not quite knitting

When I first start a vacation, I always cycle through the same basic stages. “Vacation?” I first say to myself. “This is the BEST EVER. I’m going to do so many FUN THINGS. I’ll never be tired again!

This elation lasts for approximately an hour (give or take), before I get bored. Quickly, it becomes clear that I’ve completely forgotten how to do fun things, except in short two-hour bursts bookended by work. So I start thinking of things I can do, and end up making work for myself. You know, fun work. Things I’ve seen other people blog about, or have been meaning to do around the house, but haven’t quite had the time for. Projects.

In other words, I made my own jam this week.

It wasn’t a terribly labour-intensive process, much to my surprise. I used the freezer jam recipe on the back of the pectin packet – 1.5c sugar to 4c fruit, which was a surprisingly low ratio, as all the reading I’d done led me to believe that freezer jam involved several cups of sugar for every cup of fruit. This definitely wasn’t the case with the pectins I was able to find in my local Canadian Tire.

I smushed up three cups of blueberries and one cup of raspberries – all awesome local Ontario fruit from the farmer’s market – mixed in the pectin, and put the concoction into jars. The whole process took maybe an hour and a half, and I’d totally do it again, because the jam is delicious. I’ve gone through half a jar already.

I think, after a few days, I’m finally starting to get the hang of relaxing. But the projects are definitely helping.

feel it in every cell

IMG_7725, originally uploaded by pirateygoodness.

Garlic and mushrooms and fresh thyme, in close-up. This is a progress shot from getting the ingredients together for dinner a few nights ago – chicken and mushrooms and wine, baked in tin foil, from Happy Days With the Naked Chef. This is one of the first cookbooks I own that wasn’t given to me by my mother or her friends (to ensure that I wouldn’t starve when I started living on my own), so it’s kind of a big deal.

Song of the Entry: Ben Lee – So Hungry

i picked you up and you were three-fourths gone

IMG_7722, originally uploaded by pirateygoodness.

Bags of fresh thyme, headed for the freezer. I never make a recipe that calls for an entire bundle of a herb, but it seems like such a shame to throw them out after only using a recipe’s worth and watching them go off in the fridge, so I’ve started doing this. It’s not quite the same – reconstituted frozen herbs are always a bit soggy once they thaw, so they’re really only good for recipes where they’re going to get cooked in something anyway (as opposed to, say, salads or garnishes) but. It works out alright.

Song of the Entry: Every Avenue – Where Were You?