This has been a good week in my coastal southern California garden. This past week, I harvested:

2 lb 2 oz Ponca butternut squash (3 small butternuts)

1 lb 1 oz Candid Charm cauliflower (1 head)

10 oz Millionaire eggplant (5 small eggplants)

1 oz parsley and mint

Not too bad, nearly four pounds of produce.

I made a warm eggplant “salad” with the eggplant, hothouse tomatoes, garlic, cumin, curry powder, fresh mint and parsley. It was awful. The eggplant was too mushy for me, but I have “texture aversion.” The flavor was good though, and my husband ate all of his.

The cauliflower was stupendous. I ate some of it raw, best I’ve ever eaten, sweet and tender. I can hardly wait to harvest head #2, which is getting close. The other two heads are still tiny.

Sliced lemons soak overnight in water. Then add sugar and cook. Sugar just went in and isn't dissolved yet.

I’m going nuts with the “Christmas crush” of things to do, and yet I picked today to make marmalade. I’m nuts. Definitely a candidate for the looney bin. Visit Thomas at “A Growing Tradition” for the recipe, which is from Gourmet magazine.

I tasted the marmalade as it cooked and was disappointed at how bitter it was. I added 2 tsp of ground ginger to hide the bitterness and ended up with hot and bitter. VBS. I checked another recipe and they suggest adding 1/8 tsp of baking soda to tame the acid. I did that and it became sweeter. All in all it was edible, but not delicious. After 1.5 hours of cooking it still hadn’t gelled, despite the fact that I had added the seeds tied in cheesecloth (they contain pectin). I gave up and added a package of dry pectin and cooked for another minute. That did the trick. I poured it into hot, sterile jars (I just run them through the dishwasher and take them out just before the dry cycle is over) and processed them.

Process jars in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.

12 4-oz jars of lemon-ginger marmalade

I’m hoping that the taste improves with age, which will give time for the flavors to mingle. And with that, I’m off for more Christmas craziness. Hope your Christmas is merry.