day of food
Jul. 9th, 2004 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jinianMade Oregon-grape jelly from berries picked a few days ago by me and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eub. By far the hardest part of the process was the washing, which involved removing some kind of larvae from an awful lot of the fruit. They would have been strained out eventually, of course, but I didn't want insect-flavored jelly much more than I wanted to eat the actual bodies.
Anyway, I got about a pint of extract from our pint of berries (and an apple I added to make sure there was enough pectin). I put in a cup and a half of sugar and boiled it down until it got to 220° F, then poured it into sterilized jars. One of the jars was from boughten jam, and just had a screw-on lid with rubberized bit, and that one went splork all over the counter when I turned it upside down for a moment to seal it. Good thing I was wearing the silicone oven mitt. It sealed all right, though, despite that. The little button on top popped in and everything.
I hadn't made Mahonia jelly before. It's very good, tart-sour with a very slight bitter aftertaste. I thought while it was hot that it wasn't tart enough, but it's nice. I'm not sure how best to play up the unusual flavor.
I made bread, eventually, following the incident in which the organo-groovy yeast completely failed to work. It smelled a little odd, but I didn't think it'd do nothing. I proofed another packet of regular old ecologically-irresponsible yeast and kneaded in the goo, and that worked. The loaves rose while we were out at dinner and I baked them when we got home with good results. I used about a quarter whole-wheat flour, which made the bread interesting without being heavy. It does overwhelm the jelly, though.
We went out for sushi with Wim's dad and his wife, who had offered to take me out for my SCCC graduation. Chiso in Fremont is fairly fancy, which I've always thought was Wim's dad's primary consideration in restaurant choice (I was right, too, he seemed very pleased that it was so "upscale"), and I was curious about it. It was very good. I had unagi chirashi: six eel pieces with sauce over shredded egg crepe, shredded nori, ginger bits, and sushi rice. Really lovely. And I shared a six of wonderful ume-shiso rolls with people. It may be hard to ruin ume-shiso, come to think of it, but I enjoyed them no less if so.
And then I got to recommend Mighty O to people over atelynne's journal. (Rebukes mean nothing! The tempting will continue!)
Tomorrow: barbecue. Maybe it's a summer of food. That would be fine by me.
eub. By far the hardest part of the process was the washing, which involved removing some kind of larvae from an awful lot of the fruit. They would have been strained out eventually, of course, but I didn't want insect-flavored jelly much more than I wanted to eat the actual bodies. Anyway, I got about a pint of extract from our pint of berries (and an apple I added to make sure there was enough pectin). I put in a cup and a half of sugar and boiled it down until it got to 220° F, then poured it into sterilized jars. One of the jars was from boughten jam, and just had a screw-on lid with rubberized bit, and that one went splork all over the counter when I turned it upside down for a moment to seal it. Good thing I was wearing the silicone oven mitt. It sealed all right, though, despite that. The little button on top popped in and everything.
I hadn't made Mahonia jelly before. It's very good, tart-sour with a very slight bitter aftertaste. I thought while it was hot that it wasn't tart enough, but it's nice. I'm not sure how best to play up the unusual flavor.
I made bread, eventually, following the incident in which the organo-groovy yeast completely failed to work. It smelled a little odd, but I didn't think it'd do nothing. I proofed another packet of regular old ecologically-irresponsible yeast and kneaded in the goo, and that worked. The loaves rose while we were out at dinner and I baked them when we got home with good results. I used about a quarter whole-wheat flour, which made the bread interesting without being heavy. It does overwhelm the jelly, though.
We went out for sushi with Wim's dad and his wife, who had offered to take me out for my SCCC graduation. Chiso in Fremont is fairly fancy, which I've always thought was Wim's dad's primary consideration in restaurant choice (I was right, too, he seemed very pleased that it was so "upscale"), and I was curious about it. It was very good. I had unagi chirashi: six eel pieces with sauce over shredded egg crepe, shredded nori, ginger bits, and sushi rice. Really lovely. And I shared a six of wonderful ume-shiso rolls with people. It may be hard to ruin ume-shiso, come to think of it, but I enjoyed them no less if so.
And then I got to recommend Mighty O to people over at
elynne's journal. (Rebukes mean nothing! The tempting will continue!)Tomorrow: barbecue. Maybe it's a summer of food. That would be fine by me.
