June 15, 2024 Breakfast - Pain au Chocolate. Lunch - PPI Smoked Pork cutlet, Black Eyed Peas, and Kale and Steak. Snack - Turkey sandwich with Jarlsberg. Dinner - Fried Oysters with Napa Cabbage Cole Slaw in Tartare Sauce

This was a huge day of cooking. This morning Suzette selected two recipes, one for Apricot jam with Lavender and another for jam with Rosemary.

I ate a pain au chocolate with a cup of tea and then we went to the garden and I harvested some rosemary and we took racks down and I harvested some lavender and put it on the rack to dry.

We also cut the green Japanese Maple growing from below the graft line on the red maple and planted it and treated it with root stimulator with the hope it might grow into a tree.

Suzette then drove several places in order to find Mason jars for canning. At El Super she bought limes and lemons plus orange juice. She finally found the jars at Smith’s.  When she returned home she fetched her canning pot for the water bath to seal the jars in the basement and began sterilizing the new jars.

 I started processing apricots.  I pitted 16 cups for the rosemary jam. Suzette cooked them with sugar and rosemary and then pushed the cooked apricots through a food mill to extract the skins and bottled the jam and heated the filled jars in the canning pot to create a seal on the lids. They all sealed.

Then I diced 12 cups of apricots that Suzette cooked with lavender we harvested last year and sugar and canned the resulting jam in jars. Suzette also cooked several batches of pitted apricots in sugar and lemon water that she bagged in gallon freezer bags for baking.

At noon Suzette heated some PPI Black Eyed peas and diced smoked Pork cutlet with kale and added the PPI grilled steak for lunch.

Then at 3:30 I made small sliced Turkey breast and Jarlsberg cheese sandwiches on toasted rye bread spread with mayonnaise for each of us.

I rested from 4:00 until 5:30 while Suzette processed the lavender jam.

Then at 6:00 I suggested making apricot chutney.  Suzette found a recipe and I pitted and diced 7 cups of apricots and a large onion while Suzette put the lengthy list of spices in the large casserole with sugar and apple cider vinegar we bought at the cheese market at Canges de Nois in Asturias, Spain last August. We altered the recipe slightly by adding some rehydrated raisins to the rehydrated cranraisins and a mango, diced.

Then at 8:00 we fried the oysters Suzette had bought at Smith’s today. Suzette dipped them in egg and coated them with cracker crumbs and fried them in canola oil. I made tartare sauce by combining pickle relish, mayonnaise, and lemon juice and then making it into a Cole’s slaw of Napa cabbage, minced shallot, and cherry tomatoes.  I divided the Cole slaw/tartare sauce into two puddles in bowls and Suzette placed the fried oysters on the Cole slaw after they were fried and drained. We drank glasses of Kirkland  Signature 2022 Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough, New Zealand ($7.00 at Costco) that was rated 93 points and was delicious.

It was a wonderful dinner. We love oysters and partial to fried oysters.

We drank the last of the wine as we watched Death in Paradise as the chutney simmered.

Then we watched Paris Murders and at 11:00 covered and put the chutney in the fridge and Suzette went to bed dead tired from provisioning and cooking all day.

I stayed up to blog and read with a couple of cookies and a cup of chai.

Bon Appetit