Month: March 2020

Ingredients:

600g Melon (one small cantaloupe melon)

350g Mango (2 medium sized mangoes)

300g Apple pulp (4 apples)

100ml lemon juice

1kg sugar

Method:

On this occasion I used fresh melon (not frozen), so I used an appropriate amount of apple pulp to account for the extra melon juice.

Deseed and skin your melon. Prepare your mango to free up the flesh from the skin and seed. If you are uncomfortable with this, feel free to use use frozen mango pieces. Place in a saucepan with the lemon juice and boil for 10 minutes. Let it cool a little and blitz with a handheld blender. Add your cooked, pre prepared apple pulp and blitz once more! Of course, you could cook your raw apples first with a little water, on a low heat and cook until tender then add your melon and mango! Either way works just fine!

Once your puree is ready, add your 1 Kg sugar and mix well. Bring to a rolling boil. Be careful your mixture does not overflow once it starts to boil, stir occasionally to stop any sediments from burning on the base of the pan.

Remember, a good jam will gel after a rolling boil of 20 minutes. You will overcook your jam if you pass 30 minutes. That overcooked Jammy taste is not so good. You want a fresh fruity flavour.

This Jammy combo produced a lot of bubbles that need skimming before bottling / jarring up! Rather than put this down the sink, I reserved it in a bowl, in order to use as a pouring syrup on the children’s Greek yoghurt tonight.

The children, when asked for marks out of 10 shouted 12 and then 100! So I guess Melango Jelly is now very much on the family menu.

The 4 full 320ml jars have since been sterilised in my steamer and the half jar sits in the fridge awaiting an earlier consumption. Yum yum yum! Remember that you loose some of the volume in weight due to evaporation! Enjoy…

Have I been overdoing it a bit? I guess that I have been blogging daily for a while now so I thought that I would take a little time out!

Today’s little video is courtesy of Thor and his attempt at flying this morning! It made me smile.

Well, life continues as it should, one or two moments of drama this week. The most noted would be the cancellation of Amritsar and Tara’s Lego Club. It would seem that there was a fully articulated mannequin in the classroom! And whilst the male teacher was out of the room, one or more of the children put the mannequin on the teachers desk and articulated the middle finger to the up position, leaving the others clenched (the up yours gesture)!!! As you can imagine, the teacher was not impressed. The club is cancelled until he gets a written letter of apology from the guilty party. Tara and Amritsar have promised that it was not them, but will not say who the guilty child was. Oh dear!

Another post to follow shortly with the recipe for Melango Jelly. Wow, we’ve certainly got a winner there…

Plus the juice from 2 x lemons and cooked weight for weight of sugar!

What can I say, the full recipe to follow tomorrow! However, Dadda’s Jammy combos are plus one today. Now, how does:

Dadda’s homemade ‘Melango Jelly’ sound to you? I think that the ingredients speak for themselves, don’t they! A big hit I am sure with the little ones!!!

Jam should never be boring! Hold off on spreading that cheap gelatinous strawberry gloop on your toast that you purchased from the supermarket…

You might just remember that I favour the astronomical start to our planets seasons (at the Equinox’s and the Solstice’s), but I get the order and clean cut nature of starting the seasons meteorologically at the beginning of the month and not on 21st / 22nd.

But I will note that for some, yesterday was an end to the long winter months, here in ‘The Shires’! And all I could report on was Thor’s rather unruly table manners! I have to smile.

The red leaved plum tree in the garden has blossomed in the last week or so and the buds on the hydrangea are beginning to bulge with this years anticipated growth. I am also reminded that we are getting closer to the girls 7th birthday on March 25th, just a few days after the Spring Equinox! I am again reminded of the festival of light in India, the celebration known as ‘Holi’. In my book (memoir) Eighteen Moons, I write with some detail, of my experience of Holi seven years ago whilst in India.

I look back, with all that has come since, I consider my sheer innocence and bewilderment of what was to follow, these seven very rewarding years.

My book is still there, gathering dust on the virtual shelf on the Amazon platform (paperback and ebook), just search for Eighteen Moons! And for you non readers out there, I am considering the audiobook route in the coming months. I found a voiceover actor called Angus who is extremely professional and proficient with recording audiobooks, so I thank him in advance and will of course let you know about how things are doing on that score in due course!

I just had a thought! If you don’t really read books, why are you reading this? Well, thank you so much, I am extremely honoured that you made it all the way to the last paragraph.

Now, who doesn’t like a ‘Full English’ for Sunday brunch? Or if in Ireland, a ‘Full Irish’? Okay, Thor isn’t an easy eater. Out of all five children, when it comes to food, he is definitely the most difficult. The last weeks, I’ve just kind of given up! I’m tired of mealtimes with the children. Thor is a constant thorn in my side. I know before I even shout out ‘dinnertime’, there will be problems ahead. Thor has taken to nibbling the crusts of a sandwich as slowly as humanly possible before teasingly the actual heart / filling of the sandwich!

It’s every mealtime though. Today’s brunch was no different. He found fault with the tomatoes, the mushrooms, even the fried potatoes! Now, none of them bar Tara used to like mushrooms. But if you insist at every mealtime when mushrooms are present they at least try one or two, in the end, they get to like the flavour and texture. Caleb now loves them, Aaliyah is certainly on the cusp, even Amritsar will eat a few. Today’s mushrooms were extra special! I used dehydrated and soaked them in water for 30 minutes. The end result is really meaty, not slimy affair, an intensity flavoursome fungi.

Okay, everyone loves brunch don’t they? However, Thor ended up being sent to bed. I give up I exclaimed! He came back down within the hour, made us empty apologies and that was that!

You might have noticed in the first picture that Aaliyah had her pink plastic plate as she smashed her china plate a couple of weeks ago. Caleb has just done the same. Granny’s dinner service diminishes yet more. He will enjoy his plastic mini mouse plate with next week’s lunchtime offering!

Dinnertime now approaches and I am very nervous…

I have to hand you a memory at this point! My own childhood and my recollection of Sunday dinnertime. Now, my mother wasn’t the greatest in the kitchen! I think that is why I qualified as a chef at the tender age of 19 years old (C &G 706 1 / 2). ‘Man cannot live by bread alone’ was my mantra – there will always be a job in the catering industry I thought! Excuse the slightly sexist connotation please! This was before the evolution of the ‘Celebrity Chef’ mind you. Anyhow, back to my childhood Sunday dinnertime. Beans on toast, an egg omelette sandwich, tinned pilchards on toast – you get the picture!

So the children’s dinner tonight! A moist sourdough bread sandwich with two hour broiled pork leg, well seasoned, moist and succulent, with Helmanns mayonnaise. This was accompanied by cheesy quavers, an apple and a chocolate cake bar. Enough said. A sandwich that he would otherwise enjoy, but today, Thor nibbled, complained, nibbled some more and by in large, he refused to eat his food yet again.

No up to bed on this occasion as we are preparing for bath time. But believe me – I do grow tired of Thor’s eating habits. Of course, a lot of it is for show – he needs a forum to enact himself! Maybe in the long run – these testing moments will show a positive outcome in his ability to express himself. He is a funny boy most of the time – I guess he is just looking to fulfil himself within the spectrum of his audience.

It’s not easy at times. But I still love him to bits!