Strawberry-vanilla jam made

Oliver and I did quite a bit of gardening this morning: clearing out weeds, planting new rounds of peas, tossing slugs in the lawn bag we were rapidly filling, sprinkling Sluggo in the hopes of discouraging additional slug visits and so forth. It was quite fun despite my having bought 98 periwinkle plants of the wrong color. Balls! And back to the nursery I go. Anyway, we then finished up the strawberry-vanilla jam. I like it but not as much as the rhubarb one from yesterday. That is darrrrn good. Off to Jack's final Meeting for Worship.

"Likes" deleted- oh no; more jam; query

Dearest readers, It appears that the only lasting loss from our server outage two weeks ago is that all my facebook "likes" were erased. Now just DH and I like me. Good grief. If you would be so kind, "like" me again. See? That little button over to your right? You got it! Many thanks! The rhubarb-strawberry-orange jam is absolutely delish, and as soon as I finished up with it, I started in on a batch of strawberry-vanilla jam, using the rest of the berries I bought at yesterday's FM. It's macerating now, and I'll can it tomorrow. So.much.fun!

I'm readying myself (read: sucking caffeine) to stay up late at my photog class and in the meantime have a real question for you: why do seemingly all men know how to coil extension cords such that they never kink or twist, always hang nicely and stay put? I practice this on a not infrequent basis and just really can't seem to master this skill in any way. Yesterday, all my dishes from the lunch I recently catered were returned to me; I'd brought a double hot plate and extension cord to keep the jambalaya warm, and darn if the returned cord wasn't perfectly wound. I am totally a "girls can do ANYTHING boys can do" kinda gal, but truly, this cord business vexes me, and I feel pretty sure that some guy tidied mine before its return. Hmm...

Major haul, gnudi made

This morning was such a treat: a solo expedition to the FM, lots of insanely good produce, Marisa's canning demo (strawberry vanilla jam) and a perfect mix of sunshine and breeze. Just look at my haul, and this pic doesn't include the mushrooms for dinner tonight and several other items. Isn't the crazy mess of garlic scapes fun? When I returned home, I made the gnudi, as they want to rest for 6-8 hours before cooking. What are gnudi, you might be asking? They are pillowy dumplings made of ricotta, flour and egg: think gnocchi but ricotta stands in for the potato. There's a bit of nutmeg grated in, and the sauce will incorporate baby spinach and the mess of maitakes and cremini mushrooms I bought earlier. I've not made these before but I have never made a Nancy Silverton recipe that wasn't stunning, so I'm thinking we're in for a treat, especially with the preponderance of fresh and/or from-scratch ingredients used. Aah!

It seems that Oliver is napping for the second day in a row -thrilling! needed!- and I convinced (forced) Jack to go listen to a book-on-tape in his room as he desperately needs some rest but is unwilling to do so without something like a story or music. We're going to hit the playground later on, shell some favas and prep the rhubarb and strawberries.