COOKING DAY

I spent the morning chopping vegetables to add to my giant batch of minestrone soup.  Mine is a northern Italian recipe, with beans - some of which are blended to thicken the soup.  It will make a good dinner tonight, then the rest will head to the freezer.

When DH and I went to the market yesterday, they had wonderful, fresh yellow beans.  So DH cleaned and cooked the beans, and I made the sauce for the mustard bean pickles.  This is a favourite of our whole family. I managed to make 6 jars, 2 for us and 2 for each of our DS's as well.

Then we proceeded to make some "blue plum" jam, sometimes called prune plums.  I make my jam in the microwave, using a recipe I found in a library book many years ago.  It makes small batches, each using 2 cups of fruit and 1 1/2 cups of sugar.  It isn't as sweet as most jams, and we love to taste the fruit.  We ended up with 5 smaller jars of jam - lots for us for a couple of years.