That Thing Our Grannies Did? Oh Right, Preserves (With a Recipe)

I never thought I would see the day when I would take to the bottle.  Now wait a minute, I'm not becoming an alcoholic, oh no.  I'm referring to preserves.  In my earlier youth (as I'm really not past my youth, at least not for the next 60 years), I never thought I would get into preserves.  I always saw it as a time consuming process and it's so much easier to buy those items.

My first bout of "preserving" was when our Bishop's Hat Chilli plant gave a fair amount of chillies last year.  I came across a Chilli Jam recipe, that I wanted to try for an evening of entertainment we had planned for the same day.  What better accompaniment for a cheese platter than chilli jam, and as it is a Nigella recipe I didn't think it could be difficult.  Oh my word, what an epic royal mess.  Right there I decided to hell with preserving.  What threw me was the use of pectin, which was a, rather expensive, and b, caused me to lose 2/3rds of my jam mixture due to the pectin messing around and causing horrible gooey lumps in the jam.

I Can't Believe I'm On One

I know it's been a long time since my last blog, but bear with me.  There's a valid reason for that.  Husband and I have been on... well, let me spell it, as I shudder to say it.  D.  I.  E.  T.  I have been overweight since forever, and with Husband having found out his cholesterol is WAAAAAY to high, I decided to... THAT word, with him.  Unfortunately, by this afternoon I was having withdrawal symptoms from my kitchen.  Yes, I can get creative with food, and keeping Husband happy with dinner is difficult with the boring foods given on this... plan, however, I think I did quite well the last two weeks.

Pasta Incaciata (No, That's Not a Swearword)

Aubergines, eggplant, brinjals, whatever you want to call them, I have to think of more ways to prepare them.  Our aubergine plant is going crazy.  We've probably harvested close to twenty, there's six more on the bush almost ready to harvest, and a whole lot of flowers.  Fried aubergines is just not cutting it anymore.  This is what lead to the wonderful swearword:  INCACIATA.


I know it sounds like a spell from Harry Potter, but I promise you, this is a wonderful dish to make ahead for the next night.  We would've had this on Tuesday night (the 21st), but I overestimated the amount of pasta needed, meaning we had the leftover pasta for dinner on Tuesday, and the incaciata for dinner yesterday.  I promise you, it isn't as complicated as it sounds.

Egg Free What?!?!?

Before I can go into detail with a statement from Zumba that nearly had me in a seisure I have to mentioun our garden.  As mentioned previously, we grow our own herbs, but we also have a few other food producing trees (if you can call an aubergine bush, a variety of 3 chilli bushes, a blue berry bush, and a pomegranate bush as a few others).  Our aubergine bush has been in overdrive during January, as to date, we have harvested a total of 9 HUGE aubergines, and there's a whole lot more baby aubergines.  Can you say happy plant?

Sitting Down for Tea - A Lost Art

I like the older traditions.  There, I said it.  Many of our friends are mildly surprised when they come over for tea the first time, especially if it happens to be on a weekend when I have time. I enjoy putting out the teacups, making a big pot of tea, and having the sugar bowl and milk pitcher on the side.  I never planned to host a tea, but it happened that way by pure chance.

Garden Party

Let's be honest.  A garden party is a good excuse to have wine with friends.  Our back garden has been revamped, and it looks amazing.  Just ask any of the friends that were here last night.  And we finally found a range of wine glasses we like.  No, not the normal ones (and definitely no the overpriced ones) but decent glasses that are available in the bigger sizes for red wine.  Red wine just tastes so much better in a bigger glass.  And of course, in typical Tiffany's fashion, I couldn't let the table stand bare of snacks from my side.  The interesting part is I planned the snacks under the impression today (21 January) is the Chinese New Year, however, it is only on the 28th.

It Came, It Finally Came!!!

Yes, after being almost 2 weeks overdue, my Turkish tea pot has finally arrived.  Isn't she a beauty?  Sad it may be, but I just had to use it today.  I so badly wanted to have a Turkish meal with the first pot ever brewed, but I don't have the patience to wait, so stuff it.  And how how glad I was for it.  I absolutely LOVE Turkish tea.