Oh the Cuteness!

Over the summer some of my  Stitch & Bitch  girls and I decided to have a jam making get-together. Laura, the hostess, and my friend  Carolyn  had never made jam before, but Erin, Heideh, and I were old pros and wanted to teach them. So we all got together and drove out to Brentwood to go to a farm to pick strawberries which was a total blast. Then we headed back to Laura's house to get our jam on (sorry haha). We hulled the massive piles of berries, zested and juiced lemons, and picked lavender from the garden while a cute little chocolate lab named Charlie distracted us. Massive pots of boiling water, bubbling batches of jam and preserves, and trays of sterile jars were everywhere. Luckily it wasn't too hot that day but the house still got steamy. Carolyn and Laura had a great time learning a new skill, and ended up with almost a dozen jars each of some truly delicious strawberry jam. I had enough jam at home so ...

Dennis helped me make pickles earlier this month! This was actually a bit of an experiment since I used Splenda instead of sugar because of the whole low-carb diet thing for him. I wanted to see if it would muddy the color or clarity or taste. The amount I used in the carrots, beets, and fennel is so small I'm sure it won't matter, but we've been wanting to make sweet pickled red onions ever since we had them on some tiny Moroccan spiced lamb burgers at one of our favorite local restaurants, The Hob Nob in Alameda. And now that we've perfected the recipe and method for making flax bread buns, it's lamb burger time baby! Pickles with washi tape labels? Yes please! The beets are spiced with clove, cardamom, star anise, allspice, and cinnamon. The fennel is just my plain picking spice blend, the recipe for which can be found here . The carrots have some of the pickling spice blend with extra whole cumin, coriander, mustard seed, and bay. And the sw...

Oh yeah... Fresh wild bird cherries in three colors (I guarantee you have these dwarf plum trees in your neighborhood) given to me by a dear friend, cooked down, strained, sugar added, cooked to soft ball stage, and canned properly. So much jam, so delicious. Everyone I know got a jar and we still have 2 left. Life is good.