September 15th, 2007 - It’s easier to post now
It’s easier to post now becuase I’m sitting in the living room with a laptop. My own laptop that is. Yeah, we bought new computers. Terribly non-frugal, but one aspect of frugality is doing that in areas you can so that you can spend where you want to. We bought two computers, an iMac for Eric in the den and a MacBook for me where ever. I also use the den one all the time. No point turning on the laptop to check the weather when no one is using the iMac, of course. It’s nice for evenings; I’m sure as winter comes on, I’ll hang out online more in the evenings. I usually watch a lot more TV and this is much better than that!
So, garden update: There was a threat of frost last night, so I picked a few things throughout the day (stayed home a half day) including the first scarlet runner beans and covered up the tomatoes and peppers overnight. Made spaghetti sauce (the other I thing I can do is post the recipes now) with most of the 19# I had picked Thursday. Today, I picked up goodies at the farmer’s market, including peppers, carrots, red cabbage, winter squash, and cilantro. The first ones are for soup stock and to dry. I’ve used so many peppers in sauces that I have few to dry! My carrots didn’t do well, and the few I have I want to eat fresh so the market ones will go for drying.
On Thursday, I started sauerkraut. Today, I remembered that you should add brine if the liquid doesn’t cover the shreds right away. I don’t have much in there–but let’s see this time if it works and we like it. If so, next year I can make an entire 5 gallon bucket of it!
Today I dried peppers and cabbage. I couldn’t believe how much room the cabbage takes up initially; I could only fit half as the other half of the trays had peppers on them. The other half–tomorrow or eat fresh?
It’s great fun to do this work with Maggie. She had lunch while I cut up things for the spag sauce–nibbling on pieces of tomato at first (she kept asking for them, even though she rarely touches them on a plate), then for onion, meat, and garlic. She got everything raw but the meat. Today, she had a couple pieces of cabbage, and although she asked for pepper, she didn’t eat it. She really like the cabbage! That makes me wonder if I should try coleslaw tomorrow.
I also picked all the remaining basil. I think I have enough for another 8 batches! But I looked at my notes from last time and discovered it took me nearly 3 hours. I so don’t look forward to 3 hours on my feet in the kitchen. Ugg. So I haven’t done anything with them yet–they are wilting in the fridge. :( Maybe I can just do half of them ad dry the other half? Yes, that would work…..
September 17th, 2007 at 12:57 pm EDT
AMB will looove the fact that you’re a Mac family now. Apples+Unix, what a treat!
And I made deep-dish pizza with Dad last night; Mom made the sauce from scratch.
November 7th, 2007 at 4:14 pm EST
[…] Almost 2 months ago, I wrote of beginning my first attempt at sauerkraut. After watching it carefully every few days and removing the scum that appeared, it began to smell off and some bugs appeared. (The same bugs that appeared in the worm bins and around the litter box. No clue what they are.) So I thought it was done for and a few days later threw the mess out. […]