dianaschnuth

Summer is for jamming.

More specifically, for making freezer jam.

In another couple of months, I’ll be making my favorite condiment ever: tomato jam. Until I have some garden-fresh tomatoes to put up, though, I’ll jam up whatever we’ve got that’s too ripe to eat out-of-hand. Today, that was half a dozen plums, plus a handful of raspberries I picked from the runners that the neighbor’s bush has been sending into our yard.

I based my jam off of a recipe that I’d saved from a long-ago issue of Cooking Pleasures Magazine (RIP, Cooking Club of America). I halved the batch, substituted ground ginger for fresh (1/4 tsp ground replaced 1 Tbsp fresh), and substituted 2/3 of the sugar with Splenda. The end result is tart and sweet and 1 WW SmartPoints value for one tablespoon.

So, so good.

Like many people (including my late Memaw), the recipes I concoct aren’t so much measured as they are eyeballed. That said, these five-spice shirataki noodles are such a hit with my son that I want to at least share the basics, just in case someone out there would like to try it for themselves (or their own picky offspring).

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I made new-to-me recipes twice in one evening! First, I made Ginger-Sesame Oats with Mushrooms and Charred Green Onions for dinner. My five-year-old son, of course, hated it.

After he went to bed, I made Cinnamon Roll Muffins. (He already knows he’ll get a muffin for breakfast tomorrow.)

I was pretty pleased with both endeavors, and baking after my son went to bed kept me from snacking, so that’s a win, too.

I’m well on my way to cooking/baking 50 new-to-me Recipes in 2017!