The week started early for us, around 5am on Monday. Just as the full moon was setting over the town. Gentle blues, hazy greys and florid pinks merged and swirled across the sky as in the opposite compass heading the sun rose. Magical.
Strawberry Jam making was my first task and by 7am(!) the batched was made and bottled. I was eager to get that completed before the berries had gone too far over and would refuse to set. It has been a challenge making strawberry jam without the use of additional commercial pectin but finally I have a recipe that uses 1/3 cup of lime juice to every 2lbs strawberries that works like a dream. It's the best jam I have ever made, and that's in 35 years of making the stuff!
The boat squared away we headed off down river, by the time the water opened out into the lake there was a nice breeze blowing and we hauled the sails up, all of them, no reefs! Can't remember the last time we did that...The wind was on the nose, of course, so we spent a happy 4 hours tacking back and forth getting up to 5.5 knots out of the old girl and finishing up in a spanking 18 knot wind heeled well over and reveling in the sense of sailing.
She chuckled along and we even perfected some great rolling tacks, in fact we tacked more in those 4 hours than we probably have in the last two years I am ashamed to admit. We were exhilarated as we pulled in to our favourite anchorage and let the anchor down. What bliss. How lucky we are.
Whilst TBH continues with the job of replacing worn teak decking I have been facing some culinary challenges that I have been promising to try out. Today's event was jam doughnuts. Oh boy, I'd better not make these too often or we won't be able to move again. They worked magnificently. Rising to soft billowing puffs of yeast dough, stuffed with homemade strawberry jam, fried in hot oil and coated in fine sugar. Talk about heart attack on a plate! By 10 am we were stuffed! Though we did manage to recover by lunch to tackle the fresh baked bread that had just come out of the oven. Life's a bitch huh!
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