Hurricane!

So here in Brooklyn, Hurricane Irene was scheduled to tear through the city and cause MASS CHAOS AND THE APOCALYPSE! Or, at least that's what I had been expecting based on how people were reacting to the potential storm. Friday afternoon I went to the grocery store to pick up some ingredients for dinner to find it the busiest I had ever seen, and significantly lacking in milk. Apparently when a huge storm is scheduled to come and all hell breaks loose, and the electricity may be cut, people believe it is good to stock up on milk. Which of course doesn't go bad when the fridge is out or anything like that...also, in preparation for the storm, the MTA decided to cut service yesterday (saturday) at 12 until Monday afternoon or so. So no one can go anywhere.

I'd like to point out now that nothing really happened. It rained heavily for a bit, and lightly a lot, and has been windy, but that's about it. A few trees and branches have also fallen but nothing too major, however I have been spending most of the time in the apartment. Nothing much is going on with work because no one can travel, so I've been keeping busy at home, taking advantage of my "vacation". I've been doing a lot of baking, cooking, canning and spinning. Just made a lovely Blushing Peach Jam Instead of adding pectin, however, I boiled it for 25 minutes, stirring continuously to get it to a nice gelatinous texture.

I also made Almond Oat Pancakes Saturday morning which I definitely plan on making again. My only recommendation would be to add a little more milk or water because the batter was very thick, making it difficult to cook all the way through.

Another thing I made this weekend was Blackberry Pie in a Jar. This was actually the second time I made it and I think the first time I made it I liked it better...the first time, I used half blackberries and half raspberries so it was less tart. I also omitted the extra butter and just sprinkled a little bit of cinnamon sugar on top of the crust (after poking some holes). These were really fun to make because they were perfect little individual sized pies! Much more exciting than messy slices! Along the note of messy, however, a piece of advice- put the filled jars on a cookie sheet when baking because despite poking holes, it always ended up leaking overboard out of the jar!