Diving into Slow Living with Lemons in Sugar Syrup

 Hello Friends!  We are all spending more time than ever in our kitchens and homes in general.  It took a while for me to fully embrace my home and this new state of being as there was so much fear and uncertainty in the early days.  But now I have come to accept it as a blessing in disguise.  I am so much more intentional with my actions these days and have a newfound appreciation for food and where it comes from. I have been trying to pick up new skills such as preserving food which I believe to be an integral part of the slow food and slow living movement.   I have always been scared of preserving what with having to faff about with a giant pot of boiling water and countless jars to sterilize.  As well, this was a skill that I had never been taught or exposed to when I was growing up.  But one way to get around this fear is is to do small batches, just one or two jars at a time.  I had been gifted a bag of lemons so this was the perfect opportunity to try preserving lemons in sweet syrup.

Just focusing on one jar makes it less intimidating for a newbie like me. In this case, I used a 500 ml jar and sterilized it first with boiling water.

I managed to get 3 sliced lemons in there.  I made the sugar syrup by dissolving a half cup of sugar into 300 mls of boiling water.  I then poured the hot syrup over the lemons leaving 1 cm of headspace.  I think I need some sort of weight to keep the slices from floating upwards.  The syrup is supposed to completely cover the slices but without something to weigh them down, this wasn't possible.  Any expert jam makers, pickle makers or preservers of food out there, please let me know if there is such a thing as a weight or stone that doesn't react with the food, available or if you have any ideas for what I could use to weigh down the slices.

 

Here is my very first jar of lemons in syrup!  The brightness of the lemons had infused the syrup after just a couple of days.  It really is like sunshine in a jar.  There isn't any of the bitterness found in commercially prepared products.  The lemon slices are lovely in a cup of tea or as a garnish on a sweet dessert.  The syrup and slices stirred into some sparkling water make a deliciously refreshing drink.  I keep the jar in the refrigerator and seeing it there gives me a tremendous amount of pleasure and satisfaction.

February 2021 Monthly Favourites Apple Pen and Lamy Fountain Pen

 Hello Friends! Welcome to another Monthly Favourites.  Let's jump right in.  I had been wanting an Apple Pen for a while so when I saw a sale on Amazon, it didn't take long for me to place it in my shopping basket.

My city is still in lockdown and we are still living under a Stay at Home order.  We spend so much time indoors now, online.  I figured having the Pen would increase the functionality of my tablet and possibly decrease the amount of sticky fingerprints accumulating on the screen. I was worried about the authenticity of the Pen as I was ordering it off Amazon and not through the Apple store but, as far as I can tell, it is the real thing. 

At the same time, I also ordered this amazing fountain pen.

I love the fact that it is transparent and you can see the ink level in the cartridge.  I grew up using a fountain pen in school.  However, using this Lamy fountain pen is light years away from the dodgy one that I was forced to use by my old school.  I remember fiddling with the school mandated fountain pen for hours trying to get the scratchy nib to work.  It was such a relief to use a ballpoint when I left that school.  It is funny how circular life is.  Being at home all day, every day, has brought to the forefront issues that I had never really had time to mull over.  I had just put up with using crappy disposable pens for a long time.  As so much is done digitally these days, I didn't see the need to buy pens.  After all, there are many freebie pens floating around.  Funnily enough, it was buying the futuristic Apple Pen that spurred me to get an "oldschool" fountain pen.  I liked the fact that it was refillable so it wasn't a disposable, one use only product.  The nib is so smooth. Writing in my daily planner has become an intentional, meditative act that fills me with great joy.  I pay a lot more attention to my penmanship which has tilted towards the illegible due to my increasing reliance on the digital.  The irony that I invested in a digital pen at the same time as a "manual" fountain pen didn't hit me until I received them. Ha! The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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