Manchester

The oldest railroad station in the world.

Brick buildings around the city.

Street signs.

I think it was a fish market at some point.

Churches and canal boats. Some of the churches are for sale.

Lovely pub dinner: stake and ale pie!

I decided to enjoy the last few days of free time before the job starts up in October. So I spent a week in England. First in Cambridge and then in Manchester. It was the first time I went to Manchester and it's not as ugly as people say. Granted I had amazing weather. It NEVER rained and it was actually hot and sunny (as you can see from the pictures). The friend I was visiting said she had never seen weather like that.

I pretty much spent the whole time there walking around the city. I really like the architecture. Most buildings date from the industrial revolution and are big and made out of red bricks. It's possible to see older buildings such as the Manchester cathedral, but not much else dates from before the industrial revolution. The first rail road station in the world is in Manchester and it was build for the Liverpool-Manchester line, now it's part of the museum of science and industry (MOSI). I have to say that I really likes MOSI. I spent a few hours there and only say a small portion of the the site and just a few exposition.

No visit to England would be complete without a proper pub dinner: a few pints of ale and a steak and ale pie with chips! We went to the oldest pub in Manchester the Old Wellington and they know how to make pies.

More Jam!

Washing and chopping

All the ingredients ready for the spicy plum jam

Plum and grape vanilla jam

Cooking cooking cooking... and at the end canning...

A flower in my kitchen.

It was a rainy weekend, so it was time to make more jam. I went to the market and bought 5kg of untreated plums. I decided to chop them all up but then oh no I did not have a pot big enough so I made three kinds of jam.

1) just regular plum jam

2.5 kg of plums

1 kg of sugar

juice from 1 lemon

The plums and the sugar were mixed and cooked on slow heat for 2.5 hours.

2) plum and grape vanilla jam

500 g of plums

some grapes (I don't really know how many I put)

200 g of sugar

1 vanilla bean (this one was bought in indonesia and it's quite mild)

juice from 1/2 a lemon

All ingredients were mixed and cooked on slow heat for 2.5 hours.

3) spicy plum jam

2 kg of plums

800 g of sugar

2 tsp of cinnamon

1/2 tsp of nutmeg

10-15 cloves

2 cardamon seeds

juice from 1 lemon

All the ingredients were mixed and left overnight. The next day they were cooked for 1.5 hours. I don't know why this jam took much less to cook then the others.

All the jams were canned and the containers were left to cool upside down. Now all I have to do is start eating the jam!

Making peach jam and eggplant preserve.

Jars

Books which tell you how to preserve anything.

Eggplants cut into little

Eggplants and vinegar on the stove cooking.

Drying before canning.

All the ingredients.

The end result in the peach jam process.

It was a rainy day, and I took it as an excuse to make peach jam and eggplant preserve. I have been meaning for a while to make jams, but I have never really found the time to do it.

For the recipe I used an old book, in which you can find instruction on how to preserve just about anything.

For the peach jam:

1 Kg of ripe peaches

750 g of sugar

The peaches were peeled and cut into small cube. The peaches and the sugar were mixed and left overnight. In the morning the mixture was boiled for about 1.5h until it passed the teaspoon test*. While the peaches were cooking the glass jars were heated at 100 oC in the oven. In tow of the jars I placed some cinnamon sticks. The jam was placed while still hot in the hot jars. the jars were sealed and turned upside down to cool.

* a bit of the hot jam is placed on a plate. The plate is tilted, if the jam does not run down the plate then it is ready.

For the eggplants (recipe for 3Kg of eggplants, I only made 1.5Kg)

1 L of white wine vinegar

1 tablespoon of salt

1 tablespoon of sugar

Cloves

Basil leaves

Rosemary

Garlic

The eggplants were peeled and cut into small cubes. They were salted and left to stand to drain some of the water out of them. They were rinsed and dried. The vinegar, salt and sugar were brought to a boil. The eggplants were cooked in the vinegar for about 3 minutes, after which they were placed on a towel and left to cool.

A layer of eggplant was placed at the bottom of a jar followed by some garlic, a few cloves, a few basil leaves, and some rosemary. Some of the vinegar was poured on top. The layers were repeated until the jar was full. At the end the jar was toped with some extra virgin olive oil.

Now all I have to do is wait at least 15 days before eating!