Hot Day In Ottawa In The Kitchen

 

This promises to be an interesting day; The weather forecast is for 31 C and I'm making jam. For the uninitiated, that means boiling water to blanch peaches (the cinammon-peach jam lot), boiling water to sterilize the jars and sealers, boiling water to cook the jam, and boiling the jam itself briefly (but sugared fruit boils at a far higher temperature than water). The net effect of this is more humidity than you can shake a stick at and more heat in the already hot apartment.

On the other hand, the cinammon-peach batch looks like it went okay. The peach blanching wasn't a perfect success - I need a bigger bowl for icewater and I need to get the ice in further in advance. I also discovered some peaches rot from the inside and you discover that when you get down about 1/4" into the peach and find you don't like the look of it (and of course any such material didn't go into the jam).

I may try another batch of peach jam if I find more decent peaches - I want to try the ginger-peach recipe I read about. I also kind of wonder if currants, raisins or cranberries could not be usefully added to peach jam. I know you can use honey for sweetening instead of sugar, but honey's not cheap stuff. I'd have to be convinced it was clearly superior.

I still have a batch of raspberry to go. No twists on that one, I hope. Wanted to make the peach and raspberry because my batches of blasterine (blueberry-raspberry-nectarine with a hint of strawberry) and strawberry are not edible by me old Mum due to her drop-dead-fast strawberry allergy. I figured I'd like to make something she could have and I like peaches and raspberries.

Next on the line is making some homemade pizza (maybe tonight) and trying out my newly acquired marble pestle on the fresh oregano I bought for the pizza. If I don't do that tonight, I'll do it Sunday. I've also got a canning operation to produce some salsa, but I may need to buy some more fresh ingredients. I wonder if canning my own salsa is any cheaper? The jam probably isn't, but I know what went into it and I can get more experimental interesting recipes (peach jam recipe to try #3 involves hot peppers and lemon zest).

And somewhere along the line, I should make another cake. I've got some eggs I should use up. Or maybe a loaf of some kind - banana loaf or pound cake. I have to share this stuff out because I'm only one guy and no way I can eat it all myself, but that makes sharing food a social thing...