What's better than 14 jars of cherry jam?

Well - 14 jars of cherry jam and 2 litres of cherry vodka steeping away.

Had a lovely afternoon picking cherries and chatting with friends, then came home and got stuck into making jam.

The Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy Cherry Jam Recipe.


Rinse cherries through a colander, then squeeze the pips out, discarding the stones and throwing the slightly squished cherry straight into a saucepan.

Squeeze out as many cherries as you can, all three of us worked at it until our fingers had gone all prune-like and wrinkley.

Boil the cherries in their own juice, and the juice of 2 freshly squeezed lemons (see what I did with the title of the recipe there) for about 20 minutes until soft and squishy, remove any scummy bits from the surface as they boil.

Meanwhile sterilise some jam jars - wash thoroughly, rinse then pour in some boiling water, put the tops on tightly and stand upside down until ready to use.

Now comes the tricky bit, using a measuring jug or a cup measure transfer the cherries to a jam making pot.  The pot needs to be much larger than your volume of cherries as they need to bubble when cooking.  Count your volume, either how many litres of cherries and liquid you are transferring or how many cups it takes to transfer to the bigger pot.

Now for every full measure you need to add 3/4 of sugar; for example if measuring in cups (my favourite because it is so easy)  1 cup of cherries transferred = 3/4 cup of sugar therefore 4 cups of cherries transferred = 3 cups of sugar, or,  1 litre of cherries = 750ml of sugar.

There you go that's all the complicated maths over with now.

Start the liquid off into a rolling boil, it should only need about 7 minutes, but check with the saucer test until jam consistency is reached (drip a bit of the jam mix onto a cold saucer, wait 60 seconds then touch the edge of the drip, and a light skin should have started to form on the top).  I really must get round to buying a jam thermometer.

Pour out the cooled boiling water from the jars and start ladling in your hot jam.  Seal tightly and turn onto lid to cool for a few minutes before turning the right side up to store  (metal lids should pop down as the jam cools once right way up).

For an Italian-esque style jam, add a couple of drops of almond essence into each jar.

Photos will be added to this tutorial tomorrow when I have remembered to charge the battery in my camera again! - done

So thank you (you know who you are) for the gorgeous cherries!

The best cherries for jam making are the bright scarlet slightly sour cherries, for eating the darker purple berries are much sweeter.

Once we had eaten all the cherries we could manage, there was still half a bag full so I have added them to some vodka.  They will be left to steep for about a month in a cool dark place, until the vodka has gone a rich red in colour, then it will be cocktail time - in fact, just in time for my birthday!

Saturday Brioche Breakfast - easy recipe

For some reason on Saturday I just had an overwhelming urge for brioche for breakfast - although it was more like elevenses by the time I got round to eating after baking it.

I am not a great baker nor cake maker and so I have only my bread machine to thank for the success of this recipe which never fails.

Brioche:

40g butter (never ever ever margarine)
50ml milk
150ml cold water
1 egg
25 g sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
500g self raising flour or farine fluide in France
1 tablespoon baking powder (for extra lightness and fluffiness)
1 cup sultanas or raisins or dried cranberries or other dried fruits (by a cup I usually mean a cupped handful)

As this is going into the bread machine, all the wet ingredients go in first, then the flour topped by the dried fruit, my machine has a fruit and nut loaf option but if not use the wholemeal extra long rise options, on a medium crust and size setting if applicable.

Alternatively sift the flour into a bowl, soften the butter and beat together the wet ingredients before adding to the flour, to create a very soft and light dough before incorporating the dried fruit, leave to rise, beat down and fold a few times, then leave to rise again in warm place covered in a damp towel so that the dough does not dry out, until the dough has doubled in size, then gently place in a greased bread tin, and bake at 180 degrees C for 40 minutes or until brown on the crust.

Serve warm with melted butter for a self indulgent treat for breakfast lunch and dinner.

New Pantry and a quick and easy fish recipe

First cucumber seedlings coming through.


Brendan has finished my pantry so I can move all that remains of my food stocks back inside from the barn - the mice were having a field day in there.

Yesterday I recovered the old shelves with a second hand vinyl tablecloth so they now have lovely and cheery yellow wipe down surfaces - very reminiscent of the 50's interior design styles.

Then today it was all hands on deck moving crates of preserves, flour, pasta and rice, not to mention all the bottle and bottles of alcohol back indoors.

Feeling utterly wiped out at the moment, and a bit blue, even though the sun is out and it has been lovely and warm for a few days.

I am not sure what I need to lift my mood (apart from some good news) so I am taking tomorrow's project to pamper myself a bit. After work I am going to meet a friend, I will change my clothes so I look a bit smarter and put some make-up on, maybe that will help.

In the meantime - after lugging jars and jars of my homemade chutneys and jams and those umpteen bottles of elderberry vodka back into the pantry I am going to make a quick and easy creamy fish dinner with some of last year's harvest of spuds and this years new growth of parsley, accompanied by a vodka cocktail.

Cocktail:

1 generous shot of elderberry vodka
1 generous measure of blackberry syrup
Half a highball glass of lemonade
Pour over frozen lemon slices and elderflower syrup ice-cubes

Creamy fishy dinner:

Boil some spuds and set aside in an oven dish to keep warm - I do this because I like my spuds quite dry when making a delicate flavoured sauce, and I can put them in the Rayburn oven leaving me the hot plate free to make my fish sauce

take 3 fillets of a boneless white fish
add some french beans
and simmer gently in half a litre of vegetable stock, until reduced to about half the volume

when beans are tender and liquid has reduced add a generous amount of cream and stir through while it warms
finish with a couple of grinds of black pepper and a big handful of fresh parsley - mine is now just big enough to harvest straight from the garden


As a cheer me up tonight I intend to eat on my lap in front of the TV, cheering on Daphne in Eggheads!