The weekend started early with my cousin’s wedding on Friday. The weather was lovely, as was the venue, but not so much as the bride and groom who outshone it all. It was a really beautiful occasion, and so wonderful to be able to celebrate with Mr & Mrs Filiva’a.
In a thoroughly unrelated piece of news, we finally replaced our stove. The very first night when it took over an hour to boil a pot of water I knew the hob would need changing, and the oven proved to have multiple hot and cool spots that made baking challenging, so the whole thing needed a change. But we had things going on and we could work around it. Still, the time had come, and the long weekend sale meant we got a third off the price.
The one grumble I have is that the lower oven is a touch too close to the floor, but we can fix that. By which I mean my darling husband can. Sometime. I also wanted the red rather than the black, but a $1,000 discount makes it easy to forget that.
Beyond those niggles, I’m delighted. It’s a joy to use. I’ve made a quiche (homemade pastry and silverbeet from our garden) and this morning I’ve made a batch of marmalade. We’ll see how it goes, but if it doesn’t set it’ll be a lack of pectin rather than the cooktop. Our oranges don’t have any pips at all, which is great for eating but problematic for marmalade. I’ve tried using lemon pips instead so we’ll see if it works.
I think that’s enough for the kitchen this weekend, but in an extra bonus I now have a functioning sink and benchtop in my laundry. I don’t have a before photo to hand, but when we got here there was a sink and a tiny shelf and just enough room for a washing machine. No bench, no cupboards, no space for anything. It’s taken a lot of effort but here’s the end result, just missing a bit of paint and the splashback now, then it’s done.
I typed all the above hours ago, so one little update as I go to post this: the marmalade was not looking right so I reboiled it with a little jam setting sugar and it’s now good. I don’t know whether the extra pectin was the answer, or if it just needed a longer boil but the five jars left are setting well.
Quite a busy weekend, all round.
