Blackcurrant Jam and How Not To Be a Domestic Goddess

Any excuse to use my favourite kitchen gadget.

It’s not my expensive slow macerating juicer nor my close second mini chopper but my very cheap kitchen timer dad bought me from his favourite shop Lidl’s.  These days due to time restraints I find myself in the soulless mainstream supermarkets, sometimes Ocado online (when I am organised) but when I am in life enhancing, living the moment flow, I escape to my local organic farm shop Cherry Garden, where nature and soul meet. I picked the blackcurrants there a couple of weeks ago. They were beginning to turn. Waste not want not.

There is something about this little plastic cube timer that I love. Perhaps because it saves me from burnt dinners and clock watching and the fact I think of dad every time I use it. When I spin the dial and set it down I feel another thing has been taken care of.

Often a wooden spoon will remind me of my mother. She was always at the AGA cooking amazing food. She was a true domestic goddess; making clothes, baking bread, cooking healthy meals, keeping the garden nice and generally trying to keep inline a husband and four girls.

Today we can find that working and trying to be a domestic goddess is too much. My mother had a full time job just being at home. ‘Just’ is enough! But we keep trying.

As I write this ‘Journeying into a Slower Lifestyle‘ pops up in my email inbox. Need to check that out though I humbly know it all. Today wasn’t one of those days. It was fast and I need some more magnesium.

The sun is beaming in the window as I write and I have ensured there is a beautiful window box of flowers on the sill outside. Even when at my desk, answering the emails, adjusting the website, researching and thinking I want to feel some connection to nature.

Today has already been mightily full. As I delighted myself clearing the 3 laundry baskets (medal necessary), catching the sun and smiling when I had the opportunity to hang it all out, (the guinea pigs always squeak when I go outside but they have already been fed organic kale, raspberries and blueberries, too demanding), try and fathom the SEO’s on the website, don’t ask, its tedious, add new products, invoice various people, remind myself the joiner is coming at 4.30pm and I must be in the shop by 3pm I decide to make blackcurrant jam – without pectin…….

It was a little joyful break from the multi-tasking. Though does this count? It was interrupted by the sound of emails pinging in, WhatsApps buzzing and me still thinking about what I need to achieve today.

I much prefer the days when calmness and to do lists are not insurmountable, though with none I also feel slightly agitated. Where is the happy medium. Perhaps it is just all about just going with the flow, but doing one thing at a time.

 

So here is the delicious blackcurrant jam.

By the way did you know that blackcurrants are packed with antioxidants, double the amount of blueberries and four times the amount of vitamin C as oranges.

 

BLACKCURRANT JAM

• 300g blackcurrants, stalks removed
• 300g of sugar
• Juice of one small lemon

Add the blackcurrants to a saucepan and 250ml of water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes until the liquid has really reduced and the fruit is soft.

Add the sugar and lemon juice, bring to the boil and cook until the jam reaches 105C/220F on a sugar thermometer. Will take about 20 minutes.

Leave to cool for a few minutes and if you are a real domestic goddess you will pour it in to a nice Kilner jar and add a doily.