I haven’t had a moment to “catch my breath” in the words of Kelly Clarkson. Lately life has been a whirlwind of good things (“no complaining!” I tell myself) but also tough on my awkward sensibilities.  I need lots of alone recovery time to feel normal.  Plus I recently lost my glasses, so I feel totally exposed to the world.

See above for the telltale signs that mulberries are in the vicinity. Once or twice a year I bike around the ‘hood to pick from my secret stash of trees. Picking fruit is fun, but it comes all at once, and then you need to do stuff to/with it.

The problem with mulberries? They’re just sweet and flavorless (once, some “farmer” passed off mulberries for blackberries at the market in Baton Rouge, and I was PISSED). With the help of lots of lemon juice, they still make great jam and desserts. Also, their little stems are always attached. Maybe you could carefully pick them off, but that just seems psychotic. I deal with the stems by making more of a jelly than a jam– squeezing the juice out of the fruit, and then maybe adding back some of the pulp for texture.  I made some small-batch jam (just two or three jars) because sometimes I just can’t handle canning right now.

Oh! I also finally found a biscuit recipe I can handle– these Two-Ingredient Biscuits by Nathalie Dupree. I made my own self-rising flour by adding baking soda and salt. The recipe directions are intense, but I just cut corners as usual, and they still turned out great. There’s nothing better than homemade jam and biscuits!

I could tell you about how everyone asks me if my blog is about biscuits, but that might be too painfully boring.

Small Batch Mulberry Jam

Ingredients:

1 pound mulberries

1/2 a vanilla bean, cut lengthwise and seeds scraped

2 1/2 cups sugar

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon Pomona’s Pectin