An Apron Day

Tuesday 18th September 2012

I am having an apron day today.  It started early this morning when I thought I had better turn these

along with some lemon juice

and some sugar and gentle cooking

into these lovely jars of jam

Emily and Dave got the strawberries for me over the weekend and how could I resist making some lovely strawberry jam.  I smelt heavenly.

Then it was onwards to chopping up, what I think will be the last of my turnips, along with some cauliflower and onion and soaking it all in salty water to make mustard pickles.

This needs to soak overnight so the pickles will get made tomorrow.

Our eldest daughter and fiance had their engagement party over the weekend, and as a result they had HEAPS of left over chicken.  I threw some into my slow cooker yesterday to slowly simmer away, and pulled the meat off the bones last night before straining the stock.

It produced a large bowl of chicken meat and another large bowl of stock

which all got turned into chicken and noodle soup

chicken vegetable curry (using some peas from the garden)

and a filling for a curried chicken pie.  This gave both her and Rana and ourselves three meals each.  Well worth the effort.

I will be back in the kitchen again this afternoon to make bread, bake a cake and while I have the oven on I thought I would have a go at a cabbage frittata recipe that I have found.  We will have this along with some leftover salads from the party and a pineapple tart made from some leftover pineapple we had on pizzas on Friday night.

Here is the recipe for my strawberry jam that I got from an old CWA cookbook.

Strawberry Jam

To 1kg strawberries, cut in half lengthwise, allow 1kg sugar.  Put fruit into preserving pan (grease pan well) with juice 4 lemons.  Stir till it comes to the boil to prevent catching.  Add sugar.  Let boil rapidly 15 - 35 minutres, over cooking will darken, until syrup jellies.  Cool before bottling in heated jars.

Take care
Andrea