- Date: April 14, 1987
- Location: Cairns, Queensland, Australia
- Subject: Making Preserves for the Long Cruise
Dear WaterFairy:
It is a beautiful morning, a bit cooler and I think the sun will be out a little. Today, I have the galley all to myself! Well, Mom will be around if I need some help, but other than that I am on my own. I am going to make some lemon preserves and some pickled onions. Lots and lots of them. Mom told me we need to make as many preserves as possible now, while we are in port and can get fresh supplies. I said, “OK, let me do it. Tell me what to do and I will do it.” Mom said this will serve as my math and culinary class because it involves measuring and chopping and food preparation. Mom liked the idea of me doing the work, as she is reading a great book. I am going to get busy, and I will report back to you later.
OK, it is the end of the day report. First, I took all the glass pickle jars, peanut butter jars and spaghetti sauce jars, that we have been saving for months, and washed them in boiling hot, soapy water. Then I filled them with hot water and a small splash of bleach, and let them sit of ½ hour. I emptied them out and filled them with boiling water. All to clean and sterilize them, so icky stuff would not grow in the preserves and ruin the whole batch. I will use the empty jars for the preserves.
OK, it is NINE hours later. I am tired, too tired to clean the galley. Mom said she would help me clean up because I did all the work. The rule on the boat is….whoever cooks, does not have to clean. I asked her why she would only help me and not clean the galley up entirely. She said she wanted me to watch how to clean up, and where to put everything. Fair enough. Final product: 8 x 16 oz jars of lemon preserves and 4 x one gallon jars of onions. We just have to find good places to store the jars, so they stay cool and don’t break when we go sailing. Mom saved lots of bubble wrap, so I guess we will wrap them in that and tape the bubble tape on with duct tape. Mom will stash them around the boat, keeping track of them on her “master food list.”
Here are the recipes I made:
| Lemon Preserves (recipe from Chris on Onaway who worked in a Mediterranean restaurant.)About 20 small lemons, Box of Kosher salt, hot water. -Cut the ends of both sides of the lemon -Cut lemons into 4 sections, slicing them about 2/3 of the way down, but don’t cut all the way through. -Put a t-spoon of salt in the bottom of the jar -Squeeze the juice of each quarter into the jar -Sprinkle a t-spoon of salt into the lemon quarters and squish it into the jar -Keep going until jar is full of lemons and lemon juice -Sprinkle t-spoon of salt on top of lemons -Fill jar to the top with hot water -Put cap on jar -Store for 2 months in cool place-in fridge if you have room -flip jars over every week….if you can remember |
| Pickled Onions per 16 oz jar (recipe from Ivy from Tikani) I made this 4 times for each gallon jar. 1 pound of small onions, 4 red peppers, 1 to 2 cups of vinegar, ½ cup sugar, 12 peppercorns, 2 cloves of garlic, chopped. -Boil the onions in hot water for 2 minutes-just to loosen their skins -Rinse under cold water -Cut the bottom and top of the onion -Start peeling the onions, and keep peeling and peeling -Put peeled onions in the jar -Cut tops off peppers, cut peppers in half and take out the seeds (or keep seeds in for hotter onions). -Layer on top of onions -Bring to boil: vinegar, sugar, peppercorns and garlic -Pour into jars, up to the top -Screw on top while jar is hot.- |
Tonight is the full moon, which will come up in the east around 6:30pm. Capt, Mom and I jumped into “DingDong” and took a ride out to the east end of the harbor, just as the sun was setting and the moon was rising. It was so pretty to see all the red, oranges and purples of the sunset, and then turn around and see the big old white moon coming up over the horizon. I can tell the winter or the dry season, is coming, because it is not so hot and humid, it was about 82℉ and will be about 70℉ tonight. I will probably need a blanket to snuggle under. This is lovely weather, a few clouds but not much rain, light breeze but not gale winds. It well and truly looks like the cyclone season is behind us. Pretty soon we will be able to bake stuff and not worry about the boat heating up.
After our moon ride adventure and dinner, I got to take an extra long, hot shower tonight, because of all the hard work I did in the galley. Felt good to get good and clean before bed. Time to read some more of Judie’s Journeys.
