Crazy End to a Great Week

Man today has been quite a day so far! I guess I'll talk about the fun stuff first though.

 I made some more jam, lots of jam. I think it's coming out of my ears. 

Thursday I went to a women's bible study that I attend every week. We're going through the book 'Magnificent Obsession' by Anne Graham Lotz, and this week was two peoples' birthdays, my friends' Bonnie and Jessica. 

So we wanted to surprise both of them and told them we would be having a birthday celebration for the other one, not saying anything about their own birthdays. 

It was fun and sneaky but got more complicated as Jessica now baby sits 2 girls and can't fit the car seat in her backseat so she needed a ride to church, which was fine, I was going to drop off her cake and then come back for her. Well, the mom of the 2 girls forgot to leave the car seats and I had to go get those first, then Jessica and I didn't have any time to drop off the cake. So i wrapped it in tin foil and had Jessica basically holding her own cake, thinking it's for Bonnie!

So run around run around run around, and we get to church and are secretly passing cards to write in one to Bonnie and one to Jessica. While that's going on we're putting presents on the table, and they both add their presents for each other to the stack. 

Then we reveal our scheme and show them each their cakes and presents. Both were so surprised, as least they're good at faking it! 

Here's the two cakes

Heather made the chocolate one for Bonnie, because chocolate is DELICIOUS, and I made the "fruit" cake for Jessica because she's allergic to flour.

The cake base is watermelon and i decorated it with strawberries, blueberries, and kiwi. 

Super easy, and really delicious.

Now for today, I went to church this morning and my friend Sarah had brought me some pallets they had because I want to make a swing, (maybe you'll see in the future).

So I decided I'm going to pile them into my convertible with the top down, and it worked beautifully.

Well I pull into our cul-de-sac, decide i'm going to back the car into the drive way, and I put the car into reverse and I hear POP!!! and the car wouldn't move. So I put it in park and check the tires and it's touching the car on the front left. 

So I pretty much just broke the frame on my car, although my personal mechanic is going to check it out, and I know for sure the power steering line broke.

So...yea...good bye car. Thank the Lord it didn't happen while I was driving! That would have been really bad. 

Hope everyone else had a better day!

California Rolls

 Last night my husband and I had a small group bible study, led by a friend of ours, in our house. Seven other couples besides ourselves come over and we dig into the sermon preached by our Pastor on Sunday morning. Its great because sometimes you hear a message and go 'what?!' so this is the chance to break down the sermon and ask questions and connect with others in our congregation. 

The sermon was based on Romans 1:5-7. We talked about sin, that it is disobeying God and that we are commanded to repent. He doesn't just tell us to do this for His own benefit, but for our own good. 

There was more, lots more, but I won't type it all out for you.

Last night was the second group and we had our friends Teddy(leading the group) and Debbie over early for dinner and I made some California Rolls!

Wanna learn how?

Supplies

Bamboo mat

rice spoon(optional)

chopsticks(optional)

rice cooker (unless your totally awesome and can make rice without one)

We got these from World Market, it was like 3 bucks for a set

Ingredients

to make sushi rice:

1 cup rice
1 cup water

1 tbs sugar

1.777 tbs rice vinegar (use your best judgement)

.33 tsp salt (again best judgment)

This amount of rice will make 2 rolls

Outside is a seaweed wrap - about 3 bucks at Winco or World Market

Insides:
1 package of imitation crab (doesn't take much at all)

1 cucumber

1 avocado 

(substitute for carrot if you don't like avocados)

Optional:

my brother likes to add a hot sauce called siracha to the imitation crab to make a spicy roll

Wash your rice and put it along with the other rice ingredients in your rice cooker, set to cook, and let it sit till it sets to warm. (Why I LOVE rice cookers)

It looks dirty but it's from the rice vinegar. Be sure to mix it all up.

While its cooking slice your cucumber, cutting out the seeds.  Slice the avocado, and shred the imitation crab.

The rice will be very sticky so get a bowl or cup of water that you can use to dip your fingers in before grabbing the rice, and your knife to slice your california rolls

Wrap your bamboo mat in plastic wrap to keep it clean. Just a way to avoid extra clean up

 

 Wait for your rice to cool so you can touch it without burning yourself, and scoop a good amount onto your seaweed wrap, it's best to have your seaweed on the bamboo mat already so you don't have to pick it up and move it.

Now start pressing your rice into the wrap. Press quite hard so that it is smashed tightly together, fill the whole wrap with rice this way. you can do a thick layer of rice or a thin layer. It just depends on how thick you want your rice to be around. 

