Random Thoughts

I've had one of those days when my thoughts were less focused than usual.  I'd read something about someone making hot chili jam.  I thought it sounded nice.

I've never made hot chili jam.  I tried to do apple and mint jelly once, but I let the stewed apple drip through overnight next to a dehumidifier.  I didn't get much  juice.  I could probably find a nice hot chili jam recipe, but I wouldn't eat it, bear wouldn't eat it and the odds are that DH would forget.  I've just thrown out a few jars of neglected condiments, including the mint sauce that he has repeatedly said he adores.  He does love it.  I've seen what he puts it on.  He just forgets.  

I once made some rather pleasant gooseberry jam when I was unexpectedly given gooseberries.  The set was a little weak, but it was perfectly fine on toast.  I don't like jam much.  It was before bear was born and DH didn't really bother.  It ended up in the bin.  It is only bear that likes jam, really, and as he goes for weeks between deciding that he needs jam on toast I now get the expensive individual portions so I don't end up using a jar twice before it grows fur and has to be thrown out.

Then I remembered the time I tried to make home made ginger beer.  It sounds great.  It sounds like the sort of thing everyone raves about and how it's so much nicer than bought.  Mine wasn't, it was too hot.  Ginger is incredibly spicy in concentration, and I don't like very hot spices.  Not only that, but I made too much.  The recipe was for gallons of the stuff, and I followed the instructions, put the dratted stuff into old plastic pop bottles and we didn't drink it very fast.  Not only that, but as it used yeast, it carried on fermenting.  It was starting to get unreliably alcoholic.  I understand that natural fermentation stops at around 14% alcohol, but I wasn't sure that I wanted any alcohol at all.  Then I thought about pressure building up from the fermentation and even though I had reused fizzy drink bottles because I thought they were designed to withstand pressure, I thought I had better check.  So I opened the first bottle and the froth just fountained up.  It just kept coming and coming.  It wasn't like a carbonated drink where the gas just goes, it just went on and on and on and the kitchen smelt, well, like lots of fresh ginger and lemon and I was wiping sticky stuff for hours.  It wasn't just all over the floor and counters, it managed to work it's way into all sorts of cracks so I had to pull out the washing machine and I also had to wipe it off the ceiling. 

DH and bear both prefer processed white bread.

My last attempt at biscuits was an epic fail, though I could have kept them for next time I need gravel.  

Bear and DH both utterly reject sweaters.  I could knit as many as I liked for them, they would stay in the cupboard.  I am still scared of the sewing machine.

I'm coming to the bitter realisation that I'm not cut out to make a handmade home.