Kitchen Calamity

Okay, well, jumping back to yesterday, you might already know that I was chomping at the bit to get at some watermelon jelly that caught my canning eye. All was going along just fine. Since I had no idea how much watermelon it would take to accumulate 6 cups of pureed juice, I purchased one of the standard-sized seedless melons. I'm guessing it weight about 15 lbs. And you know, even seedless melons have seeds. The recipe said to remove the seeds before pureeing. I figured I could puree away and just strain the resulting juice to remove any seeds. It had the added benefit of straining out any large chunks of melon that escaped my food processor blade of doom. Eventually, I had six cups of nicely pureed watermelon.

Less than half of the watermelon was used in this process, and so I decided to puree another two cups to make some sorbet. We can take that along on our camping trip next week. It's sitting in the refrigerator ready for the ice cream freezer as I'm writing this. Watermelon sorbet is delicious. In the early days of blogging, I wrote a post about making sorbets from all different kinds of fruit. (I've linked to it back there.) When you have dinner guests, it's kind of fun to make several different flavors and give them scoops of each. Their flavors are intense, and your guests can attempt to guess which flavor they are eating. Mango is especially confusing. They get that it's something tropical, but they're hard pressed to figure out what it is.

So, continuing on with the calamity in the kitchen, I chopped up the remainder of the melon (oh yes, there was more) to eat for breakfast for the next six months. Then, I decided to throw all the rinds out onto the compost pile and so I loaded them into my largest bowl. While I was at it, I was going to toss a jar of daikon radish pickles. They weren't as good as the first time I made them, and so nobody was eating them. They're tasty, but very, very stinky. As I took the expensive Weck jar out of the refrigerator, I bumped the door with my hand and dropped it right in front of the refrigerator, breaking the jar. Then I panicked at the realization that all of that stinky pickle juice was just about to run under the fridge. I grabbed the first towel I saw and threw it on the whole mess to prevent Armakitchengeddon. (Phew. Saved.) Nevertheless, I still had a sticky mess full of glass shards, and I was dealing with it all the while I was cooking the jelly.

During that process, I threw the now wet and very stinky towels into the washer and got that running. Absentmindedly, I noticed that the washer was starting to whine on its spin cycle. "I must inform the Resident Engineer of this development," I told myself.  Unbeknownst to me, the washer was issuing its warning that a belt was burning up. It smelled as if something was burning, and I wondered how it could possibly be the jelly when I was stirring it frequently.

About that time, the washer signaled it was finished. When I looked inside I found the towels were still all sudsy with soap. I tried to run a rinse cycle, and that was when I figured out the washer belt had burned up. It filled the tub (conveniently), and then refused to agitate, spin, or (and this is the most important part) drain the tub of water. I might add that the Resident Engineer was in town during all of this, and so he was to be of no help until he returned home and managed to fix the washer all in a single afternoon. (Yay!)

Now, I have a concern about all of this, and here it is: Possibly I've seen too many Terminator movies, but I am growing suspicious of washing machines. I've heard of several abroad that have also joined the Global Washing Machine Resistance Movement. (GWMRM) In fact, you might know that Samsung had to issue a voluntary recall of its top-loaders recently because of this problem:

The drums in these washers may lose balance, triggering excessive vibrations, resulting in the top separating from the washer. This can occur when a high-speed spin cycle is used for bedding, water-resistant or bulky items and presents an injury risk to consumers.

And a picture is worth a thousand words.

So, anyway, I'm just sayin' keep a close eye on your washing machine. And I'm not so sure about the dryers either. Call the authorities if you must.

Heroically, if I do say so myself (and I do), I managed to finish the jelly while simultaneously mopping the floor three times to get the mess cleaned up.

Coincidentally, a nice diversionary package arrived from my friend Karen, who sent me some stuff from her mother's collection. There was cat fabric, embroidery hoops, yarn, embroidery floss, needles, crochet hooks...

and this card game, which gave me quite a chuckle.

"Being catty pays off!"

And, hey, I graduated junior high school. "Catty" is practically my middle name! This will be fun for Mike and me while we're traveling in internet-free zones. So thank you, Karen. You are so sweet. She even sorted all the floss by color!

So despite a rather harrowing day in the kitchen, I did manage to get some sewing done. The second corner has been rounded on the Wheel Estate quilt. It's a little more than halfway to the finish line.

Also, this week's Marvelous Monday Mini block is finished now, and I'm officially all caught up on these.

And I need eight more square-in-a-square blocks for the Welcome Home Mystery Quilt. I have the pieces all cut now, and so it should be short work to get them all sewn together today.

As for my jelly, it has not set up. I've been conversing on one of the Facebook canning groups about the jelly, and I'm convinced I need to cook it longer and add a little more pectin. One person in particular seems to know all about this and sent me some helpful images to check for doneness. I tried this "saucer test" using a different explanation. This one describes it better, and I'm fairly certain I misinterpreted mine.

Also, these descriptions of spoon tests:

There are jars in the dishwasher right now, and as soon as they're finished, I'm going to get it boiling again, add just a little more pectin and then, "boil the hell out of it" as my Facebook expert advises. That jelly will set up or else! While I'm doing that, I can get the sorbet into the ice cream freezer. I'm feeling a little hot and cold about these tasks. Ha! (Did you see what I did there?)

Aside from these kitchen tasks, I'm getting a haircut this afternoon. Nevertheless, I'm hoping to get some time in the sewing room.