It's Time for Tea and a Party with Rose Petal Jam!

I am having my Mother's Day Tea Party for friends, students, fellow artists etc. It is a wonderful time to just enjoy my garden with friends and sketch and paint while we all visit. I just happened to be reading the book "The Zoo Keepers Wife" and she mentions in the book about living in Poland and loving Rose Petal Jam. I was intrigued as I always love to make jam but have never even heard of using Roses!! I guess in Europe this is nothing new and much loved. These homespun activities are rarer and rarer here in the states since we are all so busy but I still love to do them. I have an old spirit, I am a homespun homebody, and I can't help it.

 

So that peeked my interest and I started Googling Rose Petal Jam. Subsequently, this year,  I am making Rose Petal Jam for my Tea Party!! Everything seemed to come together for us to work on the jam. We had just ended a long tour and needed some R&R. Jennifer and I needed a day together, enjoying the outdoors whether painting, gardening or just hanging out always invigorates us. Her and I made this together and we had a blast!! I thought I would share our adventure with you and the recipes we used, yes we used several and changed them a bit.



Jennifer helped me collect the most fragrant roses!

Randy made us a bouquet to enjoy while we worked.

We selected roses by fragrance and by color, then we
washed and sorted. The jam will be the color of your
roses.

Here is our pinks and we also had reds. Then at the end we
made a mixed batch with all the left overs.
 

I then had Jennifer sort through the petals to assure that there were
no bad petals etc. This is her doing her choosen roses, Judy Garland.

This is how her roses looked when they were put into jars.

After she was finished sorting and cleaning we measured out our roses and Jenn bruised the petals with sugar to bring out more of their fragrance.

I then started to cook them

                                                                 

 Once they were done cooking I filled the jars and then inverted them to sterilize the tops. The jars had been sterilized earlier and were just waiting for the boiling mixture.

This was Chloe, sunbathing as we cooked our Rose mixture! Everyone was enjoying the sunshine. Randy was busy working in the yard, pruning roses and mowing the lawn!

 

 

 

We tried several recipes that I found on the internet for Rose Petal Jam. We changed up each batch to see which one we liked the best, which one set up the best etc. Depending on how long you cook each batch you will determine the thickness of the jam. I don't think we followed any of the recipes to the letter, we are like that, rebel canners. It is very sweet but so fragrant! Jennifer's jam was our first batch, we cooked it the least and it is the loosest but it is a golden, fragrant syrup that will be perfect for ice cream, cheese cake and pancakes! 

The next batches ranged from pink to red and since we experimented with pectin and cooking time the pink jam is far more set up than the others. It was a fun way to try several recipes. I loved the sun coming through the jars, they looked like jewels.

At the end of the day we had lots of beautiful jars of Rose Petal Jam to serve at my Tea Party and give as Mother's Day Gifts. Below are links to several recipes I found. I hope you try one.

So far we have tried it on toast and now last night for dessert we put it over our ice cream. I opened a Red Rose Petal Jam and it looked beautiful over the vanilla bean ice cream. I will be sure to serve this at my Tea Party in May with scones! Happy Jammin!

Here is the first one we tried, they used wild roses! Make sure your roses are pesticide free!! I even included a Martha Stewart Recipe for Rose Petal Jelly. We prefer the petals in the jam! Enjoy

http://www.feastingathome.com/rose-petal-jam/

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/166277/rose-petal-jam/

http://www.emikodavies.com/blog/rose-petal-jam/

http://www.marthastewart.com/356009/rose-petal-jelly

Follow me on Instagram and Facebook to see our other adventures. Life is short, make every minute count!

.

Soaking up the Sun

Do you ever have those days when its just too beautiful to be cooped up in the house. The chores are calling your name but the day is calling to your very soul?

Those are the times when you need to take a few minutes to honor need. That need to take a step back and just soak it all in.

Chloe seems to understand too, lets just soak up some rays

I had that opportunity Sunday.

The sun was warm and the breeze was blowing. I grabbed my paints and ran outside to just paint the day. I was having enjoying the colors in the yard, the flowers blooming, I was so intrigued by the whole scene that my mind couldn't settle in on what I should paint. I ended up painting our dog Chloe, she did pose for a few minutes but was off chasing lizards most of the time. The rose arbor was a bit easier since it remained posed as I painted that last hour of light.

