Archive for November, 2008

November 26th, 2008 - Feels like 3rd grade again

I’m still sick, with the additional of an eye infection as of Monday. I get to wear my glasses all day now, instead of contacts. Since winter finally hit–decent snowstorm Monday night–I get the joy of childhood back: fogged over glasses when outside. It was rather interesting this morning (my first time with more than a quick walk to the car outside since getting sick) as I waited for the bus. I tried to decide whether I could see better with the fogged glasses or without glasses at all. It was pretty much a toss up, except that there were a few teeny spots on the glasses that I could see clearly out of if I titled my head at just the right angle and looked with just one eye.

I guess this is living more simply, as my getting up and going to bed routines are a few minutes faster w/o the contacts. On the other hand, I have to put drops in my eyes 3x a day and avoid contact with MJ and Eric. It also meant spending $15 on birthday cupcakes as we were terrified of me giving pink eye to her classroom. (That is, if I had make the cupcakes. Which I had every intention of doing on Monday afternoon/evening. I even had the frosting ready!) ::sigh:: We’ve managed to bake a cake only once so far, every other time I’ve been sick. Well, I did bake cupcakes for her actual birthday this time. I just didn’t get the preschool ones done.

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November 20th, 2008 - Sick

I’ve been sick. Not much happening. Trying to get back to the swing of things.

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November 10th, 2008 - Weekend update

A few things from the long weekend. I took Friday off work because Eric was sick. That also meant I had three days in a row in charge of Maggie. That’s something I usually don’t like…but the older she gets the easier it is for me. We had a wonderful three days full of things getting done.

Inspired by another blogger, I moved some things downstairs from the kitchen. The narrow cabinet next to the stove has always been a thorn in my side, as it doesn’t fit the things we have it in very well. Or, it does, until you want to take something out. But most of what’s in it are things we rarely, rarely use, like pie plates. So I moved the pie plates, bread pan, and French onion soup bowls to the basement! There’s plenty of room down there and I can easily get a pie plate when I bake a pie. Now there’s room for the cutting boards, which makes a lot of sense since they will now be right below where they are used AND there’s plenty of room, unlike their original place on the other side of the stove. On Thursday, Eric also rearranged the pots and pans cupboard, leaving just one item to be moved. Which ended up fitting nicely on the little shelf at the back of the cupboard I rearranged. Delightful!

A week ago, I attempted to make strawberry jam. I started with a s’berry butter recipe. But the berries, from the freezer, had so much liquid with them I thought it was a shame to have to cook it all down. So I switched to jam. A microwave jam recipe. For which I didn’t really have a large enough dish. And it made me use part of my only box of pectin. And it totally didn’t work like the recipe said (1 minute cooking to jelling stage, and I spent at least 10 minutes–at 1-minute intervals–cooking it). Such a hassle. And then it made 50% more than I expected. So I had three jars of jam/ice cream topping in the fridge. Which will take forever to eat up, as I don’t want to eat solely s’berry jam for the rest of the winter.

So I canned it Sunday morning. Added the rest of the pectin, and put it in four smaller jars (keeping one pint in the fridge since I’d already dipped a knife into it). Later, I saw the recipe for re-doing jam that hasn’t set, but oh well. Even if it stays a bit soft, it did work as jam and would work as ice cream topping as well (next summer!).

On Friday, Maggie and I made granola. Put half in the freezer. I wish I could eat more of it; 1/2 cup serving with milk is over 300 calories which is what I aim to eat for breakfast. But it is so yummy I want to have twice as much!

Throughout the weekend, I made unleavened bread, wheat sourdough bread, and pumpkin bread–which smelled oh so very heavenly. I made it with a squash from the farmer. I can’t wait to make more; it’s been a long time since I made it with fresh squash instead of dried. I have at least 6 more squash, and each should be about 1.5 cups, and the bread takes 1 cup.

