Making Jam

April  11

Last night the weather man said it would be rainy and cold so we made plans to make jam today...the weather man was wrong, but we still spent the morning making jam.  We made two batches of blueberry lime, two batches of mixed berry, a batch of raspberry, and triple batch of tomato ginger chutney! The tomato ginger chutney is amazing and I highly recommend that you try it sometime.  Here is the recipe.

1 head of garlic

1 inch chopped ginger

1 1/2 cups of red wine vinegar

1 1/2 cups of sugar

1 quart of tomatoes

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp hot pepper (or as much as you like)

2 Tbl raisins

2 Tbl slivered almond

Mix all ingredients except last two.  Cook a long time, until a spoon comes out coated.  It should be pretty thick.  Lastly, add the raisins and the slivered almonds.  stir well then store in a jar and seal the top.  

With the sun shining we headed outside to do some more planting.  We planted three more kinds of lilies, dahlias, and a bunch of different colors of nasturtiums.  We also planted some tulip bulbs from last year. Once tulips reach several years old, the stage in their life in which they produce the biggest flowers, they split into many smaller bulbs.  If you dig up the tulips bulbs after the leaves start dying you can replant the baby bulbs.  This is their means of multiplying naturally. Some will bloom and some wont but we planted about 100 so we will inevitably get some tulips.

We had an awesome dinner of Jalfrezi Chicken over cauliflower florets, salad, and cornbread with the jam that we made.