Weeding out never-to-be used again stuff that has outlived its usefulness from closets, cabinets, drawers, bookshelves and every hoarder’s hiding places in the house.
Lying down to nap
Go through the stack of mail— bank notices, subdivision
flyers, bills-- that has piled up over
the last month
Lying down to flip
through a food magazine
Staring out of the window to see how flooded my garden is.
Lying down to watch
cable teevee: Anthony Bordain eating his way through L.A.,
New York,
Singapore, Bangkok…..
Going through my music CDs and occasionally join in the
singing….. “Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain”….
Catching up with family members and friends on FB and Viber
Lying down to give my
back a good stretch
Putting out my beads to craft out another key chain.
Lying down to nap
again
Sitting quietly to thank the Lord for small pleasures on a
raining day and remembering to pray for those who are not as lucky as I am.
----xoxoxox----
Rainy days are for clearing the mind of mundane worries and
concerns. A good way to do this, I find,
is to hole up in my kitchen with that one recipe I have been waiting for the
right moment to execute.
No rush, no pressure, no time constraint. Just the rain beating down on the roof while
I concentrated on measurements, cooking process and temperature control.
For that particular rainy Tuesday afternoon, I decided to
try my hand at making guava jelly. With enough frozen guavas gathered in a span
of two months, it was the perfect time. (I only have one guava tree and it took
awhile of patiently picking the fruits before the birds and bats got to them
first)
Using a recipe I found in one of my dog-eared recipe
books, I started to chop the pungent
fruit. The smell brought back memories
of tall guava trees we used to have at the back of our house in Cebu.
Alone in my kitchen, I remember how my mother would
chop, boil and strain the softened fruit. Guided by the recipe book, I followed through
the procedures as best as I could.
Ingredients:
Guavas- both ripe and still green, chopped
Water- just enough to cover the chopped fruits
Sugar
Lemon or Calamansi Juice
Procedure:
1. Bring
to a boil and let simmer until fruit is very soft.
With all the windows closed, the house took on a lovely warm
scent. No longer offensive, the brew
gave off an exotic citrusy whiff of
sweet fruity summer days.
2. Pour
the mixture through a strainer. Discard
the boiled fruit. Further strain the
resulting liquid using a cheese cloth.
I still can picture how she would put the boiled fruit in a
clean recycled flour sack and hang the bundle on a rod for all the drippings to
be gathered in a basin below. The bundle
was left to drip overnight.
I poured the boiled fruit through a strainer. For lack of a cheese cloth or flour sack, I
decided to use coffee filter paper to strain further the resulting liquid. It was a very slow process and I had to
change the filter several times. I had
been warned that squeezing the pulp would result in a cloudy jelly. There really was no quicker way around this. Well, I did have plenty of time.
3. Measure
out the strained liquid and put back into a pot with some sugar and lemon or
calamansi juice. ( 1 cup liquid = ½ c
sugar + 1 teaspoon lemon or calamansi juice)
Once I had strained all of the boiled liquid, it was back to
the pot to boil with some sugar. It was a good two more hours before the
liquid firmed up.
4. Cook
on low to medium heat until liquid is reduced and coats the spoon and there is
a thick residue on the side of the pot.
5. Pour into sterilized jars. (Boil jar in enough water for about 5 minutes)
Having sterilized two mayonnaise jars, I poured the hot dark
red-orange jelly in. I was a bit
skeptical that it would not firm up some more.
But after it had considerably cooled down, it was the perfect jiggly
consistency.
My hubby had his own childhood memories pop in after his
first taste of the jelly. He said it
reminded him of the imported guava jelly in round tin cans that his mother use
to get at the supermarket.
Oh, I love the rainy days!
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