A Spatula in a Gun Fight

I've been looking after my Mother (who lives with us) since she was recently diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which is a type of blood cancer. We've launched ourselves into a new world of chemotherapy and even just two months in we've learnt so much and met some amazing people. Most people think of hair loss as the main side effect of chemotherapy. It's an aggressive therapy, and as much as she loved her hair, weight loss and loss of appetite are our main issues. For some people undergoing chemotherapy, or even just as a symptom of their cancer, lack of appetite and rapid weight loss are serious problems. Chemotherapy can also give you a sore, ulcerated mouth, which makes you even less inclined to eat. It can also change the way you taste food, things you loved before you might hate, or you might find everything seems bland and tasteless to you.

As my Mother's weight loss is so severe, finding something she will eat has become my all-consuming mission! Strawberries have been the hero of the menu in the last two weeks. Our garden is full to bursting with ripe strawberries now, and they're soft enough not to hurt her sore mouth, and sweet enough for her to taste. But, filling up on strawberries isn't helping me in the fight to put back some of the 56 lbs (26 kgs) she has lost in the last few months. So, I've been making jam like crazy. I'd love to get her to eat something with iron, and protein but currently even just a strawberry is a small victory. I feel like I've got a spatula in a gun fight. So, Sunday was spent jam making, which I now hope to use to tempt her into eating things like creamy rice puddings with swirls of jam. Even just scooping jam from the jar.

While we were at her last chemotherapy session a medical photographer from the hospital asked if she could take some photos of my Mother having chemotherapy for their fund raising literature. We talked about how much more equipment they need, and their hopes for moving to a larger unit next year. I've decided to have a bake sale to raise funds for the chemotherapy unit. I'm planning to do it in September, but already it's giving me sleepless nights! I've never frozen cakes before, I can't believe how conflicting the advice is about de-frosting them (wrapping on or off? ). I can't hope to make enough the day before the bake sale, so most will need to be made in advance and frozen. I think I'm going to have to bake some trial cakes to freeze & defrost just to see which of the advice on the interwebs is correct. My husband pointed out that by the time I've done all this I'd have been better off just donating the cost of all the ingredients! I'm hoping to prove him wrong, home-made cakes have extra love in them that people will pay for, right?

Strawberry Jam

 

I've made this strawberry jam recipe from Silver Spoon for years. It's a never fail, no worry jam recipe that tastes like a burst of sunshine in every spoonful. It does taste extra special if you pick the strawberries when they are warm from the sun and make the jam straight away.

 800g hulled strawberries (that's about 900g of unprepared fruit)
1kg jam sugar (this is sugar with added apple pectin for fruits like strawberries that are low in pectin, I always use Silver Spoon jam sugar)
a knob of butter

Mash the fruit with a potato masher and put them in a large saucepan.  Add the jam sugar and heat gently stirring all the time until the sugar dissolves. Make sure it doesn't boil yet. Add the butter when the sugar has dissolved and then turn up the heat. Keep stirring, bring it all to a full roiling boil (so that it bubbles and rises in the pan and cannot be stirred down). Then either insert a food thermometer (I love my digital one) and keep boiling and stirring until it reaches 105 degrees C, or if you don't have a food thermometer, start timing when it reaches a real full rolling boil and keep it going for 4 minutes (no more, no less!). Remove from the heat and pour (I have a great metal funnel that sits inside my jam jars to help this proess) into steralised jam jars (about 4 normal sized ones) and put the lids on tight while the jam is still hot. Feel free to pat yourself on the back whenever you open a jar for your breakfast.