A Festival of Strawberries

Guess who brought home 8 lbs. of strawberries then a couple days later 4 more lbs. plus 4.5 lbs of blackberries [I think he thought I used up all the 8 lbs by then]. Yup, you got it. I don't know what WG think I have in time to make jam and dessert but he sure must think I have a lot.

Prepping 5+ lbs of strawberries 

So today was a festival of strawberries after I finished my 1/2 day Summer Fridays [haha at 4pm, not so quite a 1/2 day Friday]. Here's the list of recipes that I hoped to whip up. 

• Strawberry Orange Jam [new recipe] 
• River Cafe Strawberry Sorbet
• SmittenKitchen.com Strawberry and Cream biscuits 
• Or my Strawberry cake recipe

My first recipe was the Strawberry Orange Jam from The Joy of Jams, Jellies and Other Sweet Preserves by Linda Ziedrich. I've tried several good recipes from this book and it has lots of great informations about jams and preserves. I figured I would find a new recipe for strawberries as I already made a batch my strawberry jam.  

Here's the recipe and below are the modifications I made. 

1 medium-sized orange

3 lbs  strawberries, hulled

4 1/2 c sugar

Remove the zest of the oranges in thin shreds. Squeeze out the juice and put it and the zest  into a preserving pan. Add the strawberries to the pan and mash them if they are firm. Cover the pan and simmer the strawberries until they are soft

Remove the pan from the heat and add the sugar. Stir the contents over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved. raise the heat to medium-high and boil the jam, stirring and skimming off the foam, until a drop mounds slightly in a chilled dish.

Ladle the jam into pint or half-pint mason jars. Add lids and rings, and process the jars for 10  minutes in a boiling-water bath. 

I didn't change up the recipe too much. I just added 1/2 cup less of sugar [I always add less sugar because I don't like so sweet] and add part of the juice orange to a cheese cloth and added it to the jam when I added the sugar [the last batch of marmalade that I made I did this and love the way it thickened up]. I chopped the strawberries instead of mashing it. I had already chopped them the night before [out of habit from my strawberry jam recipe].

2 pints and 3 1/2 pints ready to be eaten

I most definitely will make this recipe again. It smelled great as it was cooking up. I think the orange zest and juice made the scent of the jam not as sweet as the straight strawberry that can be overly sweet smelling at times. And it really tasted great. I guess that what happens when you use sweet fruits as both the strawberries and the oranges were very sweet. It's a chunky jam. I think my mom would love this one.

Next up River Cafe Strawberry Sorbet that I got from Food52. I made this last year and what and intense flavor of strawberries and lemon. Really good with a drizzle of condensed milk. You blitz a whole chopped lemon skin and all with the sugar in the food processor then add the strawberry puree and lemon juice. Then put it in your ice cream maker. This time I was lazy and didn't blitz the lemon and sugar enough so the lemon pieces are a bit chunky as is the strawberries. I guess I was losing steam from not so 1/2 day Friday. 

All ready for the ice cream maker

So I started to prep my strawberries for biscuits or cake, when I realized that I need to make creme brûlée for the restaurant. Then I realized that didn't have enough eggs to do both. I decide to eat dinner, then run out to get some eggs.

I guess this will have to wait till tomorrow

And maybe I should stop at to see the distress plants at Lowe's [the plant whisperer--my mom got me in the habit of visiting this rack first to see what we can save. Both money-wise and plant-wise] and get something to wash my car. 3 marigolds, 2 6-pks of impatiens, and 1 peruvian lily later, I'm too tired to start making biscuits or cake or creme brûlée. So I guess the festival of strawberries continues tomorrow with special guest of Blackberry Vanilla Jam. Stay tune for more strawberry goodies.

I hope it's in my blood

Just a quick post about my garden. A while I was asking my dad about my grandpa--his dad. He passed away before I was born. He's always been a mystery to me. He told me about vegetable garden and the gobo (burdock) he grew. 

