Back on the jam...

Yesterday was an interesting day - we had sunshine, so that was new and very nice for us all. I also got out into the garden and between planting, harvesting herbs, weeding as well as all the other little things, got very little time to make anything new.

I did get to make some jams late last night, mostly because the fruit was not going to last, it had to be cooked into jams or else! Once I got started with the chopping and setting up for the canning process, I realized a few important things.

First of all, the apple pectin I had made two days before which had sat in a bowl, had thickened up and looked like liquid pectin. This was promising as it was not made with the best type of apple, giving me hope that once I do find the perfect apples, the pectin will turn out even better.

Another thing about jam, cooking at home and making our own foods that I have to constantly remind myself of is that the final results will not taste, look or necessarily resemble something that comes from a shop. Homemade crackers are not the perfectly uniform shapes and thickness that you will find in a packet nor is home baked spelt bread neat and tidy in perfect little loaves. 

Of course, the best thing about all of this cooking and creating at home - is the fact that last night after my jam was made and I was waiting for the jars in the boiling water bath, I found myself eating spoonfuls of warm jam from the jar. 

Pot for boiling water bath

Never in my life do I remember eating spoonfuls of jam, but this was so fragrant and inviting for a nice piece of buttered spelt bread...

This first for me was all the proof that I needed, once again to show me that homemade is always the best way to go. Of course the jam looks, tastes and smells different from the shop bought kind - it is different, we have been reconditioned into thinking that food should 'look' a certain way and that simply is not the case. Food produced at home does not look as if it has been processed by a machine.

Jars of jams made last night

Finally, when you start talking with people about jams, cooking, food and the various ways that we all go about creating our home made goods, everyone has a different take on it and their own methods. People's preferences for their own foods are important and not in any way uniform or able to be re-created inside the walls of a factory. 

This alone gives us all hope!

April

Love Food

Yesterday was fairly productive for me in terms of coming off of a 10 day Master Cleanse and getting back to cooking and eating. The difference between the fasting state and the food state is profound in terms of creativity, focus and clarity. It is a transition that I have not really enjoyed mainly because I am afraid (there's that word again) of not being as focused or feeling as good as I do when fasting. 

However, they are just two different states of being and here I am on to the next phase of what I would call day on/day off food and fasting. Although yesterday was mainly a juice day, I did do some baking and made a small batch of jam with the fruit that I had on hand. 

So, the jam story thus far has taken me around the world to find ideas about combinations for the fruit that I had available - something that would taste good and be an interesting flavour at the same time. I am determined to use organic and local as much as possible even if it only forms the base of the final product. 

I had a small amount of local strawberries but not enough to make a batch of jam on it's own, so I needed to put something with it. I found mention of strawberry kiwi jam - but it called for sugar and lots of pectin. I reasoned if I used some kiwi, a couple of tart apples, apple concentrate and perhaps a thickener like agar flakes, then I could make some kind of jam from this and it should taste ok. 

Late last night I chopped up all that I had on hand - strawberries, kiwi and 2 tart apples, these went into the pot with the other ingredients and 1/2 an hour later out came the jam. It was not as thick as I would have liked, but it did thicken, once blended it looked and smelled really nice too. It was not overly sweet but not tart or tangy, just pleasant tasting.

It nearly filled 3 full jars - which by the way I am getting to be very proficient at, as they all sealed right up within a minute or so after coming from the boiling water bath. It is so interesting how canning my own foods was something that I had talked about doing for years, kept putting it off because I thought it would be so complicated and tedious. And it is none of these. 

The other adventures yesterday were the normal ones for me of baking breads. When not fasting, I bake 2 small loaves of organic whole grain spelt bread each day - this will usually be sweet bread with sultanas, cinnamon and seeds, herbed bread with rosemary and thyme, honey oat bread with our own honey, or naan bread with sesame seeds. Or some combination thereof. 

Yesterday I made honey oat muffins (which were gone so fast I couldn't even get a photo of them all!) and sweet bread. I have been making my own bread for awhile and made bread each week as a young girl growing up. It is something of a comfort food for us here and so easy to make. 

I am baffled by those who buy anything that comes from a shop in terms of bread - this is the one food which should be your link as a family. Bake the bread together, eat and enjoy it - this food conveys your love and care for each other always reminding us of home. 

Honey oat and sweet spelt breads

Feeding ourselves well is what this is all about, this is not work, this is love.

April

I Think, I Am Going To Like This...

Yesterday I was doing some research on using the apricots that I had on hand and making some sort of preserve with them and came across several mentions of apricot fig preserve or jam. From several recipes and descriptions online I was able to come up with my own version of this lovely jam.

One thing that I love is the taste of figs and of course any fresh fruit is also nice, however, making this jam yesterday was not the only thing that got me thinking and so excited. It was actually a deep realization about the foods that I have been eating and of course complaining about.

I have long known that we eat the foods that are put on store shelves and part of us must fade away - the creative soul - because there really is little imagination into tastes, textures and flavors anymore. Well, we get strawberry jam or apricot jam or perhaps some company is a little daring and makes something a little different. But for the most part, the food is all alike and fairly generic, either way, it is someone else's idea of what 'we' would be likely to purchase. (There's my food management and supply degree talking)

Yesterday opened my eyes a little further into my creative soul because it hit home that now I was in charge of the jam and I could make it anyway that I wanted. My apricot fig preserves then ended up with some of the flavors that I love, such as cloves, cinnamon, walnut and orange. I did not follow a recipe or even an idea, just an intuitive sense of what would taste nice on roasted duck at Christmas or as an accompaniment to homemade crackers and goat's cheese. I wanted something tasty and versatile.

