Cooking!

That's the general term for what's happening around here.  I'm finally in high gear in the studio and it translates into high gear everywhere.  And now I've got my feet up and a nice cuppa tea, savoring.

The Ruffoni has been filled up with various yummy things, here's the sink full of the bitty yellow plums and the syrup bubbling away from last week.  Man, is this stuff good, tart and sweet, over pancakes, yogurt, muffins, and a few drops in some pan drippings would make a fine meat sauce.

Here's today's pot of deliciousness, it's a variation of Giada's marinara sauce though I've turned it into more of an Arrabiata sauce for those of you who can roll your r's.  It's spicy with the addition of Ro-tel tomatoes and lots of red pepper flakes plus a mad cruise through my well stocked spice cupboard. 

I'm cookin' in the studio too, fusing a lot of fine silver earrings in the last few days.  I love to wear these, they are shiny and very eye catching, quite long but still lightweight.  These are attitude earrings, you can't help but get some when you wear them.

And, tonight I started putting together a couple of heavyweight fine silver bracelets.  These are just FUN, big, bold, heavy, substantial pieces.  The metal is 10 gauge fine silver, really hard to shape but so worth the effort.

We're looking at some rain so I soaked the yard today to guarantee that we'll get some.  As an added incentive to Mother Nature I cleaned out the fountain, emptied the dog's pool, washed my truck and dug a good rain ditch in front of my garage door.  Please...the forest is thirsty.

Pretty things in my garden, it still tickles me to have these things grow almost like weeds around here.  I scattered some lychnis seeds and have been encouraging the hollyhocks to spread some too.  The leaves on the flowering dogwoods are just starting to turn red.  The Open Studios Tour is the first two weekends in October, so they'll be putting on a show for the second weekend here.

So, back to eating bon bons now.

Peace

Apple Butter

I've had these apples sitting on the shelf calling to me for weeks now and finally found some time to make them into apple butter.  It's really not that hard, just time consuming.

First, wash the apples and quarter them, don't bother with the peels or the seeds.

 Put the quarters in a big pot, add just a little bit of apple juice.  I probably used a cup.  Heat and keep tossing the apples until they are all soft.

 Mash them through a sieve or a food mill.  This is probably the first time I used just enough liquid to cook the apples and not so much that my puree was too liquid.

 The recipes say to add 1/2 cup of sugar for each cup of puree.  I had 20 cups of puree but only used 7 cups of sugar, plus some cinnamon, ground cloves, some lemon juice, juice of 1/2 a very juicy orange and the orange zest.  I prefer to simmer the butter long and slow, stirring every 15 minutes or so until the butter is much reduced and mounds up on a cold plate.

 Put it in clean jars and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.

Ta da!  Lots of very yummy apple butter.

Peace and sweet dreams to you.

Sunshine...

...In a Jar.

It's true, sometime this winter when it's been raining for a week I'll open one of these jars and taste summer.

Plum jelly!

I've never made Plum jelly before, or any kind of jelly for that matter.  It's fun!  And tastes really, really good.  Now I'm off to the store to buy more sugar and pectin.  I've got a whole big bowl full of juice still and the tree is still loaded with plums.

Peace