I used to enjoy baking and preserving, but for reasons I didn't fully understand until this weekend I haven't done them for a long time. I used to bake cakes, pies, and biscuits, and preserve all sorts of fruit and veg at our previous house but a combination of different factors has seen this drop off to almost nothing.
First, I find doing anything more complicated than a simple meal difficult with the lack of worksurface in the new house kitchen. The layout is not set up for smallholding tasks, a surprise given it used to run as a smallholding. I find pastry on any scale particularly difficult. I've had it in mind for a while now to change the layout of the kitchen to give me more dedicated space to prep more than just basic meals and store much more than the pantry will allow. That's a post for another day though. I tried to make do for a while but because it wasn't an enjoyable experience my enthusiasm petered out.
Second, I realised lately I've been spending too long on basic household tasks and less time doing what I actually enjoy, which is smallholding tasks. Should I do the hoovering or try making soap? Prep those tomatoes for drying or change the bed? Mow the lawn or bake a cake for the week? Because I work full-time it was all too easy to narrow my sights on chores and keep things ticking over. Then I thought, what about dropping the ball a bit more? Nothing stops just because the hoovering doesn't get done. The world doesn't tilt on its axis because the grass grows a fraction longer and the bed is a little more wrinkled.
So, Bank Holiday Monday I decided to do something about it.
I walked past the bed's weekly change and the lawn mowing in favour of collecting fruit from around the property and whipping up eight jars of jam with a little left over.
I also tried something new - not using cellophane and bands etc to seal the jars. I struggle with this every year as the quality of cellophane has decreased over the years; it often tears or doesn't seal properly. This time I simply washed and soaked the jars and lids in boiling water, poured in the jam and screwed down the lid tight. As the jam cooled, the central safety button on every single jar was successfully sealed as the vacuum sucked down each one. That saved me so much faffing around.
I cooked up some Bramley apples and combined them with blackberries to make some slices with puff pastry (the picture at the top of the post). I also cooked up a gingerbread tray bake, cut it into quarters and topped some with lemon icing and wrapped up the rest for later in the week.
As for the chores? I can confirm the world didn't stop.
I did the mowing yesterday evening and later today I will change the bed.
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