Jordan is situated in Western Asian at a junction of Asia, Europe and Africa.
It is essentially a landlocked country, if you discount the the fact that it lies along the Eastern bank of the Jordan River, has the Dead Sea as it's Western border and has a small shoreline on the Red Sea in the south-west corner...maybe a landlocked country with water views?
I was rather surprised to find the actual range of climatic and ecological variations that occur across a land that I have always considered arid...and should confess have little real knowledge of, apart from facts like it's very ancient and fascinating history with hominid habitation evidence at least 200,000 years old...
For my inchie this week I decided to use an image from the internet of the lovely Black Iris, Iris nigricans, which is the National Flower of Jordan. I am still not sure though, if this is an endemic or exotic plant...I tried a little research but lost interest due to conflicting reports and lack of time to follow up as I usually do. I decided to admire it simply for it's beauty and obvious worth to Jordan...
I have, however, been the recipient of a lovely supply of lemons from several of his visitors, late winter being the season for this bounty in local gardens, and so today I am trying again to make lemon curd in the slow cooker, in order to use some of these lovely fruit up. (I have many many lemon recipes, so using the up bit is not a real issue for me;).
I had made a batch a few weeks ago in my slow cooker, but the butter content for that batch was too high and when the curd cooled, shards of butter were present in the conserve. It was lovely when heated but not ideal when silky smoothness in the cold curd is an essential aspect! I made up today's batch with a reduced amount of butter and hope for a good outcome...watch this space.
I certainly have enough lemons on hand to try and try again thanks to the generosity of others...
Better trot, it is almost medication time again and I promised to make him a few (non-sweet) ice blocks as fruit juice and Sustagen are forming his entire diet at present and he is very sick of sweet things and is craving something cold...wish me luck!
Di