Right. New haircut, new attitude (see Hair cut). No more moping, no more sulking (see Ennui, boredom, sadness and zoom doom; Sadness ; Nostalgia)
So today it‘s a positive vibe blog. A recipe post! Ooh exciting, I hear you say. Yes you’re right ! It is exciting. For today my friends I made jam. The holy grail of domesticity. I have a glut of plums sitting in my fridge. My daughter usually inhales plums but for some reason she is ignoring her plums for nectarines. I am not partial to plums and my son won’t touch them. Chump has them but only when forced. So the plums must go to make space for the nectarines. What to do with the plums ? Cake ? Ok. Crumble? Why not. Clafoutis? Yeah sure. But today I felt like none of those things. Today I felt like jam. I LOVE making jam. They make me feel accomplished. They make me feel like a real mother. It‘s the pinnacle of home cooking. I love using things that otherwise just sit there. I love the alchemy of fruit and sugar turning into something thick and unctuous. At the risk of sounding anti feminist (which believe me, I’m not- but that’s another post for another day), making jam makes me feel like I’ve had the best day and I am madly skilled. I say this as someone who has a professional qualification ( Welcome to my new blog) . That doesn’t make me feel skilled and valuable. Making jam does. Anyway making jam is not hard. It just requires attention. My method of making jam is not methodical or accurate. But it works. I guess now I use my instincts to make jam rather than relying on a recipe. You will need a sterilised jar obviously.
step 1: take a punnet of plums and cut them up (discard the stones), chuck them into your sauce pan with a bit of water. Sauté them on a medium high heat until they start to lose their integrity, much like a dirty politician. Depending on your stove this takes about 15-20 min.
step 2: now I add a good splash of rose water, a sprinkle of ground cinnamon and some lemon juice. Mix well. Then I add granulated sugar. I never measure my sugar because I just rely on my spidey senses but maybe about 1/3rd of a pack. And now you vigorously boil the jam for about 15 min. If you have a thermometer great. Use it. If you don’t, your spidey senses should start tingling when the jam gets thicker and spoonable. By now you should get that wonderful aroma of rose and plum. So intoxicating.
step 3: once jam has reached desired thickness, switch heat off and let it sit in the pan and cool down. It will also thicken as it cools.
step 4: once it’s cooled, put it into your sterilised jar. I don’t know how long it lasts for in the fridge because we eat ours quickly. On hot buttered toast.
See! Easy peasy. Haha ! I‘m joking. Making jam is daunting. But once you get the hang of it its easy and enjoyable and you will get the feel for how much of stuff you need to use. It’s like once you crack how to make salad dressing. You will never follow a recipe again. I did have a picture to show you but something messed up happened and now it’s gone. Sorry. Not sorry.
