A Domesticated Male Jamming in the Kitchen

Damson Jam

There comes a rare moment in a mans life when he comes to work on a Monday morning, and feels as though he has spent the entire weekend in the kitchen.  Today, that event has come with me holding my hand up, and laying down such confessions.  

What was it that inspired/ caused me to do such a thing?  I'm not entirely sure, but it may have something to do with having lots of things lying around that need eating, a tidying of the fridge and freezer, and a wife who is persistent on discussing the logistics of our daughters birthday party nearly a month before it is due to take place.

Damsons growing in the tree

It started when Olive and I went blackberry picking, which is an annual thing we all tend to do.  What I wasn't counting on was that the majority of the blackberry bushes in the area were pretty much bare.  Also, when I got Olive to hold the tub while I picked said fruit, after ten minutes I was surprised/ not surprised (delete as applicable) to see there were only five left in there and a sweet girl was looking back at me with tiny black juicy balls smothered around her mouth.  A knowledge of her being happy, and an internal memo to convey the message Julia and I may need to be more vigilant on the toilet department in the morning, We set off looking for something different.

This time I found at the top of our road where there are some allotments, a number of Damson tree's overhanging and dropping fruit onto the pavement.  This was the chance for something new.  There was no chance she could eat her way through what we could get off those trees!  So we got to work, I pulled a branch down, and she pulled off the best Damsons, until we had a full bag.

Making the Strawberry Jam

I hate to pick more than you can chew, and as Damsons are quite sharp in their flavour, we kind of broke this rule after the first one.  With this in mind, I decided to make some jam, and with 1.2kg of fruit, we made a lot of jam!  I didn't stop there either, with the fridge being cleared of mouldy jam jars, year old gherkins, and the freezer emptied of a tub of strawberries from a picking session at another time, I got to making some more strawberry jam as well.  It wont stop there either, once some friends have returned the jars of jam that I have given out, and I find some more jars, I also found some frozen blackberries that take us full circle to where I began this piece.  They, will also meet the fate of the big pot, a blast of heat, and a man studiously waiting for the thermometer to hit the word 'JAM', aka 104 C.

My method for making jam is:  Clean some jam jars, and put them in the oven at 150 C to sterilise; weigh the fruit, and then weigh 90-100% of the weight in sugar, and approx 1/3 of the weight in water.  Heat the fruit in the water up until it gets soft.  Add the sugar in intervals to dissolve.  Add a few tsp's of lemon juice (if your sugar isn't jam sugar that should contain pectin).  Plonk the thermometer in, and crank up the heat until it gets to 104 C.  Take off the heat, spoon away the scum, and pour straight into the jars (which will already be warm, so wont crack).

So tempting when in possession to want to slap someone with this

First effort at filleting a whole salmon

Not being satisfied with jam, the supermarket were practically giving away whole salmon as well, so I managed to hold of one approx 18" long (so fairly small), and lay my hand at working out how you fillet such a thing.  The first effort wasn't pretty, but still in one piece, the second effort came off swiftly.  I then portioned them both up into bags for five separate meals at home.

I also bought some Spelt flour to bake some bread, but that didn't quite go to plan.  It is edible, but I wasn't happy with how compact the crumb was.  I will be sure to get that to shape on the next loaf... watch this space.