both work and fun stuff on the weekend

On Friday night I had thought to go to bed at a reasonable hour, so that I could get up early and attend the Calontir virtual bardic before my video call with my sisters. Like all good plans, it changed a bit in the execution...

I put down the computer at 21:00 and tided up a bit before starting a 35 minute yoga session around 22:00, which meant that I was in bed by 23:00. Whereupon I was suddenly inspired to do more of my data processing that needs to happen before I can write my first paper for my archaeology degree, so I got back up and started working. Since it was late I wasn't hungry, so I just kept working. Around 03:30 I connected to that bardic, but since I was working I didn't contribute, just listened whilst I worked. At 06:40 I decided that I should quit work for the day and get ready for the call with my sisters, at 07:00. We talked till 09:00, and then I went to bed, and slept nearly five hours.

I had breakfast and second breakfast pretty much back to back, and then E came over to tend the bee hives. I had thought to go out and pick berries, so decided that this time I could go with E to have a look. I in addition to my coveralls and boots, and E's extra special bee-keeping jacket and wire head covering, I wore my nettle-harvesting gloves, since they have long cuffs and have thick leather palms. I hadn't realised just how much thinner the leather is on the back of those gloves, till one of the bees stung my finger right through the glove. It didn't get very far into my finger, and it only hurt about like getting a splinter, but I still went in to the house to look at it with a magnifying glass to see if there was any stinger remaining (by the time I got to the house it was out), and I squeezed out some clear fluids from the tiny puncture wound and washed it.

Then, since bee-keeping protection is also good mosquito protection, we went down and picked some black currants. We each managed to mostly fill a 12 liter bucket in the 2 hours we were out. I took off my right glove whilst picking, which was same hand that got stung, and, of course, some mosquitoes managed to bite it as I worked, which meant that hand was feeling a bit itchy by the time I went in. E and I hung out for another couple of hours after she left, and then I did a 40 minute yoga session, and managed to get to bed by 23:00.

I woke the first time a bit after 04:00, inspired to work, so I did. Got tired again and lay down for a nap a bit after 07:00, but only rested about 15 minutes before deciding to work some more. Then at 09:30 I was again sleepy, but this time I slept for two hours, finally getting up for good around noon.

Around 14:00 E returned with the plan to pick some nettles, but first we drove out to Storheden (the big-box store area) to buy E a food dehydrator to use on the nettles. The first store was out, so we tried a couple of more before the purchase, and then I stopped by the grocery store to pick up a couple of things whilst E checked the garden store next door.

By the time we got back to the house I was hungry, so she picked nettles and I harvested another large squash, some broccoli, and a bunch of garden greens and cooked it up with a bit of dhal, then I mixed in a bit of left over wild rice, and called it good. But then I realised that it was well after 17:00, and I had missed the court for virtual Raglan. Oops!

After E went home I logged into the rest of Virtual raglan, working more as I listened to the play, and then participated in the bardic. I quit working when Raglan finished, around midnight my time, but then, rather than being sensible and doing yoga and going to bed I spent more than an hour reading FB and DW, and am now typing this up. However, having now brought you all current, I think I had better do that yoga and get some sleep.

yummy kitchen experiments

Last year I made spruce tip syrup for the first time, thought it yummy, and used it as flavour in both candy and bread. I hadn't made much, so it didn't last long. This spring I picked way more spruce tips and made a much larger batch of syrup, but it came out more bitter than I remember from a year ago. I don't know for certain what caused the bitterness this time, since my approach was similar to last year's batch:

First I covered 3 liters of spruce tips with water, soaked it over night, then boiled it to extract flavour of the spruce tips, then filtered out the solids, added more water to the solids again, boiled again and combined the liquid from both batches and boiled it to reduce it till there was only 2.6 liter, at which point I added 0.5 dl sugar, and let it simmer to reduce till it was just a bit more than half a liter.

In part because of the bitterness of the syrup, and in part because I am already seeing my weight a little bit up due to the comfort eating habit that came to visit after mom died, started to go away, and then returned in full force to help me celebrate the pandemic, I hadn't yet done anything with the syrup this year (after all, if one is going to over-eat it should be healthy stuff).

On the other hand, I would hate to waste the syrup, so this week I finally decided that it was time to do something with it, so when I was out yesterday I bought a liter of cream thinking I would make another batch of spruce tip candy.

Today I took out one of two bottles of spruce tip syrup, measured 2 dl into a pot, and then noticed that there was a dark ring lining the glass at the former fluid level, that might be a mould. So I checked the other, fuller bottle, and, sure enough, it had a dark ring, too. So I put the full contents of both bottles into the pot and brought them to a boil. I added a heaping tablespoon of sugar to them, since the syrup really was a bit bitter for my taste. While the syrup heated I washed both bottles with soap, and then put them into a pot on the stove, full of water, and brought it to a boil for a bit to sterilise them. Then I filled one of the two bottles with syrup quite full, used the narrow handle of a spoon to remove the little bit of froth that collected on top, and closed the bottle whilst still hot, so that it would make a nice air tight seal.

Then I added the liter of cream to the ~200 ml of spruce tip syrup (which wasn't as bitter after having that extra sugar added) and let it boil, stirring often, for 45 minutes, during which I combined 200 ml of almond meal, 100 ml chopped almonds, and 400 g of whole milk powder, into which I stirred 1.25 ml of freshly ground cardamon seeds. I probably should have boiled the cream a bit longer, to let it start reducing a bit, but at that point I wanted my dinner, so I decided to call it good enough, and first briefly dunked the bottom of the pot into a cold water bath to slow down the boiling, then poured the cream and spruce tip syrup over the powdered milk, almonds, and cardamon and stirred it well. I poured that into a buttered glass rectangle baking pan, and let it cool a bit on the counter whilst I cleaned up (by first licking the mixing bowl clean, of course, yum!), then I put it into the fridge while I ate an artichoke for dinner (which had been happily steaming while I cooked the candy).

A half an hour later I decided I wanted a bit more of the candy, and went to the fridge. The candy hadn't achieved cold yet, but was more on the liquid end of the liquid-solid continuum than I wanted to see, and I didn't think it would achieve status as a solid just from cooling off. Therefore, after eating another couple of yummy spoon fulls of candy-goo, I put the pan into the oven and turned the heat on to 175 C. in hopes that baking it a bit would drive enough enough moisture to achieve a solid when cold. (last year I made only half a batch, and there was no problem boiling it down enough that it made a solid when combined with the milk and almond powder)

I checked it 15 minutes later, and the edges were simmering rapidly, so I turned off the heat (but left the fan running, and walked away. A few minutes later I looked again, and the whole thing was boiling, had gotten a more caramel-colour (and smell), and the edges were starting to really brown. So I pulled it back out of the oven and let it sit a minute or two. Then I carefully took a spoon to the caramelised edges, which were a bit higher than the elevation of the rest of it, since the boiling liquid had gone up and stuck to the glass, removing a tiny bit at a time, and eating it (yum!) till the edges were at the same elevation as the rest, and the brownest bits removed.

Now it is cooling, and I am no longer hungry for the day, so I will find out tomorrow if it has become solid enough to slice tomorrow. If so, I can pack some to share with my friends when we go on adventure to Storforsen.