strawberry jam

I finally did it! The strawberry jam hath been made and boy is it tasty. If you decide to try out any of the kitchen projects I've been listing lately, this is it. I snagged it from The Anne of Green Gables Treasury I mentioned the other day. All it takes is two simple ingredients, strawberries and sugar.



Chop the tops off 2 cups of strawberries and toss in a pot with 1 1/3 cups of sugar. Heat slowly until the sugar begins to melt. Then bring the mixture to a boil and stir frequently for about 20 minutes. Turn off the heat. You'll probably have a light pink foam on top. Scrape this off then pour the mixture into a pan. Cover and let sit overnight. Grab a jar and pour the jam in for storing. Strawberry jam!



I'm no jam expert, but I would say making jam this way you'll want to eat it up in a week or so, as it won't keep. But seeing as this makes about one jar, you shouldn't have a problem! It's quite tasty as a topping for that shortbread I made the other day.

shortbread a bakin'

Last week I mentioned I had a little canning project. Well, it obviously hasn't happened, so I'll go ahead and spill the beans on what is was...You may have guessed as I don't know how much you can do with strawberries and jars but I'll tell you anyway. I was going to try my hand at strawberry jam! In all honesty, I've just been too lazy to pick up the jars so I thought I'd go ahead and bake the other half the kitchen project seeing as I already picked up the supplies. Hello shortbread!

My inspiration came from a little book found in the children's section of my local library. One I used to check out at least twice a month in elementary school, The Anne of Green Gables Treasury. You're probably wondering why on earth someone would continuously check out the same book but the thing is I used to do that with quite a few books. This one in particular was filled with recipes and small projects based off the series. How could I check it out only one time when there were so many projects to be crafted? From tea time baking to pressing flowers, this little treasury had it all.

Yup, I was a bit of a nerd, okay I suppose I still am! I had such an obsession with the series though. I read each and every book, had VHS tapes recorded from TV and so on. My parents were even kind enough to take me to Prince Edward Island to see Avonlea and the whole spread before it burned in the 90s.

I could go on and on but I'll spare all you non-Anne fans. So to the point...I was thinking about all that the other day, and decided to see if the library still had it, and you bet they did!



Like I said, it's filled with good looking recipes, but as I've been drinking tea in the afternoons lately, I decided to try out the shortbread recipe. A perfect compliment to afternoon tea. The recipe consisted of a simple list of ingredients, just how I like them.



* 1/2 cup butter
* 3 tbsps sugar
* 1/4 tsp vanilla
* 1 1/4 cups flour
* pinch of salt



The rest is easy...Just preheat the oven to 325F. Mix the butter, sugar and vanilla until it's light and fluffy. Gradually add the flour until the mixture becomes slightly crumbly. Roll into a ball. Set on a cookie sheet and flatten to about 1/2 inch. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 20-30 minutes and...Done! Ready to enjoy with a nice cup of tea. Now let's hear about your childhood obsessions!

buttermilk biscuits

I told you last week to stay tuned for what to do with that extra buttermilk we had left over from the homemade butter. I know, I know, I'm a bit late. But better late than never, right!? There really are so many things you can make with buttermilk, but I wanted to share a simple classic...Buttermilk biscuits!

The first recipe I used several weeks ago was incredibly simple with only five ingredients, four if you think of the butter and buttermilk in it's original cream form. They were tasty enough I suppose, but last night I decided to test out a different one from a certain Colonel Sanders. So glad I did because they turned out softer and lighter than the first batch.



You can find the original recipe here and if you're as grossed out by the word lard as I am, just be aware you're going to see it in the recipe! But know that if you substitute butter for the lard you'll still end up with a yummy biscuit. I followed the directions to a tee and my advice to you would be to make sure your butter is as cold as possible. Cold butter is the key the flakiness! Enjoy and let me know how you batch turns out if you try it out.

butter & buttermilk

For the most part, Dalena Vintage has been a place for me to talk about all things fashion related. Lately though, I've been thinking about changing it up a bit, incorporating more of my loves and giving it a rounder feel. After all, in the scheme of my life, vintage clothing is only a teeny tiny piece of who I am!

So this is a test. Just a test. Here we go...

Starting up your own shop isn't always all it's cracked up to be. It's freedom from the man. It's living on your own schedule. It's doing what you love. It's a limitless list of good things really. But it's also long hours, living on a tight budget, a perpetual lesson in stress manangement, ecetera.

This said, I've recently fallen out of the honeymoon phase and into a being-broke-is-no-fun-let's-get-this-thing-moving phase. I've learned quite a bit about stretching what I've got and simplifing my life. Over the past few months, it's been an interesting challenge to bring this mentality into the kitchen but I've managed and actually found it quite fun. Let's take last week's kitchen project, turning one simple ingredient into two useful products. Butter and buttermilk!

All you'll need is heavy cream, a mason jar, an extra container and strong arms.

1. Fill your mason jar about halfway with heavy cream. Close it up and start shaking!

2. After about 5 minutes, your cream will turn to whipping cream. Keep shaking you're halfway there.

3. The mixture will start to thicken and look like this.

4. Now the fun part, it's going to separate into two parts. The solid piece should be a slight yellow color, and yup, this is the butter. The liquid is fresh buttermilk.

Now you'll want to pour the buttermilk into your extra container. With cold hands, take the butter and squeeze out the excess buttermilk. Next rinse with cold water, folding a few times and voila! Fresh butter and buttermilk.

Stay tuned later this week for what to do with that buttermilk!