Good evening, morning etc to you all. I feel quite tired now. I think I have worn myself out making rhubarb jam. It was fun though!
This is what it looked like yesterday when I put rhubarb, sugar and lemon juice in the fridge overnight.
And this is what it looks like now..
I do not have a happy history of jam making. I once boiled up some plum jam for far too long and the sugar went all hard and crystallised. I only ended up with about 3 jars of jam rather than about 8 it was supposed to make and it was really hard and crunchy. Then last time I made jam I couldn’t get it to set at all and it was really runny. I left it on the side, luckily sealed up, and next time I visited the kitchen there was some big ant convention going on. I’m talking MASSES of them, running in trains from the window all across the kitchen work surface to my tray with jam pots on, like some sort of horror film. Well, today, aided by my jam thermometer David bought me ages ago, it all seems to have gone quite smoothly. The jam is slightly runnier than I would have liked, but it is really tasty, I had some on toast for tea. I am so pleased I invested in these new jam jars too via Ocado. They look so cute with the red chequered tops. I can keep these now and reuse them for future jam projects.
My mother is a master marmalade maker. I don’t think I will ever reach her standards of preserve making. But I am improving. And I feel proud of myself at persevering with a task that still daunts me a bit. I was pleased to use this old recipe book for the rhubarb jam..it’s a Reader’s Digest book from 1977. It has lovely coloured drawings in rather than photographs and lots of really useful information. I bought it at a car boot sale a long time ago.
I promised to show you the rest of the photos from Thursday’s hot walk around Boveney lock/Dorney Common area, so here they are. We really enjoyed this walk. The scenery is like stepping back in time. The Dorney Common land is ancient common land. The old church is so cute, dating back to the twelfth century.
In other Waffle news, I have completed my Mosaicraft now and it is framed on the wall in my study.
Last night I made another round of Mojitos, using a slightly different recipe. They were good!
I served these with quite randomly with prawn crackers. Then we had liver, bacon and onions from “Cook” with boiled potatoes, followed by Pots & Co salted caramel chocolate ganache. They are like the best, thick chocolate mousses in the world. Ever. We buy them from Ocado. David always declares on finishing his last spoonful that he’s going to write to the company to see if they’ll make him a gallon tub of it he would eat to himself in one sitting. I wouldn’t underestimate his ability to consume this. He used to polish off an entire tub of Cornish vanilla ice cream followed by a gout attack the next morning.
Well let’s just hope us Brits don’t embarrass ourselves too much this week. I was shocked to see the pictures of craziness and overcrowding at Bournemouth beach, especially when I saw a picture of the same on an American blogger’s site, as an example of idiots around the world! So just behave yourselves, right!? Let’s keep safe and not go too crazy even if the sun is shining. 😎😊🌞🌼. You can do this 💇♀️ soon, but not this 💅🏻. Only do this 💃on your own at home or with a few other people outside at a distance. You can book this 🏖but I won’t be doing so yet. I’ll be at home doing this🎹, this 🧘♀️, and this 🍸☕️🍽🍪🍫🍰🥟🥗🙂🙃xxx
The Windsor Waffle 