The farmers brought me two unripe pumpkins to scavenged seeds from. (I wish they’d brought more.) So yesterday I roasted them all up in the toaster over. With that many, it took way too long in the toaster over. Works okay for a small batch, but this took three large batches and each took at least 10 minutes, plus stirring time. But still worth it since roasted squash seeds are oh so very yummy!

I made, to my amazement for early November, a fresh salsa, including tomatoes, cilantro, and peppers. All fresh! Except, sadly, the tomatoes weren’t actually very flavorful, having ripened in the basement. I also put a lot of garlic in it and the whole fridge smells like it. LOL But I had an entire bag of tortilla chips from a month or more ago (the last time I made salsa, with outside ripened tomatoes), so I’m glad I made it. Also have added some beans and corn. And sour cream smooths out the taste, too. The rest of the tomatoes I’ll cook or make soup with as they ripen. No more salsa.

Also made beans, rice, and veggies for Eric. And stuffed peppers Thursday night. So lots of time in the kitchen!

On Saturday morning, Maggie and I also went to the holiday parade with Ruth and Sequoia. The weather was nasty–rain and wet snow for most of the morning. We dressed in many, many layers and stayed pretty warm until near the end. Maggie had fun watching everything, and getting candy (most of which has been given away here at work). She got bunches of candy canes, most of which were broken when thrown on the street. I’m thinking about making some kind of cookie or candy with them for the holidays. (We were right at the end of the route, and folks either had a ton of candy left–like the canes–or nothing at all.) Despite the weather, we had fun and already made a date for next year. Sequoia was in the parade with her Girl Scout troupe and likely will be next year as well. We were at the end of the route so that Ruth could pick her up–she was in the 5th group so she was with us for almost the whole parade. That was nice for Maggie because she really couldn’t get much candy and Sequoia helped her. (They split the candy at the end, making no distinction amongst who picked it up.) Sequoia also held her hand on the way back to the car. Maggie was thrilled to pieces about that and sharing the backseat with her. Not something she gets to do. It was really sweet. (Sequoia is about 8 and has a little sister who is 5.)

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November 4th, 2008 - How I can see you…

RoosterChick wondered how I found out she’d linked to my blog. I use WordPress and on the Dashboard you can see incoming links. It’s really quite cool and how I find every now and again a dear reader’s blog to start following.

Would probably be a lot more interesting if lots of people linked to me all the time, but I get about one link a week and half of them are spammers.

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November 4th, 2008 - Biking AGAIN

I biked to work this morning, after biking to vote (which is on the way to work and only 1 block from home). I could have biked yesterday, but I didn’t think of it until after I got here. Might be able to bike tomorrow, but rain’s forecasted the rest of the week so this might be the last time (again).

Eric and Maggie got up early–6:30am–so that we could vote as a family right at 7am. There was an actual line, but it moved pretty quickly and I was at work by 7:30. I always vote electronically, and this time I thought I would help speed things up since NO ONE ELSE was doing so. Instead, I held up the line because the one person who knew how to do it wasn’t at the table, and then when they got her over there, she had to show the other lady how to do it and it just took forever. Then she had to walk me over and tried to help, but I politely explained I knew exactly what to do (it’s not hard–you just put the card in the reader like an ATM machine).

Eric intends to go back and bring them some donuts. If you haven’t voted yet, be sure to at least say “Thank you!” to your poll workers and observers!

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November 3rd, 2008 - The dying garden is full of life

I would have said the garden was officially over (except for the rutabagas) last week, but I was surprised yesterday: I found some ripe raspberries! And some ground cherries that ripened after pulling up the plants. But the real life I’m talking about is the birds. I almost left late due to watching out the window–the cardinal pair is back, along with some nuthatches and the ever-present sparrows. The cardinals were finding goodies on the ground while the nuthatches are enjoying the dead zinnias and sunflowers. I absolutely adore having the garden right outside the dining and living room windows. I would miss so much if it were anywhere else. I wouldn’t have chosen this spot if we had a more open yard, so I’m delighted Eric thought of it.

