Jam Making Day

We have been making Jam this afternoon… the whole house smells good enough to eat.

Here is the recipe…. Because we had more strawberries than raspberries, we only had enough rasps to make a small kilner jar of rasp jam.

I halved the quantities used below for the strawberry jam  when making the rasp jam and only used the juice of a quarter of a lemon.   Also a wee note, I used normal unrefined organic caster sugar that contained no pectin and got a good set.

Recipe for Scottish Strawberry Jam

Ingredients:

770g Locally grown Scottish Strawberries

770g Organic Caster Sugar

Juice of Half a Lemon

Method:

• Wash the fruit if necessary and drain well.
• Put into a preserving/jam pan.
• Simmer until some juice has been extracted.
• Add the sugar and lemon juice, stirring until it has dissolved.
• Bring to the boil and boil rapidly for 5-10 minutes until the jam sets when tested.
• Remove the scum and leave to cool slightly so that the fruit will not rise in the jars.
• Pot and seal while still warm.

     

   

Makes enough for a large kilner jar

   

 

My mouth has been watering whilst making the jam this afternoon, and once I have cleared up the aftermath in the kitchen, I’ll make some freshly baked scones, just to make sure my jam tastes ok

A Trip to the Beveridge Park

The kids and I took a trip along to the Beveridge Park this morning, its about a 15 minute car journey from our house.   We just went along for a walk, due to us all having cabin fever, after being cooped up in the house, with all the rain that poured down over the weekend.

This lovely swan was the first to greet us, as we walked up to the loch, there was a slight breeze blowing through our fingers, both my son and I noticed this, my daughter always walks around with her arms folded, she dropped her arms by her sides to feel it too  …

Tucked in behind was her baby..

This is the Island in the middle of the loch, they do boat hire here and you can row little boats around the island.   Although there was no-one rowing today

As we were walking around, my son noticed that some poor kiddies dolly was floating in the water!

 The contrasting colours in the trees here are absolutely beautiful…

This wee shabby duck looked a bit worse for wear siting at the edge of the loch…

About half way round the loch we made a wee detour over to the formal gardens, which were lined with Lavender and Roses… absolutely beautiful… and there was a water feature in the centre…

The statue on top of the fountain was an animal of some sorts..looked like a wee gopher

The roses were stunning…

There was a wet area with a bridge and we stopped to take a picture of this aquatic plant, we have no idea what it is, so will need to do a big of reasearch… If you know what it is please email us

 The path led us back round to the loch and this pretty little greylag goose

Some of its friends chose to wander towards the rose gardens…

Which were full of beautiful blooms and scents…

  

We all enjoyed our walk… it blew away a few cobwebs and left us all feeling chilled and relaxed

 

Happy Birthday : My Blog is 1 Today…

I have been blogging here on WordPress for exactly one whole year its been fun….

Here’s to the next one