When you make your own foods completely from scratch and allow yourself to unleash the foodie in you, who knows what will result. I have a feeling that it would be something fabulous and great every time. This is really the only way to go, when it comes to food.

The tiny bit of preserves that were left over were sitting in a bowl on the countertop - waiting for me to taste today, because my fast is now over and I am getting back to solid foods. I had a little spoon of it and it is lovely, just as I imagined it would be, slightly spicy, very thick and rich, yet it has the freshness of homemade food. 

And as there are only 3 jars of this (which all sealed perfectly I might add!) we won't be sick of it, it will be treasured and reserved for feast days to be used on special dishes and meals. Just as wonderful food is meant to be. Not too much, no endless supply of any one item, just something precious to be enjoyed and used thoughtfully.

What a great approach to eating, mindfulness at it's best,

April

This is one of the many pots of baby salad leaves that grow outside my door and in my cold frames. Greatest way to get greens fresh for a good long season. 

Cooking while fasting....

To be honest with you, I get asked this all the time - don't you find it hard to cook and be around food when you are fasting? All I can say right now is that perhaps I am so used to it that it no longer bothers me, however I am not sure that it ever did.

Of course I can smell the food, I can see it and I would love to have some. However, once I start a cleanse, I am single minded enough to follow it through no matter what is happening on the outside. It's as if my body goes into the 'detox mode' that I talk about in my book The Pagan Diet© and until this is finished, nothing deters me from my goal. I find that I am especially creative and want to cook and research recipes during my cleanses.

Yesterday was a productive day in many ways, I made lots of muesli for our post cleanse meals - I have been making my own muesli for years (my recipe is in The Way to Heal Body Mind & Soul) and if you have not tried making this yet, please do. You will not ever go back to buying anything from a shop - I like the fact that I can put anything into it that I want and I am the only one who handles it.

When I make it, I try to make enough to last about a month - it is not something that we would eat every day, but usually on the weekends or when my son comes home for sailing absolutely famished, it is an easy ready snack.

Muesli is packed with concentrated energy, which is a fantastic way to start a food day or even to end it as a final meal. I like toasted muesli that is not too sweet, with a variety of dried fruits, nuts, seeds and anything else in the cupboard!

Then late last night, because I had more fruit to be used up (local organic strawberries) I made some more jam, but not with the same results that I had the night before. My strawberry/apple jam turned out wonderfully and the jars sealed. Then I made some ginger/peach jam in a bigger batch - and 2 of the jars did not seal.

I was doing some trouble shooting when looking at the lids, they had been used previously for storing fruit, so this might be the problem with the lids, or it was just too late at night and I was tired. However, the other jars did seal and they were poured later... I did find that I preferred to make smaller batches at one time as this was easier to handle, at least right now when I don't have all of the equipment that I would like to have. 

But, all is not lost because I simply put the jam from the unsealed jars into the freezer to be used as freezer jam. Fruit is fruit and nothing need be wasted here - it will all be eaten. I am figuring that for  a family of 4 who loves jam ( and use it in everything) we would most likely go through about 1 big jar each week. That means I have to make at least 50 jars to last until next summer.

I still have work to do here! (smile) Now, I want to find more creative and tasty combinations for these fruits and will do some apple sauce as well. So, back to my research on fruit, jam and canning.

Have a homemade day everyone!

April

Muesli - raw in first bowl, then finished in middle bowl and ready to be toasted in oven tray. Finally in the jars once cool.

Love In The Making...

If I were to be completely honest about the true way that I want to live - the way that I have always dreamed of living, it would be to create, source, grow, make, cook and provide all of my own food. And of course, through doing this as a family we would be even healthier, stronger in body and spirit without much energy coming in from outside sources. 

Most people would look at us and think that already we are pretty well free from food and lifestyle of the majority - and we are. I do not eat the same foods as others, I always cook our own meals, which are mainly vegetarian unless it is a feast day or festival. However, we got to a point that we were feeling stuck in our souls - unable to move forward any further towards our goals, and I feel that this remaining 'food' that was coming into our diets from outside sources, was the sticking point. 

Even though I have been doing this for a little while now, there are still areas for improvement and you would probably not be surprised how easily processed foods creep back in to our food chain when we get busy. There is a lot I want to say about eating this food - the first thing is that it is devoid of love. Machines, people just doing a job, government regulations, corporate rules, bottom lines and business plans - do not place a lot of 'love energy' into the final product. 

Why is this a real problem for those of us wanting to walk the talk and follow a spiritual path you might be asking? It is because, when food is empty of love, it fills up with something else - and this is fear. When an energy is removed (during processing) something else comes in to fill the void, like a vacuum.  So, we have been consuming fear, it doesn't feel good and I am doing something about it. 

I started with jams because this is something that we would eat a lot of - sugar free jam is also relatively easy to make as well. Over the years I would have considered we were buying some of the best quality jams and I have enjoyed them. They are tasty and full of fruit - however, they are still made in a factory which is processed food and contains the negative qualities that I no longer want in my body.

Last night, I decided to start out on the right foot, I researched how to use my glass jars for the jams and followed all the instructions to the letter - at the end of the evening I was sitting down, listening as each jar lid popped and sealed. Exactly as it was supposed to do.

So, I was pleased with the good start. We now have 8 jars of peach and nectarine ginger jam! And I am delighted with it. Of course, it is fruit season right now, so I want to carry on with making quite a few more jams for the winter - you might be hearing a lot about jam making in the coming days. (smile)

I also realized how much more equipment I need to get, as well as to source more jars. I can see that I am going to be busy with this - and of course, there is nothing I would love more.

Have a great day,

April

Some remaining jars waiting for labels - the half filled one, will be enjoyed as soon as we are finished our Master Cleanse!