Red currant jam

I bought some red currants at the market yesterday. It was selling for a pound for two little punnets. I have never tasted raw red currants before, so I thought they would be sweet like those tiny tiny grapes. I was so wrong; raw red currants are very sour and tart, and they have this bitter aftertaste, much like some sort of medicine. Hopefully I didn't buy the wrong sort of currant.

So I googled the recipes and things you can do with red currants. Most recommend cooking them with sugar and turn them into preserves/jellies/jams/sauces. The preserves can be eaten with bread or yogurt or cereal, while the sauce you can have with lamb or other kinds of meat, much like cranberry sauce. I decided to make jam as I have all the basic ingredients - fruit, sugar & water. All you have to do is boil all the ingredients until it reaches certain thickness and have the ability to set.

Equal weight of fruit and sugar plus equal number in ml of water.

After about 10 mins, the currants burst, turning the syrup red. I decided to put in a cinnamon stick. Couldn't be bothered with the cold spoon/saucer test - less dish to wash.

After about 30 mins. I guess I overcooked the jam a bit. Some of it stuck on to the wooden spoon and had to be scraped off, hence the unshiny bit in the middle. I didn't have any empty glass jars, either, so a plastic container would do. This is made of 250g of fruit; probably about 200ml of jam.

mmmm...foooood...

I am trying to lose weight. Easier said than done, of course. Apparently there's a new fad for losing weight called 2-day diet. You eat normally 5 days within the week and fast for two days. The diet program recommends taking  a max of 300kcal for each of the fasting days. This is not your normal Ramadhan fast as plain water is allowed throughout the day. 
So today I made a two-pronged decision to fast - make up for the incomplete Ramadhan fasting as well as try to limit the day's calorie intake. Had my sahur with buttered toasts AND cereal (not really a good start if I want to do the 300kcal thingy). Broke my fast with pan fried salmon, potato and egg salad (because I was googling  the recipe and watching youtube on how best to make it 2 hours before Maghrib) and some broccoli. By 10pm I felt the need to munch again, so I opened a large packet of crisps and had it while reading Dan Brown's Inferno. All in all, my calorie intake today is probably the highest this week :P....

Note to self:
* Do not eat broccoli - it makes you jittery, worse than having a mug of tea
*Do not store crisps anywhere in the house. You'll do better storing chocolate bars.
*Two slices of toast is enough for sahur. Anything extra is just your paranoia telling you to have. You won't starve.
*Try to block foodie websites and videos on fasting days. One of these days you might end up roasting a turkey if you're not careful.

AAAWWWWWWWW!

This blog post by Obefiend made my day! :D :D :D



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