This arbor is so heavy with roses it actually broke this year and we are discussing our options for next year, I would hate to lose these roses. They look like giant ice cream cones of flowers that arch over the walkway! Have you captured a day in your yard recently? What new things did you discover ?

The Oasis

We went up to visit my mom and hook up her electricity. I hadn't been to "the valley" as it is called for over 4 years. I won't bore you with the reasons, none seem good enough to have stayed away so long. Both my mother and my youngest brother live there. My brother bought a piece of property and created a home and successful business. My mom followed and helped him while she searched for a place of her own. She found a 5 acre parcel that overlooks the valley almost to the ocean. This is where she began building her dream.

My mother is talented in more ways than anyone I have ever known. You might think that I say this only because she is my mother. I am not alone, in fact, most people she meets feel this way about her. She is generous to a fault, and works harder than most people a 1/4 of her age. She never complains and her soul is fed through the satisfaction of her labor. One of the great loves in her life is gardening, flowers, roses, and design. She has worked most of her life in design. Making things beautiful is her greatest gift. She can turn the ugliest things into coveted treasures. She has a Midas touch and all of us consider ourselves golden to have her in our lives.

Our trip would take 12 hours, and the closer we got the more excited we all became. We drove through the central part of California, agricultural land, without much to look at. But as we start getting closer to her neck of the woods the hills start to green, the fauna and flora become richer and denser. The last 45 minutes consist of windy roads covered in oaks and bay laurel trees. The shadows lap over the road to create dark, mottled tunnels and then open up into sun drenched asphalt again. Our eyes struggle to adjust as we make our way around each turn. At dusk we have the added worry of darting deer which have been known to aim for passing cars. Their homes are in between Booneville and Philo. Both are small towns where if you blink you have missed most of it. We slow down as we make our way through the heart of Booneville passing, the senior center, elder center, fairground, general store, hotel, cafe, ice cream parlor, nursery then we can increase our speed as we pass miles of vineyards on each side of the road. Mountains surround us as we make our way through the valley that is being consumed by grapes. I recognize the white picket fence that is the vineyard next to my moms and brothers place. The sun is almost gone yet as we drive in there is just enough light left to see the explosion of color that awaits. It is like visiting a botanical garden, a retreat in all aspects of the word.

No matter how busy my mom is she always is the supreme hostess. The house is spotlessly clean, a fire is roaring in the fireplace and there is music playing. Each of our rooms has been lovingly prepared for us, clean sheets, warm feather down comforters and fresh flowers fill every room. Dinner is still hot and waiting for us even though it is 9:00pm. We can't wait to get out and get our hugs then to explore, see all the changes that have taken place since we were last there. The house is always warm and comfortable with her there. I love just having coffee with her in the mornings or ice cream at night. She loves to feed us well too, we all gain weight when we visit. No wonder I found that I was so tired the whole time I was there, my mom said I was just relaxed! I knew that I had been drugged with the food, wine, summer breeze and a mothers warmth.

The yard was full of flowers and gravel paths that both Jennifer and I spend many mornings exploring with mom. I often was so overwhelmed with things I should paint that I couldn't paint at all. Everywhere I turned there was something else that needed to be painted, an artists dream. I took almost two hundred pictures since they have decided to sell these dream parcels. The truth about living out a dream is it is often better in the dream than in the reality. Although the area is really beautiful it rains much of the year and country living is hard work. Running out of water, losing power, no emergency services, no shopping, no close neighbors makes it hard. My mom is tired and suffers from arthritis so she now wishes to live closer to her doctors and have less to care for. She told me this visit that no matter how hard she tries nature keeps taking back the land. Its so true, we struggle even in the city to keep out the weeds and there is a constant reminder that it is not really ours for long. If anyone was wondering where Randy is during all of this, well, we did have our walks but he worked much of the time. Doing moms electrical for her cottage. He told me to enjoy my time with her and I did! Here are some of my sketches while I was visiting in my moms Shangri-La, I will post the real photos on flickr for anyone interested. Such a wonderful week with my mom and family.