Sushi and jam

I spent the afternoon pitting a huge mountain of cherries. Not from my tree - I have very few cherries on my tree this year, and what I do have is full of worms! No, these are from a friend's tree, and I brought home three buckets and five bowls full on Thursday, not really thinking about how we were going to use them all.

I ate a lot the first day. The second day I gave a bowlful to another friend. I ate a few more. Computer Geek ate some too. The third day I ate some more! Today, I made 12 jars of jam and froze some for later. I use Pomona's Pectin, which is quite expensive (nearly $5 a packet) but always sets the jam well with minimal sugar. Instead of Certo, which often requires more sugar than fruit, the Pomona recipe recommends between three-quarters of a cup to two cups of sugar per four cups of fruit. I used one cup per four cups, and made a quadruple batch.


As soon as I had the jam finished and the kitchen cleaned up, it was time to make dinner. Occasionally, we have sushi, obviously without fish. I sometimes use white sushi rice, but prefer to use brown short grain - it works OK. When it's cooked, I stir in a little agave and rice vinegar (or lemon juice) and then leave it to cool. I roll it up in the nori sheets with thin strips of avocado, cucumber, carrot and green onion. My sushi isn't very dainty, but Computer Geek and Tai Chi Man enjoy it with wasabi and tamari. It's easy to make, if a little time-consuming.