Big Day in the Kitchen

Yesterday was a big canning/cooking/baking day. My friend's two children are spending two weeks with us, Bala is 14, Subhadra is 11. It is such fun to have them! Bala is spending time with my husband, learning about guy stuff, and Subhadra is about the most creative young lady I've ever met.



Seems like they don't have mulberry trees in North Carolina, and our numerous bird-planted trees are a big hit with them. Since the trees are so loaded with fruit this year, we decided in the spirit of frugal living, to make some mulberry jelly. Well, who would have thought? It is one of the best jellies I've ever had! I tried one batch the old way, without the pectin, but the flavor was a bit too strong, and here is the best recipe we found:


Mulberry jelly

Juice ripe mulberries until you have 4 c juice
add 2 3/4 c evaporated cane juice mixed with 4 t pectin
4 t calcium water (comes with the pectin - I use Pamona's)

Boil, fill into sterilized jars. Taaadaaa!

We also made some old style strawberry jam, without pectin, I love that concentrated sweet strawberry flavor! It is going to be such treasure in the winter...

I haven't been letting my children eat much sweets because they are a little sick, but yesterday my mother-in-law was entertaining dear guests, so we made some jelly filled cookies. Well, how ironic, since my home-made jam becomes liquid when I bake, I brought some Smuckers, something I never do, on the very day of making 25 jars of my own jelly! And guess what: it still melted and flowed out of the cookies. They were still very good, but more like glazed than filled. Does anyone know of some kind of jam recipe that is good for cooking?

Well, anyway, it was a large recipe, and it still got all ate up by 5 in the afternoon, and we had a great time with the girls making them.




Hungarian Flaky Jam-filled cookies

3 c flour (I used 2 c white and 1 c whole wheat)
14 T cold butter
2 1/2 t yeast
pinch of salt
enough sour cream to make a nice pliable dough
Jelly

Grate butter with big hole grater into flour, mix everything and make a dough quickly and gently. Form into a rectangle, cover and put it into the fridge for an hour.

On lightly floured surface, roll it out to 1/4 inch thick, cut into small rectangles, fill with jelly of your choice (we used apricot), pinch opposite corners, lay it on buttered baking sheet and bake at 395 F till straw colored.



These are rich but very flaky and delicious!