Pear Jam – Yeah right

It’s been a long time, I know, but I have been slack on the writing not the cooking so perhaps you will forgive me. My colleagues however may not forgive me – that is something we will cover later on. Stay tuned

Not last Monday but the Monday before – yes it has been that long – I did a little baking, I’m quite good like that. I decided to make something quick and easy and I decided upon chocolate cake. The recipe was good but, as per usual, did not include a tin size. I was somewhat unsure what to use and settled upon an 8” round. End result was ok but really quite domed on the top.

I also made rice – the Edmonds way. I didn’t follow the recipe entirely seeing that the recipe was for cooking 1 tbsp of rice. 1 TBSP! Anyway, the method itself was not bad, I ended up with cooked rice so I was relatively happy, what more could I expect.

Saturday I somehow got roped into assisting the husband with insulating the underside of the house. Our house is quite low to the ground and with the beams etc there are some areas that only I could fit through – oh yeah, me and the spiders. I managed about 3 hours (the husband swears it was 1.5 hours max) before I quit. Not bad really. It wasn’t so much the dark, damp claustrophobic spider infested-ness it was the fact I had to lie on lumps of rock, on my back, while little bits of polystyrene, dust cobwebs and spiders fell in my eyes. Not ideal.

Anyway enough of that. Sunday was football so I vacated the house while the husband continued the good work. He’s a trouper. Football - we lost again. I got some minor bruising. We went to the clubrooms for the after match spread, the club rooms still served crate bottles so it was almost like being back in 1966.

After football I had to come home and bake because of the aforementioned expectation from the colleagues around baking on a Monday. We have trained each other well. I stopped in at the supermarket on Saturday and they had some nice looking plums for $5 a kg so I bought a kg and made some plum jam. I think it’s ok, I only made two rather large jars so if it isn’t great it won’t be too hard to get rid of.

The husband was fractionally less than impressed with my poor effort in the insulating department so I decided to placate him with food and a multi-course extravaganza. I started with Kedgeree. I like Kedgeree. The husband also liked Kedgeree. For those not in the know this is basically smoked fish, cooked rice, hard boiled eggs and butter. How could that ever be bad! Butter makes everything better. I think when I’ve made it in the past it had curry powder in it but I may be imagining.

Next course was savoury marrow entrée – thank goodness it wasn’t sweet marrow entrée although to some extent that will become relevant later on. This was surprisingly good. Cut marrow into 2” long sections, remove seeds, steam until soft. Cook onion and tomato together until soft. Put marrow ring on round of buttered toast, add tomato mixture, sprinkle with cheese. As I said, surprisingly good, who would have though.

Now when you buy marrows – or large courgettes as they are called at the Silver Bell when the vegetables are more or less half the price they are at the supermarket – they come in packs of two. Now what does one do with ones extra marrow I hear you ask. You make marrow filling. Steam marrow then cook with butter, sugar and lemon juice. No serving suggestion. So what do you do? Wait for it. You put it in a sponge cake and tell your colleagues it’s pear jam.

The perfect foil to my marrow delight was a Light as Air Sponge. I had not struck one of these before but others definitely had, it was a fond childhood memory of several consumers. It wasn’t quite as light as air but it was pretty light. Good thing it was crammed full of marrow filling to keep it grounded. One helpful soul even went up the road and fetched cream. Bless.

In my defence it did look and taste like pear jam. If I had told them it was sponge with marrow filling and cream it would not have shifted off my credenza.

I also made Saratoga chips. A.K.A potato chips or crisps. I made use of my Mandolin to cut the potatoes wafer thin. I love my Mandolin. I made use of my husband to individually hand dry each potato slice after it had soaked in water for an hour. I love my Husband too. I’m really very lucky in so may respects.

I fried these up and they were pretty good but them I am a firm believer that deep frying almost anything improves it. The husband helped to dispose of the proceeds. I smelt like oil and had very very odd dreams.