A Busy Weekend With Lots of Sales!!!

Wheeeee, finally a great Saturday at the market for everyone, which is so gratifying. I sold several brand new items including a couple that I didn't get a chance to photograph. The blue picasso bracelet with the pewter bird, turtle, horse and feather (I call it the "Four Corners") sold right away, right out of the gate. Lady came by, picked it up, examined it... "Uh, where's the clasp?" "It rolls on." Sold.

Definitely must make more of these.

I also sold the aqua terra and crab agate necklace on the right (the necklace on the left sold quite a while ago) yesterday, matched perfectly with sterling, turquoise and sponge coral earrings. They accompanied my customer and her brand new dress to a girls' night out Beatles tribute show last night.

I went to an estate sale this morning and here are a few of my treasures. We're doing a Nostalgia show at the fairgrounds on September 13th, I think it is, so I'm buying with that in mind. Some pieces will go to our booth at the Antique Mall (Booth 800/847 if you're planning a trip our way).

Aaaaand it's jam-making season. The first strawberries are starting to come in from the fields. There were mountains of them at the market yesterday. For some reason the local grocery store has decided not to carry my favourite low-sugar no-cook gelling powder this year, so my pal George brought me 20 packages from the big city on Tuesday, which I swap for jam. 

What's the name of that Pinterest site? Pinterest Fails -- or similar, anyway. Here's my latest entry in the Pinterest Fail... well, it was a success but SO SLOW! Give me my paring knife any day.

My handy-dandy strawberry hulling setup. The mosquitoes arrived shortly after and settled in to feast on me. 

Putting the straw in strawberries...

Poke the straw through from the bottom...

Pull the core out of the straw...

And you have a neat little hole to fill with chocolate...

This doesn't show how full the bowl was, but it was ten 250ml jars' worth of strawberries mounded up.

Unfortunately, the monsoon rains we had early in the week made this batch of strawberries awfully watery, but a titch extra sugar and lots and lots of lemon juice brings out the flavour nicely. Peaches will be coming along soon. I can hardly wait. There's a type of early peach that is soooooo good as jam. Summer in a jar, especially in the dead of winter.

Thanks for looking!

Let's Eat Cake all dressed up & only one place to gooooooooo...

From this...

...to nothing in 10 seconds flat.

Sliced strawberries marinated in a titch of sugar and lashings of organic lemon juice overnight in the fridge on top of and drowing -- lots of juice! -- 1/4 piece of Let's Eat Cake strawberry cake.

Thanks for drooling... I mean, looking!

Summer in a Jar: My Version of Strawberry Freezer Jam...

Scored honking huge SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEET strawberries again today at the market. These come from around Tilsonburg, courtesy of Adam the Apple Guy at the market. They are the best strawberries I've had in a long, long time -- and two weeks in a row, no less. We won't talk about the disappointing strawberries from three weeks ago. Ahem. Needed maybe a day or two more in the fields bagging some rays.

These beauties... I mean, look at the SIZE of them! You'd think they'd be dry, woody and tasteless and they are so not.

...became this... with a few put aside to marinate in a titch of sugar and lots of lemon juice in the fridge overnight, thence to slosh, slither and soak their way into the remains of Rene's cake tomorrow...

...ecco là: Summer in a Jar, once they've frozen and thawed.

That organic lemon juice is my secret weapon... I mean, ingredient. (I've been reading too many spy books -- check out Dana Haynes, btw -- holy patootie, the guy can write!) But I digress. Realemon juice is okay, but I find Santa Cruz to be way more lemony and worth the price.

It says on the pectin packet that this jam can be eaten right away. I find it far too gluey. After it's frozen and thawed, though, the gluiness (think cheap pie filling) disappears and the jammy flavour develops beautifully.

I am diabetic and this jam I can eat. After trying the various Certo types and other brands I tried the Club House brand that comes in a paper envelope. I use only 2 tablespoons of sugar in 4 cups of fruit, plus copious lashings of lemon juice (my improvement) and which is a whole lot better than the 1-1/2 to 2 cups the freezer jam recipe calls for -- which is waaaaay better than the SEVEN cups of sugar called for to make four cups of regular cooked jam. That's almost 2 cups of sugar per jar of jam -- versus my 1/2 tablespoon per jar of jam. Decreasing the amount of sugar so drastically does not affect any properties of the jam that I have discovered including fridge life (3 weeks -- if you can make it last that long).

For the past several years, as the summer progresses I've made black raspberry, rhubarb, strawberry, peach, wild blueberry, sour cherry, cranberry and seedless Concord grape jams (which makes wonderful jam and beats Welches all to hell) all with 2 - 3 tablespoons of sugar and lemon juice, even the super sour rhubarb, cherry and cranberry.

Thanks for looking!