Microwave Strawberry Jam

One of my friends can only be described as the REAL domestic goddess.  While she and her husband lived in Australia, going to dinner at her house was inspiring - she always seemed completely unflappable and completely in control in the kitchen, even when catering for 30 or so people.

Not only that, be she seemed to have found the time to learn how to do EVERYTHING.  This clever lady makes amazing christmas dinners, puddings, wedding cakes and most importantly of all for today, jam.

My friend has returned to her home in the UK now, but still inspires me with her facebook posts.  Recently, she put up a few posts about the plethora of jam she was making, which I thought was incredible.  My understanding was that jam is really hard to make, hard to get to set and the idea of sterilizing jars seemed overly complicated, so I was in complete awe.

Last Sunday I had a heap of week old strawberries in my fridge (I'd been traveling for work, so hadn't got them eaten up), so I very tentatively did a search on taste.com for strawberry recipes to use them up with.

Feeling very brave, and with some encouragement from Hubby, I found this recipe here, which seemed unbelievably simple.  The additional commentary from other readers was very helpful too.

I weighed out all my strawberries - turned out I had about 340g rather than the 500g in the recipe.  I also didn't have the required lemon, but I did have a squeezy bottle of lemon juice we use to cook with, so that went in instead.  Can I just now that lemon, strawberries and sugar all in a bowl together smell AWESOME.  Then it was just a case of cooking the jam in a microwave for 15 minutes.

The most difficult thing about the whole process was simply patience.  I didn't have a 3L microwavable container (mine was about half that), which meant standing over the microwave, stopping it and giving it a stir to cool down every time it threatened to spill over the top.  That worked out to be roughly every minute, to minute and a half, and you have to watch it like a hawk.  The one moment I was distracted, sticky strawberry goo went everywhere.

I had no idea how to sterilize a jar, but Hubby told me to boil the kettle, fill a clean jam jar with boiling water for a few minutes (and the lid too) and then tip the water out and pour the hot jam in.  My 340-ish grams of strawberries made just enough to fill one 284g jam jar, with one spoonful left over.  I screwed the lid on, tipped it upside down and left it for two minutes, then turned it right way up to cool.

Amazingly enough, while I was doing that, the solitary spoonful left in the microwave container cooled down.... and SET with no extra effort from me whatsoever.  I figured that meant that the jam in the jar would set too when it cooled down, and did a celebratory jig in my kitchen while eating that triumphant spoonful.

What also amazed me, was that as the jar cooled down, THE SEAL ON THE TOP OF THE LID SEALED PROPERLY!  Regardless of whether I had sterilized my jar 'properly' or not, it seemed that I had still gotten it vacuum sealed.  For some reason, that makes me unbelievably excited.

We cracked into the jam a little to soon - it hadn't fully cooled down, so it hadn't quite set, but the crumpets Hubby bought for breakfast just looked too good not to spoon my jam onto.  We've actually eaten more jam this week than we ever normally would SIMPLY BECAUSE IT TASTES SO GOOD.  The remaining jam did set properly, and we have nearly finished the jar.... perhaps I need to get more strawberries and start again?

The Herb Garden

For as long as I can remember, Hubby and I have dreamed and talked of the day when we would own our own house, have a yard and then build a veggie patch in it.

Six months ago we bought our house.  We have our yard.  But still, we are yet to build a veggie patch.  It's a pretty daunting task for two completely inexperienced gardeners!

Last weekend we finally bit the bullet and made a start.

The previous owner had built a planter box next to our patio, so all we had to do was buy a truckload of new potting mix, dynamic lifter and blood and bone to bring it back to life.  We turned the soil already in it over, and mixed in our new purchases to really build the soil up.

Our next job was to fill it up.  From the above picture, I know the planter box looks very empty.... but let me assure you that it's not!

The six little seedlings in the far right are strawberry plants.  I love strawberries, and I am super excited about the idea of growing my own.

The other row of seedlings in the middle are half thyme and half sage.  In between the strawberries and the other row are endless seeds - two different types of parsley, chives, coriander and oregano.  The space to the far left is all basil.  We like basil, so we've planted LOADS.  I'm desperately hoping all our little seeds grow - I'd rather have to thin then out then admit defeat!  Hopefully in the next week or so we'll start to see them poking up!

Mexican Veggie Soup

Not too long ago, my Sis put me onto a very basic, simple veggie soup recipe.  It's actually a Weight Watchers recipe (zero points to boot!).  She put me onto it because, like many other people, we were running short on easy, fast, healthy meals to take to work for lunch.

