and pains,  sound familiar?    Not content to keep it to himself,  last Sunday  I woke with the start of a sore throat and now 6 days later am still coughing,  chesty,  blocked nose and trying so hard not to wince and pull my back muscles again.   That was a problem for a couple of weeks,  but helped enormously by doing 20 minutes of exercises twice a day - luckily I'd kept the book that we got about 18 or so years ago when I had bad problems.

So the other battles are - or were - the sweet peas which are well on their way to a better life reseeding and rotting on the lower land,   a broad bean patch which collapsed in the winds of last week and the beans are not going to get any bigger with broken stems,  John cut them all down this morning and I de-beaned and podded -  3 lots in the freezer and the rest for the weekend,  and the rocket.  Well,  that was just a few plants that seeded themselves in the wrong place and that I moved into our raised bed.  They then grew and grew and grew and produced so many flowers and now so many seed pods,  that if they are allowed to seed themselves where they are,  they'll totally take over that vegetable plot.  I cut off all the flower / seedpod stalks this morning and put them in a bucket.  It's a large bucket,  one of those black rubbery ones that we all have loads of over here,  cheap and long lasting.

Tomorrow I need to de-seed the rocket so the big pods can dry out for next year,  and get planted where we want,  the rest will go to rot with the sweet peas probably.  Then the vegetable patch can be dug over and composted for our summer veg - the lettuces are still fine in there so we're going to add peppers, cucumbers, chillis, courgettes  and what ever else there is room for.  We try to keep that area as a kitchen garden as it's the closest to the house for when you just want something quickly,  rather than the rest of the veg patches which are for more long term stuff such as strawberries, squash, beans and peas.

Beautiful day yesterday and today, until about 4pm when a big cloud came over,  dropped loads of rain and disappeared.  Sunshine above us,  sunshine down the valley,  and the cloud just went once it had dropped it's rain.  Stopped me digging though!

More tomorrow - weather permitting.  It says a chance of rain,  ie 2mm - sometimes that just means heavy cloud which is good digging weather.