Oh the Cuteness!

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! Thanks for always being there, taking care of me, and supporting me in everything I do. You are the biggest inspiration in the world to me and I am so thankful that I'm your daughter! I love you!

So my roommate and I have been trying to eat locally as much as possible lately, and I've always had an interest in wild edibles so we decided to try using wild food more in our home. About the same time I got my new bread book , I also purchased a great book called Edible and Useful Plants of California . It's from the late 1970's but is endlessly helpful in identifying the plants in our very own neighborhood that are good for salads, teas, jellies, etc. Our first big experiment was the pyrecantha jelly, which turned out phenomenally well. So I was walking around our immense back yard, book in hand, figuring out what was what. I noticed we had a huge patch of miner's lettuce so I picked some to make a salad.  It's a strange looking plant, kind of Lilly -pad shaped with a little tuft of flowers in the middle. In the book it said they had a nice succulent quality but were bland-tasting on their own. I picked some, washed them, tried a bite, and was pleasantly surpr...

In preparation for the (hopeful) abundance of our recently planted garden (pictures as soon as it stops raining I promise), I have been learning how to make jams, jellies, preserves, and pickles. I have wanted to do this since I was a little girl, and now that I have the time and resources at my disposal, I figured it was time. My first attempt at making jam turned out pretty good, but it was definitely a learning experience.  Angela, Dennis, and I went around the corner and picked loquats off of a tree growing out of the sidewalk. We brought them home, washed them, and I made jam from them. There are a few things I should have done differently: 1. Chopped them finer - I had no idea how resilient their skins were and assumed they would cook down softly, but they remained whole, which makes for a very chunky jam. 2. Used less sugar - Since I didn't have a recipe for loquat jam I used one for plum jam. I also didn't have as much fruit as the recipe called for, but I halved the re...