Turn the wrap over (the rice should not fall off as you turn it over, if it does you didn't push it down hard enough) and get the sliced avocado, cucumber, and imitation crab and layer it on the green side of the wrap. Use as much as you want, just keep in mind how big your roll will get.

This is where it takes practice...

Roll your mat over so it wraps the rice around your inside ingredients...

try to wrap tightly but not too tight or you'll squeeze the avocado out the sides.

Once you've rolled it all up press around the outside with the bamboo mat to shape it to be round, or you might have a california square instead of a california roll!

 

Get the knife and dip it in the water along with your fingers to hold the roll. You'll need to dip your knife and fingers after every slice cut.

Once you've sliced the roll, add your favorite sauce and enjoy!

If you find that the rice is falling off the roll, or if falls apart when you pick it up then you didn't smash the rice enough to the seaweed wrap. (it took me a couple times to realize just how mashed the rice needs to be)

Here's an example, Its falling apart because the rice wasn't smashed enough.

 

This is a great, simple way to enjoy sushi. WAY cheaper then going out for sushi. I wouldn't recommend making this for the first time when you're having guests over, give yourself some needed practice to prefect the process.

You can also substitute what goes inside your own sushi roll. I tried smoked salmon, jalapeno, cucumber and avocado and it was great. So be creative and appeal to your taste buds.

Bon Appétit!

Elephant Heart Plum Jam

I'll kick this off with my latest project. I spent the entire day pureeing elephant heart plums to make jam, and only got through about half.

An elephant heart plum is a delicious, ugly looking brownish green on the outside, and a beautiful deep blood red inside. Even though they're a plum, they're actual closer in relation to an apricot I've been told.

My dad has the tree in his backyard and when I told what I was planning to do with them he was all for it! 

My mom used to make Jam and it's been years since any of us have had it because she died when I was 17 and was very ill for quite a few years before that, so amazingly I've learned all of this on my own, but it was all stuff she would have been able to teach me.

Hey I know, I'll teach you how to make it because I'm sure you all have an elephant heart plum tree just sitting bored in your backyard. Really though, I was just offended that I couldn't find a recipe for the elephant heart plum and had to use a normal (bleh) plum jam recipe. 

Canning Supplies

A pot that's called a 'canner' (I just use a tall pot)

12 canning jars with screw bands

fresh flat lids if your jars are used

canning kit which includes: 

jar funnel, jar lifter, bubble remover/headspace tool

All of which you can buy at your local Wal-Mart

Ingredients

                                 6 cups of pureed plum (you can use any kind of fruit)

1/2 cup water

1 box of Fruit-Pectin (the yellow box)

1/2 tsp. butter or margarine

8 cups of sugar (oh yeah!) 

You need to wash your jars and lids, but they also need to be warm just in case the hot jam tries to crack your glass jars. The easiest way I've found is to run them all through the dishwasher while you're doing the plums, but make sure the heated dry setting if off. 

Fill your pot, or canner, about 3/4 of the way with hot water and get it to boil, once it boils you can turn it off until you need it.

Wash your plums...

To puree the plums I used my blender but any kind of food processor will work.

Chop them in half, take out the pit and throw them in the blender. DO NOT PEEL. If your blender doesn't work extremely well you might want to cut the halves even once or twice more.

It's up to you to decide if you want your jam with fruit chunks or completely blended. I chose small chunks.

Once you get 6 cups of puree add them to an 8-10qt. saucepan with the 1/2 cup of water.

Bring this to a boil then reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 5 minutes.

Stir in the pectin and add butter to reduce foaming. Bring mixture to a rolling boil (doesn't stop bubbling when stirred) on high heat, stirring constantly. 

Stir in Sugar.

Return to a rolling boil and boil exactly 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. 

Skim off any foam with a metal spoon.

  Ladle immediately into prepared jars and wipe jar rims and threads. Cover with two piece lids. Screw bands tightly. 

Bring the water in the canner to a boil then reduce to medium low heat, then place the jars in your canner using the jar lifter. The water must cover the jars about 1 in. at least. Place as many that will comfortably fit. 

Process 10 min. Remove jars and place upright on a towel to cool completely. You'll hear a really neat POP sound. After jars cool, check seals by pressing middles of lids with finger. (If lid springs back, lid is not sealed and refrigeration is necessary.) 

And that's it! Not too bad huh? Quite a productive day if I say so myself! 

I hope you enjoyed my process of learning to make plum jam, I know I sure did. 

Feel free to request things for me to bake, cook, create, or craft. I'll try nearly anything!