Snapshots: A Select Few

I really didn't take many photos this week. And what I did get is . . .unimpressive. 

Oh well! That's reality! Here's what I do have.

The window guys put on the windows, but A. spent a full day repairing screens so we can actually open the windows without letting in every fly and grasshopper in the county.

It's very hard to take a photo of screens, but you see where the window just looks really dirty at the bottom there? That's the screen reflecting the light. Yay, A.!

I don't know why I took a terrible photo of the bull in the pasture across the road, but apparently, I did.

Black bulls do not photograph well. Especially when they're far away.

And last, I went with a simple profusion of sunflowers for the table bouquet this week.

Sunny.

There you have it! My (minimal) life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Definitely Not Vegetarian

I was very sick for the first about half of the week, so it was a bit of an unusual food week in our house.

Friday

Short version: Hofmann's hot dogs, bread, rooster rice

Long version: This is what I heard being eaten at the table right outside my bedroom door while I was in a feverish haze in bed. Needless to say, I did not have any.

Saturday

Short version: T-bone steaks, rooster rice, strawberry jell-o

Long version: I didn't eat any of this but the jell-o, which I made. Not from a box, though. I used frozen strawberries, cooked with sugar and water and then strained, to make the jell-o with my gelatin powder. It was very good, although too stiff. Most recipes for homemade jell-o are by people who into it for the health benefits of the gelatin, so they call for a lot of gelatin in proportion to the other ingredients. I think this had about 7 cups of fruit juice and 3 tablespoons gelatin. Too much.

All the photos in the post are courtesy of Poppy, who was thrilled I let her take exactly four photos with my phone.

First up, a very blue outside shot.

Sunday

Short version: Fried pork shoulder, mashed potatoes, fried mushrooms, carrot sticks with ranch dip, gingersnaps, blueberry jell-o

Long version: I did make this dinner! I even ate a few bites of meat! Although I mostly ate the jell-o. I did the same thing to make this as I did with the strawberry, except I used slightly less gelatin. I liked the texture a lot better, but blueberry jell-o just tastes weird. 

Not a fan. 

The gingersnaps were for a school event that required cookies. We made extra, of course.

Monday

Short version: Pork chimichangas, frozen fruit or canned peaches

Long version: Just the leftover pork, shredded and heated with salsa and then put in flour tortillas with cheese. I didn't manage a vegetable, so I gave everyone their choice of frozen strawberries, frozen blueberries, or canned peaches.

A very bright window in the living room.

Tuesday

Short version: Cube steaks, mashed potatoes, green salad with vinaigrette, granola

Long version: Let's see . . . I cooked the cube steaks with the liquid left from the pork shoulder and five Roma tomatoes from the village store owner's garden. 

And I managed an actual vegetable. We were pretty light on vegetables this week.

A fan action shot.

Wednesday

Short version: Fried eggs, leftover mashed potatoes and cheese, carrot sticks with curry dip

Long verison: I had been planning to make barbecue pulled pork sandwiches for dinner with the rest of the leftover pork, but when I pulled out the big container with the pork in it, I found it had been steadily disappearing over the past few days and there wasn't enough left for everyone.

Plan B: Eggs. Not too exciting, but the leftover mashed potatoes re-heated with cheddar cheese filled it in a little.

And an unusually clear desk.

Thursday

Short version: Barbecue meatballs, cornbread, frozen peas

Long version: A. and I spent a couple of hours in the morning grinding the last of the bull meat from the freezer. Or rather, I did all the trimming and cutting, and A. did all the actual grinding. The grinder is much easier to clean if a couple of slices of bread are run through it at the end to get all the meat and fat out. So I used that bread, plus the meat, to make meatballs.

I actually got the meatballs all made and realized shortly before dinner that I forgot to put the eggs in them. Whoops. So I squished them all back up again, with the eggs this time, and formed the meatballs again.

That was a close one.

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?

Growing Food: The New Mexico Wrap

Many moons ago, when the gardening season was still a time for starry-eyed visions of big boxes of tomatoes and crisper drawers full of cucumbers*, someone in the comments recommended I try the Florida weave to support my tomatoes.

I had never heard of it, so I looked it up. There are, of course, many videos showing it. I watched this one. Which is actually from the LSU Ag. Center, so maybe that's a Louisiana weave?

Anyway.

I tried it this year. 

A. split some cedar posts for me and pounded them into the ground about three feet apart. For the twine, I used the innumerable pieces of baling twine that are always hanging around after we cut them off of hay bales. I had to tie them together, of course, but it pleased me to use something that is otherwise just a nuisance to be thrown away. It's not going to win any design awards, but I enjoy such re-use.

Tomato post with very aesthetic baling twine.

The video shows the man just going on alternate sides of each post as he goes down the row until he gets to the end. This is presumably the "weave" part. I tried that the first pass, but then realized there is absolutely no point in that when it works much better to wrap the twine around each post a couple of times, ending up on the alternate side from the previous post and then continuing. 

