Stocking Stuffers

I have a large variety of Bamboo Knitting Needles in my Shop for the holiday season!

Fall Garden 2009

The hosta's and peonies I transplanted this spring survived and are turning lovely colors.

The Haircut

I bought a vintage Oster barber set at a local shop this week, for a whopping ten dollars.  Sooooo tonight I gave John a much needed haircut, no easy task I might add.  Above is the box and some of the accessories most of which I have no what idea any of them are for~!

Fall Color

Burr Oak Leaves - taken at Ledges State Park

Swine Flu Update

Well I'm recovering, finally, from the swine man swamp flu!  I still have a cough hanging on.  The canning came to a near screaching halt, John took 4 days off from work but the reality is 1. I'm more organized than he is, which isn't saying much btw, and 2. there was way more that needed canning than one person could do alone!  He did get a dozen or so pints of pear butter put up and a dozen or so quarts of tomatoes canned.  I'm feeling better but not by much, a simple drive across town  and back still wears me out and I need a nap just to recover from the experience.  To make matters worse I have a show coming up this weekend and I"m no where near being ready for the event.  More later from the kitchen!!!

Blog Posts

I've been having some issues with posting for the past month. I just discovered an update, that I checked, and I'm hoping this will resolve the problem.

Cranberry Pear Sauce

Cranberry Pear Sauce.

Pears are a luxury for me as they are just priced out of my pay scale ;-) So when one of the neighbors said YES come on over and pick our trees... Cranberry Pear Sauce happens!

I typically make Cranberry Apple Sauce - known to us a saucey or sassy apples. The taste with pears is FAR superior to that of apples so if you have a glut of pears try this one side dish for a treat.

The sauce is still cooking down all told I'll have maybe 12 quarts when it's done cooking.

4 gallons cooking pears cored and stemmed (peel if that's what you like we leave the peels on for the fiber)

5 pounds frozen cranberries

5 cups sugar

1quart water

Put everything into your 5 gallon stainless steel OR enamel stock pot and cook down. NOTE we don't blend the sauce as we like it chunky OTHERWISE using your stick blender blend the sauce until it's smooth.

Process BWB quarts are 25 minutes pints 20 minutes for 1000 feet or less.

Glenn Beck and Tomorrow is Pay Day!!!

Making my list and checking it twice and any corp that has pulled it's ads from Glenn Beck will NOT get my dollars tomorrow - which is payday! For those of you who believe in FREEDOM of SPEECH, whether you agree with Glenn or not I ask that you do the same thing!

To make this canning related I will be picking up canning supplies tomorrow and won't be buying from three local stores due to their support of the ad bans.

Roma Tomatoes

Various varieties of Roma Tomaotes.

Garden Fresh!

Roma tomato from my garden, John and I shared it for dinner it was wonderful!

Pickles

Wow it's been awhile since I've posted so to update

We've eaten two tomatoes out of our garden, they were very tasty and we are eagerly awaiting the arrival of more ripe tomatoes hopefully in the next week or so. First up on the list of canned tomato goods is salsa, it's been years since I've canned any because well it's been years since I've had any "real" tomatoes to speak of!!! We'll also make up and can our own spagetti sauce, pizza sauce, and if there are enough tomatoes ketchup and bbq sauce. I have plans, at the end of the season , to can green tomato slices for my fried green tomato cravings over the winter months.

I've been picking green beans, planted Top Crop, and cucumbers like crazy. So far we've put up 31 pints of green beans and have eaten several pickings of beans - they are best fresh what can I say!

The cucumbers, I planted a pickler varitety, are coming on strong, this year I plan to make lots of lime pickles as these were a hit here this past winter and I'm hoping to try my hand at my first ever batch of dill pickle relish!

I found out why my potatoes were size of peas, not enough water, turns out they need a half inch a week or so, soooooooo I've upped my watering routine. Turns out this is why ALL of my root crops are doing poorly, lack of water. I have some really pretty green tops though ;-)

John replanted Rhutabegas and Beets tonight there's still plenty of growing time in our season for the year yet. While he was weeding the garden he found two volunteer tomato plants, one looks to be a Rutgers the other some sort of cherry tomato. Barring any rain I'll plant Kale tomorrow and maybe some more chard and lettuce., in fact I think it's early enough to replant cucumbers and maybe even a zucchini plant or two.

Pulled Pork and Tree Trimming

Today's garden update: tied up 2/3's of the tomatoes before I got so hot I had to quit. I have baby roma's they are the size of golf balls.

We trimmed our trees out front tonight, lots of dead branches, esp. on the redbud and on the red oak tree. I knew the redbud was dyeing, I'd give it two more years tops before we have to take it down, but I was horrified to discover our 10 year old red oak, which is now a magnificent 30 feet in height, has heart rot!!! I'll call the arborist on Monday but there's not a whole lot they can do for the tree I love this tree I get wonderful shade on my house in the summer, esp. my studio, so it's not so hot and I don't have to run the air so often.

Dinner for tomorrow is in the crock pot roasting away it's a boston butt roast, I'll season it before I go to bed tonight and we will have pulled pork tomorrow.

Garden Update

Well as many of you know, who live in the midwest, it has done nothing but rain here. Today the mosoon showers have held off for the most part. I was able to get into the tomato portion of the garden - yeah - I pulled off the suckers and threaded the branches through the cattle panel holes. Many of the plants have blossoms, I am hoping for a good tomato harvest this year as I'd really love to put up some salsa. More later with pictures.

Potato Leek Soup

Tonights Dinner Menu

Potato Leek Soup

(the extra will be canned up in quart jars)

Ciabatta Bread

Tonights Dinner Menu

Tonights Dinner Menu

Sauerkraut with Ribs

Sweet Tea

Tonights Dinner Menu

Tonights Dinner Menu

Beef Hot Dogs
Sauerkraut
Baked Beans

Tomatoes and Rain

Well it's raining again... John came home at lunch and we tied up the tomatoes using a semi transparent nylon tomato tape. It's really easy to work with and I can see using this for rouge squash plants, cucumbers, etc. as well.

Aphids

Aphids - they are everywhere and they are devouring everything!!! I guess it's time to pull out the big poisons - Sevin - and kill everything off! I truly hate to do this but we have them so bad that they are actually eating the leaves on our oak trees!!! I've never seen an aphid on an oak tree before but I guess anything IS possible.

My grape vine is all but dead and I'm trying to keep a 150 year old english rose root stock alive!

Todays Activities

*5 quarts and 13 pints of pork loin in the pressure canner.
*Wash the outsides of 11 quarts of beef chili, label them, and find shelf space to store them on (ok that one may take a miracle). 11 in 121 seal rate not bad.
*Chinese for dinner, made by moi' of course!
*Rescue my wind beaten tomato plants, convince them they want to grow on the trellis' instead using tomato tape to reinforce that idea!
*Celebrate because I sold two art quilts today!!!

Garden Update

My potato patch before round three of mulching - we mulched it just before it started pouring!

Greens patch: Lettuce, chard, beets, turnips, radishes, carrots, and parsnips.

The hail and tornados missed us! I'm so very grateful for this!!! At present I have no way to protect my tomatoes. John has an idea and we will set it up sometime this week.