A host

Another busy day - in fact a very busy weekend. I started with a weigh in, I'm almost back to normal, the 4.5 kg I gained on my cycling trip is now only 1 kg gain - so within the bounds of daily variation.

After breakfast I sorted out the rhubarb for jamming. So I dug out the puts for selling and gave them all a good clean, then soaked them in bleachy water to kill off any bugs. I have several jars with glue on that I can't get off - which is a pain as otherwise they would be good jars...

The rhubarb had been sitting in the fridge in sugar and lemon juice overnight, one of yesterdays tasks, so I didn't need to chop it today, but I did need to chop the oranges. Basically you chop whole oranges as fine as you can, then slowly cook them in water and some sugar until they just go translucent, then you add the sugar/rhubarb mix and top up to ensure a 1:1 ration of fruit to sugar. You jam the complete mixture and you get a sweet - non-bitter - rhubarb and orange jam. It's a French recipe and not like a more British bitter orange marmalade. I processed two batches, so about 2.5 kg of rhubarb, 1.75 kg of oranges and 4.25 kg of sugar.

I checked my rhubarb and pulled out about 900 g of the thinner stalks and from that made a rhubarb crumble. Though it's in a French cookery book, it's actually a French translation of an English original, but the crumble is very good - it's mostly made from porridge oats, so it's got a lovely texture and it's both cheaper and healthier for you than a regular all flour/sugar/butter version.

I don't like to jam from stalks of variable thickness, they don't cook at the same rate, so the thick ones are turned into jam and I mostly let other people have the thin ones, but I had some in my collection so they were turned into crumble.

Today's blip is another daisy, while yesterday's was a large ox-eye job up close and personal, today's is a smaller variety and in a collection. The shallow depth of field creates a pleasing result I think - well it's what I have so it's what I'm going to say....!

While we have been busy this weekend, it's also been wet so I've not cycled much and next week doesn't look any better, which is a pain as I have the Monday off and wanted to go for a short ride!