The basic, 6 serve recipe calls for:-
- 2 carrots, chopped into 1cm pieces
- 2 zucchini, chopped into 1cm pieces
- 2 celery stalks, chopped into 1cm pieces
- 1 capsicum, chopped into 1cm pieces
- 1 medium onion, sliced
- 2 x 400g diced tomatoes
- 1L of chicken stock

Basically, you then stick it all into a big pot, bring it to the boil, then simmer it for 20 minutes and you're done.  I make this with no more than a chopping board, knife and the pot itself (and a can opener of course), which makes for easy cleaning after.

Now, while I love my veggies, and I love this for lunch because it is a GREAT way to get some serious veggie serves into you, this recipe is dull beyond belief.  When I first made it, I added in chilli powder and crushed garlic just to give it pep.  That actually turned out pretty good, because the chilli developed over the course of the week - so every day the soup was a bit spicier.  The I started putting a can of five bean mix into it at the end, because Hubby and I both noticed that by about 3pm, we were STARVING and the bit of carbs helped us stay fuller longer (that did, of course, up the WW points, but over six serves, you're still looking at less than a point a serve).

Last week I decided to mix it up a bit more.  We'd had nachos as a treat for dinner the night before, and that got me thinking.  How can I make this soup into a vegetarian, chilli con carne-esq meal?

I threw in my regular veggies as above, and then I added in mushroom and green beans (they needed eating up).  I threw in a heap of paprika (have I mentioned I love paprika?), chilli powder, cumin and garlic to try and get that 'Mexican' flavour.  Then I added in a big handful of roughly chopped black olives.  Once it was just about cooked, I threw in a can of five bean mix (I wanted kidney beans, but we didn't have any!).

I was a bit unsure about whether I had hit the mark on this - for instance, a can of corn in here would have probably helped a lot, and it just missed meat.  Really, it needed some meat in there.  But the next day at work, I got an unexpected phone call.  This soup was such a win that my Hubby rang me from his office just to tell me how good it was.  Lunch time win?  I think so.

Best Birthday Cake

For some time now, I have been completely in love with the smitten kitchen blog.  I check it every morning for updates, new posts, and if there aren't any, rely on the awfully clever 'Surprise Me' button for a recipe fix.

Somehow or another though, I've become fixated on one recipe in particular.  Deb's Best Birthday Cake in fact.  I find myself continually drawn to that recipe, even though I rarely have a reason to bake a whole cake, cannot in fact remember the last time I made a whole cake and somehow suspect I have never actually baked a whole cake greater than one layer and without the use of a packet mix....

So when Hubby decided to have a BBQ recently with our neighbours, his sister and a couple of other close friends, I jumped at the chance to provide a dessert, without perhaps realizing the level of sheer panic I would induce in myself at trying to get it made and the house in a state to receive visitors in one morning (this also involved me closing a cupboard door on my head that left an impressive lump on my temple, but that's another story).

After my more recent endless cupcake escapades, Hubby had scoured ebay to get me an affordable Kenwood, which is now my prized possession.  Armed with this, and what I thought was PLENTY of time, I got stuck into making my masterpiece.

 Can I just say now, that I REALLY enjoyed making this cake.  I really, really wish that it was the only job I had to do that morning, because I have to admit, the slightest timing hitch was going to really interfere with me finishing on time.

The only problem I really had with the whole thing, was getting the two cakes (my fab Neighbour lent me a second cake tin) to actually bake all the way through.  THEY JUST WOULDN'T!  And the end result was, that I actually burnt the bottom of both cakes.  Fortunately, when I trimmed them to make them all flat and level, I trimmed off the burnt bottom.  Does anyone have any advice on this one?

I was a little scared about assembling the cake - as I've mentioned before, I have never made a 'big' cake.  Or any kind of multi-layer cake.  Cutting each cake in half was a bit nerve-wracking, but I got there in the end! 

Successfully icing the cake was a bit tricky too.  By the time I was actually icing, a few guests had arrived and were cheering me along which I found very helpful.  In the end, while the icing job certainly doesn't look particularly professional, I argued that I was going for a more 'rustic' look.  I just wish I had put HEAPS more in between the layers.

  

As you can see from the above photo, my cake was definitely overcooked.  But I took IMMENSE satisfaction out of baking something so out of the ordinary for a everyday BBQ.  And surely my icing skills can only get better?