What's for tea? Bread and jam! 6WS

Astute readers over the years will have noticed that when I get onto an idea, I tend to go a little overboard.  You remember when I got the cordless drill?  the corner punch?  the wall painting gear? Not to mention learning various art techniques..

Same with food. I do love to make things like jam, preserves, pickles.  Something about stirring and saving and spreading on other food is Just Good.  People also like to be given this sort of thing as a little present.

So once again, it's jam, and no fruit is safe in this house.  Recently given three unripe mangoes, I waited a few days for them to ripen then today translated them into mango preserves with crushed walnuts.  Mangoes have plenty of pectin in them, very little sugar, no added pectin, splash of lemon juice, cooked down in a few minutes. Very Ritz.  And I used up the rest of the blueberries the other day making a very nice blueberry jam.  Small quantities, like all the best jam.

I gave half of the blueberry jam to the friend who gave me the mangoes, who after protesting, no, this is too much, conceded that she could easily manage to sample it, preferably before her husband sees it, so she won't have to share..

So afternoon tea is a little baked something, with a little homemade something on it.  Today just hot biscuits with the mango walnut preserve. The pic shows you both steaming hot. Preserve sounds posh, but it only means there's chunks of fruit in it, not a sort of roiling mass of fruitesque material.  You don't have to add the nuts, but I like inclusions in food as in art.

I add just a bit of extra liquid to the hot biscuits, so that the texture is good for splitting and jamming.  Technical point there. 

I like fruit just as fruit, wouldn't waste good strawberries on jam, for instance, but other fruit is good for a trial run.  To date recently I've made jam with figs, dates, apples, apricots, cherries, blueberries and now mangoes. And chutney with bananas and various other items. It's all in moderation, though.

And when you make a small quantity, you can have it practically ready by the time the hot biscuits are baked.  About fifteen minutes start to finish, biscuits now cooling and ready for action. It's not one of those old fashioned harvest home all hands to the kettle type of operation.

Nice afternoon tea, with a pot of English Breakfast, a split and spread hot biscuit, and an audio of a radio play by Ngaio Marsh, on the patio, under the feeder, with birds shouting from behind the fence because they don't like to feed while I'm there.  Some of them don't care, but the woodpeckers are very particular who shares their dining area.