The other day I went over to my friend, Kazumi's house.
She recently renovated her kitchen and invited me over for lunch.
In her front yard, I noticed a june berry tree, which is also known as amelanchier.
I had learned about june berries when I went to buy some cake for Satoshi's
birthday.
The patissier had some cuttings of this plant near the register and it had lots of berries on them. I asked him what kind of berry it was and he explained that it was a june berry.
So, when I went over to Kazumi's and saw the berries I asked her if they were june berries.
She said the were and went to pick some. They were a little tart, look like a blueberry and had tiny seeds like raspberries.
When the berries are ripe, they turn a dark purple.
After a delicious lunch of tuna and onion cake salé, lox and bagels and some tossed salad, she let me pick about half a pound of these berries.
I washed them then cooked them in some water for 15 minutes.
Then I strained the juice out in some cheesecloth.
After straining, I ended up with 1.75 cups of juice to which I added 1.75 cups of sugar and cooked it for about half and hour (or maybe it was longer).
I ended up with three half-cup jars of "jelly".
The taste sort of reminds me of blueberry...The next morning, I checked on it, but it didn't gel so well because I didn't add any pectin and didn't have any lemons to add some lemon juice.
So instead of jelly, it is a very thick fruit sauce.
This is great on yogurt and I'm almost certain it is great on pancakes too...
Yup, they were good on pancakes, I just need to tweak my pancake recipe and cut back some sugar in that to balance everything out.
Oh and I gave Kazumi two of the three bottles, I hope she liked it...(Thank you!)
Last year, mom made some jellies and jams while I was home.
A nice thing about houses in Hawaii, is that most people have fruit trees. Our neighbor has a loquat tree, so we picked the loquats on our side of the wall and mom made jam. (By the way, in Hawaii, as long as stuff is on your side of the wall, you're allowed to pick it. This is the "rule of neighbors" as I understand it. Nothing is written down, but "you just know".)
Poha is Hawaiian for cape gooseberry. We used to have a poha bush, but now mom gets her poha from one of our "aunties". (In Hawaii, we call many non-related people, but family friends, "aunty" or "uncle".)
Surinam Cherry, she's made this before. And I think she got these fruit from a friend.
She also made Ohelo, this is related to the cranberry and only grows near the Volcano area on the Big Island. Ohelo is the Hawaiian name for it. I remember visiting Grandma's and stopping on the side of the road to pick these berries. Mom got the berries to make this jelly from the "aunty" that gave her the poha.
Yesterday, mom made some papaya-pineapple jam, she defrosted some papaya puree, added a couple of cans of crushed pineapple, sugar and lemon juice.
I usually don't like the smell of papaya cooking, but the house smelled pretty incredible.
Today, she got a chance to finish her original project--making strawberry guava jelly. She added lemon juice and sugar to the guava juice and although, there was a small mishap in the kitchen, everything turned out okay.
After writing that post, mom received some regular guavas. She cut them and scooped out the seeds.
Then zapped them in a food processor.
She then cooked the puree with some sugar and lemon juice to get guava jam.
When sealing the jars, she always puts a layer of paraffin.
She also received some frozen surinam cherries. If you've never tasted these, they are quite tart.
After heating them, she strained them in a sieve.
The juice was then heated with some sugar and lemon juice.
And after it jelled, they were put into jars, ready for a layer of paraffin and are now awaiting to be sold at the Taste of Hongwanji.
Ugh, the weather has been so hot the past couple of days. The temperature was about 35C (95F), stepping out of the house smelled like a sweaty locker room and felt like when you open the oven door....blah!
A huge bag of Hershey's Extra Dark miniatures. I've posted about the chocolate bars previously,(here).
A bottle of mom's bread and butter pickles. These are great on tuna sandwiches! If I ever venture to try making these, I will definitely share the recipe!
And a box of cookies from the Honolulu Cookie Company.
A shiomame daifuku (salted bean rice cake stuffed with salted beans and sweet bean paste) found in a little shop called Kikyouya in front of the Ootsuki station. Sorry, I didn't get a picture of the inside, but it was really soft and delicious!
A cocoa daifuku (rice cake stuffed with cream and chocolate bean paste). This was found at a little shop called Miyazakiya near the Gotemba station. They also have a cafe daifuku which has coffee flavored bean paste, but we didn't try it. My mom didn't care for this one, but my dad and I enjoyed it!
The hotel we stayed at in Hakone served us a juice made from Wasei mikan. Mikan is a type of mandarin orange. It was very light and refreshing.