Sour Cherry Preserves

Making jam from scratch is never something I imagined myself doing, but recently I happened upon an amazing blog, called Tigress in a Jam and now I am obessed with trying to make jam at home. My best friend has three amazing cherry trees in her yard, but she told me that they tasted awful and thought they were inedible and probably just for the birds. So when I saw a post from the Tigress on sour cherries, I began to wonder if my friend had sour cherries. The blog had a few recipes to try with sour cherries, so I asked my friend if I could stop by and pick some cherries. I am SO glad we did! I happen to love sour food. When people are running and screaming for water after eating a particularly sour food, I tend to taste that food and grin in appreciation.

I brought home loads of cherries, but the season for them had just barely passed, and I had to sort through many that had burst open. Still, with the amount that was in good shape, I made the most amazing cherry pie (another first for me) and amazing preserves courtesy of this blog post's recipe. I was surprised at how easy it was to make...well, it was after I sorted, washed, and removed the stems and pits. I ended up with just a small amount less cherries than the recipe called for, so I cut down some of the sugar and the lemon juice and decided that I would keep my jam in the fridge for safety's sake. I've heard that jam making is easy, and now that I've done it, I just can't stop myself! The best part is that if the jam doesn't jell properly, the end product is a delightful syrup that can be used on ice cream, yogurt, pancakes, and all sorts of good food! All you do is add the ingredients to a pot on low heat, dissolve the sugar, then raise the heat a tad, stir, and wait till it's ready. Easy!

See that foam? You just heat the fruit in the pot, and the juice releases along with air bubbles.
The foam can be skimmed off easily with a spoon.

Grilled Cheese Bento

Right now I am trying to transition my way of cooking and eating to include more organic and local goods as possible. Organic goodies tend to be more expensive, so I have decided to take some time to make the permanent shift. I am a frugal person, so I cannot just waste what I have in my pantry and freezer. The good news is that I have very little processed goods so far. Meals in boxes and freezer bags are not in my house any more. So while my diet and my choices are far from perfect, I am taking some time and making it my goal to get there by January. Wait, not that I think that I can be perfect, but that I think I can give my best effort to be more conscious about where my food comes from and how it is produced.

I give myself kudos for baking my own bread when our last loaf went bad (in Germany the mold grows very fast!). My bread always seems to be smaller than what I get at the store, so it works perfectly for my bento boxes. After I slice my bread, I butter one side of a couple of pieces of bread, slip in a half slice of havarti cheese, and heat it up in my skillet on medium heat. I lightly brown each side, and get it ready to serve my daughter. Since she rarely eats a whole sandwich, I cut it in half, and give her one for dinner, and wrap the other one for her bento box. For my own bento, I cut my sandwich in half and stack the halves on top of each other, keeping the curves together. I wrap my two halves and my daughter's one half in cellophane, then add them to the boxes. My heart-shaped silicone cups hold some cut-up tomatoes, and I cut a plum in half, using cute blue elephant picks to decorate each half. Since the sandwich remains loose, I wedge in a few slices of cucumbers to secure it. My daughter loves hearts, so I add a paper heart with some tape. Cute stuff!

Market Day

I love living in Germany, and some of the great perks of living in the Eifel are the farms and open spaces. I remember when I learned we were moving here. I was under the impression that everything in Europe is smaller, especially houses and apartments. However, when we got here, we found these amazing towns clustered together in beautiful little communities, and the houses are much larger than I ever dreamed they would be. They may not have closets built into the rooms, but they make up for the lack of space in storage spaces and bedrooms (ours has five bedrooms). The people in Germany are very outdoorsy, so you can spot them in the fields walking with long walking sticks (which reminds me of the travelling Uncle from Fraggle Rock) or just walking with their dogs. Several homes have stunning gardens and many people grow their own fruits and vegetables. I love driving through the towns in spring, when the flower boxes on the houses bring an explosion of color that instantly makes you feel happy and welcomed.

The people here are very friendly, and even though my Deutsch is not by any means perfect, I find that when I try to speak German, they are put at ease, and usually can speak better English than I can speak German. In most cases, people are terrified that their language skills are worse than they really are, so when they see me struggle, it lets them know that I feel exactly the same way about my own skills.

I recently went to a market in Wittlich. I've been really wanting to eat more local fruits and vegetables, so this was the perfect opportunity to find some! Even though there weren't many vendors, we found everything we needed, and I even saw some new foods that I'd never seen or heard of (purple carrots!). I saw some amazing carrots with the green leafy part still attached, so I instantly snagged those. Aren't they gorgeous?

I was amazed at the quality of the foods offered, and even more at the prices. I got a bunch of carrots, a bag of celery, four apples, five lemons, a bundle of cherry tomatoes that smell amazing, and an english cucumber all for eight euros and some change. The bag was pretty heavy when I finished shopping. Since my family eats a ton of veggies and fruit each week, this really makes me happy.

The kind lady who was selling at this stand gave my daughter a free banana. She was really great. Since this was my first experience going to the market, I felt a tad bit awkward with what I needed to do, so I asked if I could use the bag I brought to corral my items while I shopped. She was pretty helpful, and assisted me in getting my goodies into the bag. The market had fruits and veggies, organic fruits and veggies, eggs, baked goods, fresh meat cuts, deli meats, and olives/spices/jars of oil with foods inside. While we waited for our friend to get her donut holes, the lady even gave one to my daughter for free!