Besides growing flowering plants in my garden, I also have areas where I grow fruit trees, vegetables, and herbs. My poor veggie garden is looking rather neglected these days, however, due to the heat. A few days ago I brought in the last of my beetroot plants, which I have now pickled, leaving just a lone rhubarb plant to fend for itself. It is actually fending very nicely, but I am keeping a close watch on it. I picked a few stems about a week ago and stewed them with two large apples off my tree – yum!

My kids grew up watching me bring fruit indoors for jam-making and often climbed the trees to reach higher fruit for me. I once had an amazing kumquat tree and made the tastiest marmalade from the fruit. I also grew starfruit, lemonade fruit, grapefruits the size of which you would never find in the stores, mangoes, lemons, and mandarines. Some trees have gone to heaven and have since been replaced.

One fruit I have never had any success growing is strawberries. We have the climate for it, they grow, but the visiting birds and animals always get to the ripe strawberries before I do!

Not to be deterred, when my favourite seven-year-old asked if I could make strawberry jam with him during the school holidays, I found beautiful ripe strawberries at our local store. My son – his Dad – knew I would relish the task, given my past history of making jams and chutneys when he was growing up.

My grandson had an even better idea – could we make bread also, to put the jam on, he asked? I knew we would both enjoy our day in the kitchen making both. 🙂

Short, seven-year-olds need a chair to stand on to reach the stove, so he was able to climb higher, and was fascinated watching the strawberries turning somersaults as they bubbled away in the boiling pan. So was I! I explained everything I was doing, step by step, and found my student to be an extremely willing assistant.

As I had not made strawberry jam before, I decided to make a half quantity, just in case it was a complete flop. It produced three jars of the best strawberry jam I have ever tasted! Even his Mum, not usually a fan of jam, announced she now apparently did like it! 🙂

The bread recipe I used required two, two-hour sessions of rising! I chose a Paul Hollywood recipe for a white loaf as that is what my grandson prefers and we alternated between jam-making and preparing bread dough for the next rise. After sharing the jam and bread with his Mum and little brother when they came to collect him, the loaf was nearly all gone!

Later, when I spoke to his Mum, I told her that he was a willing student who could undoubtedly give her complete instructions on bread and jam making if she asked – she said he already had! Lol. 😀