Well, I'm not that stage in my garden life. But I am having a few success what I've growing from seed my lettuce, Swiss chard, cucumbers and soy beans are comind up. And my haricot vert beans are blooming. But these green onions I'm totally impressed with. I started the last summer into fall from cut bottoms from the restaurant and they lasted all winter till I harvested this morning. Not bad for an amateur. Hope farmer Joe will be impressed.

The plant whisperer maybe impressed with what I picked up from the distressed plant rack. 2 6-pack of impatiens and Peruvian lily. 

Gifts for 2

This shower gift started out as a a yellow and white chevron blanket. Until I found out the baby I was knitting for (this is one time FB came in handy) were twins--boy and girl.

So now the gift is bibs that I hope brightens mom and dad day when they are feeding the little ones. They made me smile knitting them.

Pattern: Baby Bib O' Love from Mason*Dixon Knitting

Yarn: 100% cotton mill ends from Lion Brand Outlet

Colors: grass green/lemon yellow; orange/purple

Spring is here!

But not. We got some flurry and a little dusting on the bushes and cars. Haha! what a tease. 70s on the weekend then a blast of cold air. Thank goodness I was way too lazy to do anything in the garden. 

My indoor garden is so-so. My sprouted onions seems to be very unhappy. May put it outside this weekend to see if they will do better in. My romaine lettuce, started from a bottom, seems to be holding it's own. Not the best looking head of lettuce but okay. And my geraniums, started from seeds that my Mom toss in a pot, are still going.

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5/7/14
I'm back. It's probably more than a month since i started this post and Spring is really here. The forsythia, cherry blossoms and daffodils have come and gone. And now it starts allergy season in full force. My car has a pale tinge of pollen green. Sneezing and itchy eyes are my morning wake up. Trying to be very diligent at taking care of my sinuses to avoid problems down the line. Ahaaa! Spring!

My indoor garden is in very bad shape. My onions and lettuce are done. I think they got fed up living inside. Oh well, I tried.

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5/30/14
I keep not finishing this post because I didn't get any pictures of my garden. I finally planted seeds, a little late--a week after Mother's day. Here's picture what it look like last week.

Green stalks closest to you are green onions from last year and I don't know how they survived this past winter but they did and looks even better than last year. Haricot Vert seedlings from my Chef T and my garlic looking good. I planted cucumbers, swiss chard, manoa lettuce and soy beans. Everything seems to be sprouting except the cucumbers, may have to try again. And some critter is digging in the garden. I know it's those squirrels. 

No flowers planted yet, Only bought a planter of petunias from the market because it was on sale. Hope to plant some zinnias seeds and some marigolds this weekend. Better pictures to come.

And more cake . . .

This one I've been dreaming of since I got Baking From my home to yours by Dorie Greenspan. And I finally got to make it for a belated birthday celebration for my Mom and my cousin's daughter "A". 

It's called Devil's Food White-Out Cake. 3 layers of devil's food cake with marshmallow frosting and cake crumbs all around. Of course, my cake doesn't look as good as the one on the cover but it looks pretty good.

Cake!

Who doesn't love a good layered cake. It has the right amount of icing to cake ratio, especially when it's a great buttercream, swiss is my favorite. I've been making plans to make a cake for my birthday. Something that I never made. Something a little bit fancy. I even made a pinterest board for it. 

The Log Cabin Begins

It's been a month since I last posted. I survived the deadline but still recovering from that last push. I have 2 posts in the que that I haven't finished. But I thought I'd post the project I just started.

Got a 3 skeins of this crazy yarn from a co-worker a long while back. She said it was from her Mom. It was old, not sure what the content is. I think it my be a wool blend. It's made up of 6 strands, 2 black and one strand each of light blue, pink, lavender and yellow. Just loose, not twisted together. 

So I decided to start a log cabin blanket. Been crazy about garter stitch lately. Made a log cabin cotton bath rug a while ago. Love the look, despite the glaring mistake. Turn right instead of left. 

Not sure how big it will be, probably a throw. Not sure who it is for. Kind of has a 90s feel. I 'm really liking what it's looking like. Here's what I have so far.

I'm on strip five. Stay tune for finished project.