This makes for a much tighter length of twine, and the tighter the twine, the better it holds the tomato plants upright. I have no idea why the video I saw didn't show this. Maybe everyone does it like that? Dunno.

This is why I'm re-naming my method The New Mexico Wrap. Catchy, no?

Anyway.

As the plant grows, more courses of woven twine are added above the existing ones to support the plants. The plants themselves can just be gently pulled inside the twine to hold them up. No tying.

This very sickly tomato plant allows us to see the plant inside the twine. The other plants are thankfully so robust that the twine has pretty much disappeared inside the foliage.

This has not been a year of really exuberant growth for my tomato plants (or, well, anything), but the tomatoes I have left are actually fairly big now, and the twine is holding them up. So I will do this again next year.

A couple of things I learned for next year, however.

As previously mentioned, do not just weave the twine in and out. Wrap it around each post as they come before continuing.

Smaller posts are better. The smaller the diameter of the posts (within reason), the closer together the two lengths of twine, and the better they hold the plants upright. 

This old stick where one plant died is about the right diameter. You can see the wrapping here, too.

I thought it would be great to have bamboo posts like I had at Blackrock, but then I remembered how slippery those bamboo posts were. I think the twine would probably slide down on them. Small diameter rough wood, either large sticks or small split wood, is better.

More posts are better. No more than two plants between each post seems to work pretty well.

So! To whoever recommended the Florida version to me, thank you. And to anyone else who wants to try it, feel free to make your own modifications and name it after your own location. It's fun.

Snapshots: I Live

I felt in some doubt of that in the past three days. I haven't been that sick in yeeears, and it was Very Not Fun.

However! I do think I may finally be recovering. I slept through the night last night; I might actually be able to eat some solid food today; and I even have some photos for you. Because life goes on, even when I'm mired in misery.

First, because this is truly the most exciting thing to happen all month:

I HAVE WINDOWS!

The window company called Tuesday asking if they could come that day to install our windows, but they didn't actually show up until Friday. Kind of annoying, but hey, at least they came! And now I can see my dead asparagus from the kitchen again. 

The second most exciting thing this month:

I HAVE A TOMATO! (And a green bean.)

Because I am me, the first thing I did when I became even slightly ambulatory again yesterday afternoon was go check on the garden. And there I found a red tomato. It's a Roma, which is slightly less exciting than a really good eating tomato like a Stupice, but it's a tomato! And I found that one green bean, too, so the grasshoppers haven't eaten everything.

And last we have two table bouquets: One from before the Great Pestilence.

I changed it up a little by using the Topo Chico bottle and removing the dried purple flowers.

And one from after:

Poppy actually made this one for me, at my request. She did a good job. Takes after her mother. And the lighting is weird because I didn't get a picture until this morning, when the sun wasn't up yet.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Down and Out

I am uncharacteristically late this morning because I'm sick. But the show--and the food reporting--must go on.

Friday 

Short version: Bull and potato casserole

Long version: I had to get the food processor out to chop up another bag of the commodities almonds I use for granola and cookies, so I also used it to process a jar of pressure-canned bull meat. And why is that? Because I never use the food processor for just one thing.

Anyway.

I had six potatoes in the refrigerator that I had baked a few days previously just to have on hand, so I chopped those up, added the last of already cooked diced onion from the freezer, the bull meat (processed with bacon grease and garlic for extra flavor), frozen corn, the last of a some tomato juice in the refrigerator, some heavy cream, grated cheddar, and a little ketchup.

I actually baked it in the morning while I was making the granola and a sour cream-chocolate chip pound cake, and then when it was even hotter at dinner time, I re-heated it in the microwave.

It turned out better than you'd think, given the total randomness of its assembly.

And did I count the corn as a vegetable? Yes, yes I did. Not sorry, either.

Saturday

Short version: Sandwiches, pickles, faked beans, chocolate ice cream

Long version: A. went to the store on Friday and I had asked him to get deli ham and salami. These are very rare purchases for us, and I decided to take advantage of having them by having sandwiches for dinner. I really didn't feel like cooking, so it seemed like a good idea.

And then I ended up cooking anyway, to make the faked beans. These are baked beans, except they're not baked at all. I used two jars of pressure-canned pinto beans, two pieces of chopped bacon, diced onion, the very last of a bottle of Dinosaue BBQ Sauce rinsed out with water, ketchup, yellow mustard, and maple syrup all simmered together for about 40 minutes.

Passable baked beans, actually.

For the sandwiches, I set out the last of the tuna salad, the two kinds of deli meat, slices of cheddar, lettuce, sliced onion, mustard and mayonnaise, and let everyone make their own.

Sandwich bar ahoy.

Sunday

Short version: Quesadillas, leftover vegetables and ranch dip

Long version: We went to a church potluck in the early afternoon at which there was a LOT of food. Only a few people were hungry at dinnertime, so for them I made cheese quesadillas with flour tortillas. The vegetables and dip were my contribution to the potluck, and there were enough left for those kids to have with their dinner.

