Last week, the dad accidentally spilled water all over the electronic ignition on our cooktop stove. It started making a funny clicking sound that was driving us nuts, so I brilliantly suggested that he try turning on the stove to see if the flames could dry out the electronic ignition so it would stop clicking. Dumb idea. There was a weird, loud sound, followed by the dad yelling, "Aaaaahhhh!" Then there was a smell of burning electrical stuff. You know that smell.
We had Vincent, our current plummer, handyman, etc. come and look it over. We found that he could fix it, but the parts that he needed alone were over $150. We get a new cooktop instead. The one I want won't be available in white until April 23. No problem. The dad got us all set up with one butane burner inside, and we have a Sun Oven, a Wonder Box, the grill that has a burner on it, the big propane burner outside, the camp stove and oven... We would get along fine.
When we were in Mesa last weekend, as always, we picked a boatload of citrus fruit. We went to Sprouts and bought 8 cartons of strawberries on a killer sale. We decided we'd make strawberry jam, but we weren't thinking that we had no stove to cook it on. Well, trust the dad. He'll always come up with something. And so our adventure begins.
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| When you make fruit jam, the instructions always say to "finely chop" the fruit. That takes way too long. We got this Mouli from my mom, who got it for her wedding over sixty years ago. It is a grater that has several different sized grating wheels that you can change out. We decided to try using the largest grater for the job. Perfect choice! |
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| We started out making the Strawberry Citrus drink concentrate. It has a lot of strawberries, and a lot of lemon juice. We tried the stuff that was left over and wouldn't fill a whole jar. The stuff was amazing! I hope that it still tastes that good after sitting on the shelf awhile! Notice the single burner the dad set up? |
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| We did the processing on the propane burner out in the garage. It was too windy last night to do it on the back porch. |
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| Lemonade concentrate all done! |
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| Now the dad is processing the Strawberry Habanero jam. |
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| While the Strawberry Habanero jam was processing, I started on the Strawberry Citrus Marmelade. Susan loves marmelade, so we did this one for her. |
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| The orange part of the marmelade had to simmer for a whole hour. That's when we decided to have Peanut Butter and Strawberry/Habanero sandwiches for dinner. That stuff is delicious! |
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| Sticking the last of the marmelade into the jars. |
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| Good news for us! We knocked off recipes from two more cookbooks while we were at it! |
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| And there you have it! 10 pints of Strawberry Lemonade Concentrate, 10 half-pints of Strawberry Habanero Jam, and 8 half-pints of Strawberry Citrus Marmelade! |
