Pantry restocking and anxiety making

Anxiety still hasn’t subsided from last week. I’ve moved into the phase where I’m deep cleaning the house and making things, probably from a lack of a better way to process all these feelings, emotions, and fear. This week I’ve been comfort baking and going through the kitchen and pantry and clearing out old canned foods to reclaim the jars, making note of what we have left, what I need to start restocking, etc.

We’re low on one of my favorite Thanksgiving staples, the Apple Cranberry Jam from Food in Jars, so I dug out the canning pot this morning and whipped up a half batch to bring out here in a few weeks (and then throughout the winter for my morning toast). I don’t love a traditional cranberry sauce, but I do love this recipe, so each year I find myself digging out a jar to serve alongside our turkey, and then I nom on the leftover jars throughout the winter and pair it on my toast, but also alongside homemade meatballs (much like Ikea serves the lignonberry jam with their meatball plates).

While that cooked, I tossed the cores and peels into a pot of water and cooked it a bit, then removed the peels and added sugar and some lemon to simmer into a bit of an apple syrup to mix in with my seltzer water. I think I ended up with maybe a cup and a third of syrup in the end – hardly enough to make it worth canning, so it cooled on the counter before being tossed into the fridge for later. I’ll likely mix a bit of it in with some seltzer water this next week or two to use it up.

While that all cooked, I tossed some mini marshmallows into the dehydrator to restock the pantry container. I’m weird and I like tossing the crunchy marshmallows in my hot cocoa, or just snacking on them in general. The first time I made them, it was an attempt to make a stash of marshmallows to replace the ones my kid kept picking out of the Lucky Charms cereal. They turned out to be not my favorite for that, but I love them anyway for the aforementioned reasons.

I’m not sure what I’ll end up doing next, honestly. This binge of making isn’t normal like it used to be, and I’m quite worried I used up all my spoons today and will be useless the rest of this week. But, if I’m still feeling pushed to bury my feelings in constructive making, perhaps I’ll take some flannel fabric into work with me and cut out pajama pants between customers. I have worn a few pairs of mine to the point of being threadbare, and the kiddo is always ever-growing and could use some for this winter as well, so maybe I’ll channel all of this into that, next.