Guess who's coming to dinner?

My parents! In fact, I am leaving for the airport in five minutes. We are all so excited! And my sister and her husband arrive tomorrow. Yippee! I have worked like a madwoman today, preparing and cleaning. It's not like my parents care, but I do. You know? Sitting down for a brief lunch of this lovely caprese salad and some bread from last night. Over and out, friends!

Local deals...good bread a'rising

Tomorrow's One Day Deal at participating Whole Foods is: 4 ounce salmon burgers, $1.49 each (regularly $2.99 each). And, through May 31, American Plant has all fruit trees and berry bushes marked 40% off.

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In the meantime, I've got the dough for a loaf of my fennel and sultana bread rising away. Delish!!! Just look at it (from last time, natch)...

Jam

Five half-pints of strawberry-rhubarb pie jam are cooling and setting, and with the little extra in the pot, I made this lovely snack before heading off to J's school.

In canning, there are several ways to tell if your jam has reached the set point or will come to a good set. Temperature is definitely a helpful indicator of doneness as you want most jams to reach and remain at 220° F before filling and processing the jars. You can also run the plates in the freezer test (my least favorite for a number of reasons) and/or the how is it sheeting off the back of my wooden spoon test (a good one!). Experienced canners can also tell when the sound of a spoon run through the hot jam changes to one that alerts you that success is near.

Even with those tests though, some fret that their jam is still too loose: will it ever firm up? This picture of my leftover jam in the pot (the rest was processing in the water bath) shows that this jam will assuredly reach a terrific point of jamminess. Do you see how the jam isn't filling in the open areas? It's just sitting there, the sugars nicely crystalline, the pectin chains all back together again.