phone, jam, life

I have a new long-term-temporary phone. If you believe I should or did have your number, please text me your name so I can re-add you to my address book. Sank oo. Last night? Yes, last night. Last night I made some unusually nice applesauce and jarred up several jars of it (and ate the rest). I’m thinking of doing little homemade jars of stuff for Christmas presents and I’m considering strawberry jam, lemon curd, applesauce and (if I can nerve myself up to trying it) marmalade. That would be…

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can she bake a cherry pie^h^h^hjam

Not very well, as it turns out. I’ve been on a regular jam-making roll here, having made strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, strawberry-rhubarb, peach and cherry in the past week or so. Despite my cries of woe, the strawberry did in fact set up, so I have a wide array of lovely jams. The cherry, though. Last year’s attempt at cherry jam was Too Soft, IMHO, and this year in a misguided attempt to make it set up better I essentially doubled the pectin. It worked. Somewhat too well. :) So this…

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triumphant dinners

So since moving to Ireland we’ve learned the numminess of Indian food (Alaska, as it turns out, is not a place to get good Indian). But it’s expensive to order out, of course, and jarred sauces are, well, jarred sauce quality, so I’ve been kind of wanting to try some recipes at home. I found a curry cookbook at Chapters that looked like it had potential, and on Wednesday–well, I’d meant to do it on Tuesday, but the lead time was even longer than I remembered, so it ended up…

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Catie’s Ham & Bean Soup

Start by roasting a big ham with a lot of fat on it. Ideally roast it in a cast iron pan, so you don’t have to pour the melted fat into another pan when you take it out of the oven, but whatever works for you. Make an egregious amount of ham gravy. Three cups or more. (You’ve never made gravy? It’s easy. Take a half cup of flour or so and put your sautee pan of ham fat on a decently high heat. Sprinkle in some of the flour.…

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the uses of ham

On Sunday I cooked a rather large ham. I made ham gravy, because there was all that lovely juice and it seemed a shame to waste it. There was a *lot* of gravy, so on Monday I took a chunk of the ham, all of the gravy, two cans of beans, and some oniongarlicbutter and made ham and bean soup (which is OMG good). Ted made ham and mushroom and cheese omelettes for dinner with another chunk of the ham. Today I have taken the remains of it and am…

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