Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Cold and Rainy Days

Yesterday afternoon a front came in that brought rain and cold weather. Sadly I planted out the last of my sweet potatoes. I hope they don't die from the shock of it all. Of course cold in June isn't all that cold. Today we had a high of 64F (18C). To me that meant it was a good time to use the stove. Yesterday afternoon I was jamming.

I haven't been getting a lot of strawberries at one time so it is small batch jam making. My recipe is very simple. I use a ratio of 1 cup of crushed strawberries (so the liquid fills up all the cracks), 1 cup sugar, 1 T lemon juice. One batch I made last week only had exactly that amount. Not much at all. This week's batch had twice that. As you can see I can barely it into my 10" fry pan without it coming over the top. Anything more and I have to go to a sauce pan. I like to use the wide fry pan if I can though. It means the jam cooks down fast and sets up well. Also I use my half cup jars so I don't have to bring out the huge canner. I use my smaller pots. My little Revereware pot can hold three little half cups and my three quart sauce pan can handle four of them. Sadly neither of them can handle a tall half pint jar. I really wish I had a pot that was tall but not all that wide.

Today I made granola as I was getting low.

And I do love my granola for breakfast. Not that you can see much granola in there. The strawberries are such photo hogs.

Remember a week ago on Harvest Monday when I showed you all those greens? Well I'm still trying to use them up. I think I have them about licked now. The above greens along with some mizuna got put into some biscuits. I used 2 cups whole wheat flour and 1 cup corn meal as my whole grains to add. And as you can see quite a mix of greens. Also part of my greens was about a quarter cup of garlic chives. I thought it would go well with the mix of greens and cheese.

I'll be eating one for dinner along with some wonton soup. I saved one of my boc choys for the soup. After that I'll only have salad greens and a half a bunch of mizuna left. I think I did a good job with those greens. Though I confess my townhouse mates did better, but they cheat. They have four people that will eat greens in their house and I only have one. Which means that tomorrow I'll have to go out and start picking again. Or I can wait and eat up my kohlrabi and garlic scapes.

5 comments:

  1. Your granola and jam looks so yummy! I eat homemade granola for breakfast almost every morning! Almost time to make up more. Hot and muggy here today and then late afternoon we received some rain. You do a much better than I do of using of your greens! Hope your sweet potato is okay. Nancy

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  2. I heard gondola, but never granola.

    Can we have granola with milk?

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  3. I like strawberry freezer jam, but as I am also finding an abundance of berries, I will whip up some cooked jam. Love granola, especially with strawberries.

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