This weekend I finished off the beans (picking anything dry or large to dry in the garage, and ripping the vines down), peppers, and tomatoes. I trimmed the raspberries and covered the strawberries with straw. I dug up the cannas. Still left are the flowers and the Job’s Tears plants–I harvested them but most of the seeds are still green so I’m not sure what luck I’ll have. I’m leaving the plants until they die back as interest in the garden. OK, honestly, I forgot to go back in with the other clippers to cut them down. I didn’t carry anything back to the compost pile. I tried this a bit last year and am doing it more extensively this year: leaving the pulled up plants on the beds. They will provide some cover for the dirt to keep it from drying out as much and they will start to decompose. I will either use them as mulch come spring or take what’s left back to the compost then. It means less hauling in both directions.

Today should be in the upper 60s (hello????), so we’ll be out in the garden after work putting in some edging. If I have time, I’ll spread the rest of the straw and get to the Job’s Tears. I’m leaving the zinnias and sunflowers until the birds appear done. Maybe all winter….

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November 1st, 2008 - A most productive day

Today was every so productive. At the end, I was tired but oh so happy. Today was the first day of appling! I started with 100 apples (although a few were too wormy to use). I ended up with 9 quarts of cider and 11.5 pints of applesauce. Maggie also drank about one cup of cider. I forgot to drink any myself! I was going to keep a quart of cider out, but it fit into two more quarts (7 fit in the canner) so I only had the one remaining cup. Oh well.

I started at about 6am. The juicing was done around noon–an hour longer than last time. It didn’t feel neverending, however. For starters, I cut the apples in two large batches. And because I didn’t carefully read last year’s notes, I thought it was all one big batch. Nope, that many apples will not fit in the juicer, even when added after the previous addition has baked down. So I did one major batch with lots of additions and one small batch that didn’t quite fill the hopper. Canning didn’t take as long, however, since I could do 10 pints of sauce at once (or even more–the pints can stack double, recall). I had 11 pints, but I didn’t want to put enough water for a second layer for just one jar. We use it pretty quickly so I put it in the fridge instead.

The last canning was done around 4. I worked pretty steadily, without large breaks. Except that I had a break while it was juicing and while the canner was running, so it didn’t feel as bad as when I’ve had to sit and watch everything in past years when I didn’t feel confident of what I was doing. And thank goodness for Maggie. While the last batch was heating up to boil for canning, I forgot about it. She heard it boiling away and came and told me, “It’s making a lot of noise in the kitchen, Mommy.” Whew!

While the juicer was starting up, I also made peach butter. I had some peach puree from making nectar. I just cooked it like apple butter on the stove, stirring almost constantly–while cutting apples, too. I had it on very low heat. I added a bit more sugar (I put some in before freezing, too), plus all spice, cinnamon, and something else. About 1/8tsp of each, and a little ore allspice at the end. I would have used nutmeg, but I couldn’t find my nut, and I didn’t search far (it’s probably in with the unused nutmegs, but I was distracted).

I’m not done yet! I recently ran across a recipe for apple cider vinegar made from cores and peels. So I filled a gallon jar (which I didn’t remember I had) with the cores of about 85-90 apples. Then I covered it with 2 quarts of water in which 1/2c sugar was dissolved. It will site in the kitchen, covered with thick cheesecloth, for a week. Around that time, it should darken and I will then strain out the cores. Then it will sit for another 3-4 weeks to become vinegar. I plan to try this with the rest of the batches, too (I expect to spend a day juicing at least twice, maybe three times. I bought a LOT of seconds this year). I’m not sure how to store it, however. If I can it, I will destroy the beauty of unpasteurized vinegar, I believe. Can I just let it sit in the basement, or will it ferment? Need to do some GoodSearching (like Googling, except ad revenue is shared with your favorite charity).

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My Adventures in Simple Living

Archive for November, 2008

November 26th, 2008 - Feels like 3rd grade again

November 20th, 2008 - Sick

November 10th, 2008 - Weekend update

November 4th, 2008 - How I can see you…

November 4th, 2008 - Biking AGAIN

November 3rd, 2008 - The dying garden is full of life

November 1st, 2008 - A most productive day

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