Today I am 49. So I did what every woman in my position would do, I went blackberry picking. Let me just say: HOT! I bought an Enteman's raspberry coffee cake so we could make a fast get away, but then I couldn't find my other shoe so we didn't get out until after 8.
Blackberries were just coming in. Tons of huge berries. Tons of buzzing insects too--flinging themselves kamekaze fashion into our eyes and noses--but we managed. Bees, wasps, grasshoppers. Zoe swears she saw potato bugs, but I don't know what potato bugs look like so I can neither confirm nor deny.
Thornless blackberries are a bland compensation for the potential sunstroke. Thorned varieties have a perfume quality about them--a complexity of flavor that thornless berries lack.
Current obsession is Chinese treats for the residents (I'll blog about my new job later). Current flavor of said obsession is healthful, refreshing jellies made with agar agar and fruits. Agar agar seems better than Knox gelatin because it comes from sea weed, not animal hoofs. It has some iodine (and something else I'm blanking on), LOTS of fiber and swells up in the stomach 3x it's original size so it's filling. It also isn't supposed to melt in the heat the way that gelatin does so it won't turn into soup in the car on the way to work.
I have gotten bedazzled by the glistening variety that's possible.
I pureed some berries, got about 2 cups of juice. Added 1 tsp of lemon zest, 1/2 Cup of Splenda--heated it up. In another, smaller pan, heated up 1/2 cup of water and added 1/2 Tablespoon of agar agar and 1 packet of splenda. Brought the little pot to a boil and wisked it to throughally dissolve it. I was worried about the acidity of the berries plus the lemon interfering with the setting up of the jelly, so I added more of the agar agar than is usual. Looks like they turned out well.
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