J's thoughts

I love to bake. It is therapeutic for me :) There is something about the measuring,sifting,kneading,pouring and seeing the fruits of my labour rising to glory in the oven. I have seen many bread recipes while roaming the cyber space but was a little scared to venture into trying a recipe; Until a friend of mine, who is an avid baker (oh my you just have to see her posts) posted photos of her home made bread on the social media. A little chat with her and she encouraged me and I went ahead and tried my hands at baking bread at home.  Oh my, bread making is a sticky process but at the end of it all, you feel proud of your creation. You can go wrong too if you are not careful. The bread can become dense if you knead it too much or add too much water. To sum it up, you need to try it out a few times before you can master it. Well, a semolina bread is what I would call a beginner bread baker recipe. You can never really go that wrong with this recipe. And a positive end ...

So what to do when you end up with a lot of strawberries in hand? Unfortunately, the shelf life of strawberries is too short. So I HAD to find a way to use them. I need to find a way to preserve them and my thoughts led me to the idea of strawberry preserve or a jam. The recipes on the internet calls for pectin sugar which gives the consistency of jam. I had none at hand. So I just went ahead with the castor sugar I had. 'Oh well, this is going to be an experiment anyways; so go ahead without any fear' I reassured myself. Ingredients: 1. Strawberries (crushed) - 3 cups 2. Sugar - 2 cups 3. Lemon juice - 1/4 cup Method: Wash the strawberries and hull them. Crush the strawberries with your hand or gently blend them so that you have pulp with pieces of strawberry. Heat a deep pan and add the crushed strawberries, sugar and lemon juice. Once the mixture starts boiling, reduce the flame to low and keep cooking the strawberries till the mixture reduces...