This is obviously a Before Photo.

When I make ranch dip for vegetables, I make it the same way as ranch dressing, but I use sour cream instead of yogurt. This makes it much thicker, so it doesn't just drip off the vegetable being dipped.

Monday

Short version: Crepes, eggs

Long version: I had been planning to make eggs for everyone when I got home from work, but then a few kids didn't ride the bus, so A. didn't have to continue his bus run after getting us home. Since he was home, I asked him to make crepes for the children. Two had them with butter and syrup; two had them with sour cream and rhubarb-plum jam I had made.

A. and I had the eggs. And A. also had the rest of one of the previous night's quesadillas that wasn't finished. He had to eat it because it had pickled jalapenos in it, and I will not eat jalapenos in any form. Too owie for my sensitive mouth.

Tuesday

Short version: Chicken and rice casserole, carrot sticks

Long version: A. had bought a package of enormous bone-in chicken breasts. The entire package was about five pounds, and there were only three breasts in it. Those are some seriously well-endowed chickens. Kind of alarming, to be honest.

Anyway.

I poached two of them in the morning in water with the ends of an onion, a bay leaf, and some peppercorns. Then I used the resulting broth to cook some rice. The rest of the onion was all sauteed in a pan. Some of the onion went into the casserole with some of the rice, and the shredded chicken. 

I made a cheese sauce, too, with cheddar cheese, but it needed a LOT more cheese sauce. Like double the amount. It was a bit dry and bland. Still okay, but could definitely have been better.

Wednesday

Short version: Chicken fried rice

Long version: The third chicken breast I had de-boned the day before. I cut the meat into smaller pieces and left it in the refrigerator. I used that, plus the rest of the onion, the remaining rice, some frozen peas, and eggs, to make the fried rice when I got home from work.

The one child who doesn't much like fried rice was in luck this evening: I had just enough leftover baked beans and plain rice for one child-sized meal. I do not typically offer alternatives to whatever I've made for dinner, but I wanted to finish off those beans, so that worked out.

Thursday

Short version: More cheesier chicken casserole

Long version: I was up and down all the previous night with a sick child. The sort of sick that requires a bowl at hand at all times. I wasn't quite as sick, but neither of us were in great shape. I was still feeling functional enough in the afternoon to make some rice with rooster stock, just in case either of us felt strong enough for solid food. (We did not.)

For the rest of the family, I added some of that rice to the leftover chicken casserole, along with extra butter, salt, and shredded cheese. 

Shortly after that, the fever began and that was pretty much it for me. But at least I got dinner made!

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?

Growing Food: Tenacious Flowers

Although some things in the garden are a total loss--alas for the basil--some of the plants are staging a comeback. And in plants, that looks like flowers.

A single hollyhock.

Calendula buds. Unfortunately, the grasshoppers REALLY like calendula blooms, so it's hard to get to enjoy them as flowers before they get devoured.

Volunteer lettuce. Oddly, the grasshoppers don't eat lettuce at all.

Green beans. I have exactly seven green bean plants left, and I have eaten exactly two green beans from them so far.

And tomatoes. There are even wee tomatoes on the remaining eleven plants. Thankfully, the grasshoppers don't seem to eat the foliage off the plants, although they do eat the fruits when they start to ripen, so I'll have to be vigilant.

We have about two months before our first frost, give or take a couple of weeks, and my fingers are crossed that some of those flowers will turn into food in my kitchen.

So tell me, my fellow gardeners: How does your garden grow?

Snapshots: Hot Peppers

The owner of the tiny store in the village asked if he could buy two loaves of sourdough bread from me. I give away a lot of bread, and I didn't really want to take payment for these two, so when I brought them to him, I said I would rather have produce from his garden than cash. 

He said he didn't have much right now except jalapenos, and he didn't think I would want those, because how many jalapenos can one person use?

A lot, if they're canned.

So I took the jalapenos in exchange for the bread (plus two tomatoes and a cucumber), and did some pickling.

They didn't look like a lot when I dumped them out in the sink.

Although they were a nice size.

But when I started slicing them, * they magically expanded into six pints of pickled peppers.

Not picked by Peter Piper, however.

Did I perhaps re-use lids for this canning project? I sure did. And all but one jar sealed tightly. 

If my kitchen photos are looking a little dark, it's because I still have trash bags and boards over my windows.

Classy.

The window repair company has ordered our new windows, but we don't have a date for installation yet. Boo.

I bring sunshine in, though, in the form of the sunflowers on the table.

Top flower courtesy of Poppy, who found it on her walk and brought it to me.

And last, a random sunset picture for you.

Sunset in the vineyard.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

* I dislike wearing gloves when I'm working with my hands, but I make an exception for slicing hot peppers. Luckily, we had just had our first aid training at school, and part of that is practicing the proper way to take off rubber gloves to avoid contact with biohazardous materials. I kept my practice gloves, and that's what I used for slicing the peppers.