Beef, mushroom and ginger stir fry.

Marion’s. Simple, delicious, no fancy ingredients. It was all eaten last night and thoroughly enjoyed by all 3 of us.

I had 2 pieces of very decent speak from Esse, which I have sliced thinly and marinated for about an hour in some soy sauce, sesame oil, a sprinkling of baking soda and cornflour. Chopped up my white onion, lots of ginger and 3 cloves of garlic. Made a sauce out of soy, oyster sauce, dark soy, a touch of white vinegar, some sugar and sesame oil. The rice was ready and waiting under the lid. Aromatics into the wok for a couple of minutes, mushrooms in, 3-4 minutes, then the beef, after a couple of minutes the sauce and it was ready to serve. Finished with sesame seeds and spring onions. An excellent end to a productive day in the kitchen.

I have made my third batch of strawberry jam, baked a sourdough, but this time half of the flour was manitoba, half was integrale. I have to say that on the day it was baked it was fantastic, the next day, toasted, was ok, no fireworks. I also baked some Danish pastries yesterday, as on Tuesdays Izzie has has her Italian buddy over in the afternoon. It’s been a good, foodie day!

Strawberry jam, debut.

One has arrived at the point in one’s life, when one is ready to start making jam. 🙂 Ha!!

Our last shopping trip to Nice resulted in bringing( among shit loads of other foodie stuff) some blackcurrant jam, for the sole purpose of making my favourite cake, but also some raspberry confiture, which Izzie has destroyed within a couple of days. The strawberry season is slowly coming to an end, what we grow in the garden is nowhere near enough for jam making, not this year anyway, so I got 3 packets in Esse yesterday, got some Fruttapec and made some jam this morning, for the first time in my life. Hopefully not the last too. I really enjoyed making it.

I started with sterilising a few jars, washed, they went into the oven for 10 minutes at 180 degrees, while the lids sat in boiling water the same amount of time.

I took my time cooking down 1,5 kg of strawberries. When they were mostly all dissolved, but some pieces left for texture, I added 300g of sugar together with 1,5 packets of Fruttapec, I weighed it all, can’t be too sure you’re getting stuff right when making something for the first time.

Cooked and stirred the mixture for about 4 minutes, then divided it between my jars waiting on the side, screwed the lids on and turned the jars upside down for about an hour, before setting them straight up.

Once the stuff gets tasted and tested by all the Bankses, ideally on top of a wonderful toast, I might think of purchasing some jars and getting on with filling up a shelf in the pantry. Onwards and upwards!