Memorial Day in the US

 It's Memorial Day, to remember and honor the people who died in wars. 

One way to honor them is to celebrate the living, and when Handsome Son announced he plans to come over this afternoon, I thought I'd better make a little something.

Yesterday I'd set dried apricots into apple juice overnight thinking maybe a sauce for fish. 

Then Gary came dashing in last evening, i was spinning and winding on, so I couldn't put the spindle down. 

He had been grilling chicken and got a plate out of my kitchen cabinet to leave me some slices for today.

So then I thought ah, apricot sauce and chicken, great. Then when handsome Son planned to come over I rethought.

Made the apricot, juice and cane sugar into preserves this morning

the idea being jam tarts. 

A search for a nice pastry recipe not written in impenetrable British terms was, um, fruitless. So I searched on and remembered making the artisanal apple pie which readers will remember from a while back. That was when I found that artisanal doesn't mean quick. 

But the pastry, buttery and flaky, was worth a try.

I noticed that the preserves set up much more glutinous than expected because I forgot the pectin in apple juice as well as apricots. 

So I had to think yet again. I doubted if it would work to bake the tarts as usual with the preserves in them. Better bake blind (empty) then add the preserves.

I like this way of baking blind which I did ages ago and liked - draped over the other side of the muffin pan

I rerolled the extra pastry to freeze for a future fruit pasty

Cook's privilege bottom left 

See it's lovely and flaky

 

I had to take a guess at baking time, so settled on 15 mins at the normal flaky pastry 400°f. I could have taken them out a minute earlier, noted for next time.

So here are Memorial Day Fruit Tarts. A couple will probably go next door, Gary loves anything to do with jam. And I have extra preserves, maybe to go with the extra pastry.

Yesterday I took a stab at gardening, got the sage tied up searched in vain for Iris rhizomes. I think they may have rotted. 

Found one, which I'll hopefully replant in a better spot. Out front I know there are quite a few under the pachysandra waiting for rescue another day. 

And in honorary family news, most people wave cute baby pictures of grandchildren, or sweet little dancers in tutus. 

Here's my honorary granddaughter with her marathon and 5K friends.

Front row. Banana suit. I rest my case.

Also seen lately, on Freecycle

And let's not forget on Memorial Day, the people now fighting and dying in Ukraine, fighting our proxy war, to secure Europe from a would-be dictator.

Happy day everyone, enjoy being here.

Thrills and spills in the kitchen

I made a wonderful lunch as planned, farm tomato, farm mozzarella, homegrown basil, sea salt, Tunisian olive oil I'm trying and liking. Chardonnay vinegar I made from leftover wine. And cherries and apricot dessert. Doesn't get much better.

Then I embarked on no-cook apricot jam, using the pectin that's supposed to work. Followed all the directions and ended up with something awful. The sugar had failed to dissolve, and the whole thing didn't work.

 Sooooo I tipped the two jarsworth into a pan and boiled the jam, until I got the metal spoon test working, to show the sugar had melted and the pectin had worked. You know this test? 

When a  big metal spoon, dipped in then held up to drain results in the jam coming off in more than one stream at once, you're done. Sterilized the jars again, just in case, and found that the jam now only filled one. 

 So this is rescue apricot jam! We'll see how it works after a night in the fridge.