Tuesday morning roundup

Man, I’m glad preservation season is over for this year. Talk about a long, hot summer!

With my last batch of tomatoes I decided to have fun and do up some ketchup. We aren’t big ketchup people around here (mostly because I don’t make food that is ketchup necessary for the most part) but I thought it would be fun to try. Homemade ketchup is certainly different than store bought. It’s more tangy and tomatoey. I like it. I ended up with 2.5 pints, which I think would last us all year.

We’ve also been busy putting up some applesauce. We now have about 45 pints and 5 quarts worth of applesauce. The crazy thing about applesauce making is that no matter how hard you try you end up with juice and stickiness everywhere. I wish I had gotten some pictures of the boys helping. They love to turn the crank on the food mill. I was able to buy a bushel of 2nds to make the sauce with for $10. Next I’m going to tackle a little hard cider. We’ll see how that goes.

We’ve also been enjoying more experimentation with bread making. I made a nice cinnamon loaf this weekend which was OK, albeit a little dry. Apparently bread in a loan pan doesn’t spring like bread dropped on a hot stone so I’ll have to make sure to let it rise in the pan as much as possible. Also, it appears that to get the bread I want, with some whole wheat, with the no-knead recipe, I need 3 quarters white flour and 1 quarter whole wheat flour. And I prefer the crust on it when I put it in the oven after a hot pan full of water has been in there for 10 minutes or so rather than using a pot like the recipe calls for. But I’m still playing around with this.

I’ve also been experimenting with more meals without as much meat. For example, last Monday I roasted a 4 lb chicken (including bones). We’ve had the meat that came from that chicken in 4 different meals, the stock that came from the bones in 2 different meals and there is a tiny bit of chicken left. We’re definitely focusing on eating less meat. I cooked a lentil dish the other day (which turned out soupy rather than thick) but it was still very tasty and lentils are packed with all kinds of good stuff. I’ll be utilizing those more often in the future. I also prepared a Cuban black bean dish for lunch Sunday with some jasmine rice that was nice to soak up all the juice from the beans. I don’t think the beans were hot enough so next time I’ll have to add a little bit of spicy peppers. While I firmly believe it’s important to have meat and meat based products in a healthy diet (especially broths) I do think most of the time we eat too many of them, so I’m changing that. Slowly but surely we’re making some changes.

In a similary thread, the gizzards came with the chicken and I enjoyed them diced up in an omelet. They were about how I remembered them from the last time I ate them. But , mixed with some eggs and cheese they weren’t too bad.

This story is really sad. Sad for the kid. Sad for the mom Sad for social workers who are wasting their time. Sad for a future lost.

I’m going to talk more about Scarlet Runner Beans in the future. They were big producers this summer and I think they’ve earned a place in my garden for a long, long time.

My honey just got back from a girl’s weekend. It’s nice that she’s back. It’s not as fun around the house when she’s not here.