Rips

It's red current season here in Norway! It is always a joy to see these cheery, sour little berries hiding coyly under the leaves:

To celebrate, I made a batch of scones using the recipe from a blog called Kitchen Sketches, which is maintained by another American expat living in Europe. The scones turned out great, and I really recommend the recipe. I had a hard time getting a picture since they kept getting gobbled up:

I had to be quite firm with my family so as to be able to take this snapshot! I wasn't sure they'd work, as I didn't use fresh berries. Instead, I took a cup of the leftovers from making a small batch of red current jelly. But even with all the juice drained out of them, these eviscerated berries still tasted juicy and flavorful in the scones.

The jelly itself is so pretty that I had to put it in a cut glass jelly bowl:

Not sure that it turned out as well as last year, as I think I may have over cooked it. Can you over cook jelly? The drips off the spoon didn't look at all like the picture in my cookbook, but eventually, after about 45 minutes I just decided that it simply had to be done, no matter how it dripped, and indeed it seems to be setting up nicely. With such a small amount (4 cups of berries makes 2 cups of juice which ends up being about a cup and a half of jelly), we're just going to use it fresh and not bother with canning. Since I didn't have a jelly strainer, I decided to make one yesterday. Neither KE nor my Mom thought it was going to work, but both grudgingly admitted that my improvised frame and strainer ended up doing the trick. I felt totally vindicated about my simple design:

It's something that I'll probably only use one day a year, but even so it's nice to have a piece of equipment that does the job right.

With my Mom visiting this week there's been lots of opportunity to sit and chat and knit, so I've made a lot of progress on the Bulgarian Pleated Skirt. There are only about 2 centimeters to go before binding off, but I can't resist putting up a photo to show the progress:

Such a clever pattern. It's been a gas to knit, and I think it will be great to wear this fall with wool tights, a wool sweater, and tall boots. I just wish I could capture the color, since the green is so much richer than this.