Today in my world: Breaking in the New Kitchen!

It was decided we had run out of home made strawberry jam, and that our new kitchen needed a proper test run for functionality, KT came over to make jam with us and the fun began.

Saturday B, KT, and I chopped 2.5kg of fresh strawberries (store bought unfortunately, maybe next year we will grow our own) and added sugar before leaving overnight in the fridge to combine.

Sunday Morning after a hearty delish bacon, asparagus and fried potato breakfast, we sterilised the jars in boiling water on the stove. We added a few extra ingredients to the jam and put it on the stove until it was ready. We got quite a few jars of yummy, yummy, jam this time.

The kitchen is easy to use which is a plus, the only thing I have to remember is I cannot put hot jars/pots/saucepans directly on the benchtop for fear of destroying the finish.

B did however make me some handy, if heavy, wooden cutting boards from offcuts of the iron bark, which look beautiful in our kitchen.... and I can put hot items onto without fear.

I had heaps of fun chatting and catching up with KT and we invented a new drink for us, (Pictured above) half set strawberry jam in a shot of vodka... it is very sweet and quite smooth. I think we will make more!

This weekend has been unbearably hot, despite this B has been working hard in the garden as usual, while I hid in the air conditioning. The humidity is awful, that burning sun was not on the cards for me this weekend. He has made a new garden bed for strawberries, is planting the next lot of things we are going to experiment with growing. We are nearly out of wonderful beetroot and carrot, so we want to try something different, in addition we are planting parsnip, pumpkin, white squash, and spinach. I can't wait for them to grow, hopefully it rains soon, I am not impressed with it being the dryest November in 92 years!! BRING ON THE RAIN!

Here are some more pictures of the kitchen renovation, after we have lived in it a few weeks, and it is more homey :)