Plans

Am not really sure what will be going on this weekend, as of right now. Himself will work tomorrow and it's entirely possible that he will work Sunday, as well. He won't know until this evening at the earliest and tomorrow afternoon is more likely.

He did change the air ram on the truck so he is getting power back. He had been having a hard time getting up to 40 mph. The rigs must be in top shape, with everything working properly, to be able to haul loads of up to 88,000 pounds. It's always a good idea to keep things running right but it's especially vital at this time of year. During harvest, there is no time to be messing about with disabled trucks. He isn't the most patient person in that respect, either. His time OTR shows when he becomes frustrated with guys standing around gabbing at the scales or "putting" down the road, talking on their phones.

I may end up driving the rv to the nearest dump station myself. The thing scares me because it's big and heavy and the steering really needs to be tightened up. Himself has a lot more faith in my ability to drive it than I do, to tell the truth. The tanks need to be dumped and flushed, though, so if he works Sunday... well, it's the Old Lady behind the wheel. Duck and cover!

The next thing will be winterizing it. We had talked about taking it out one last time this weekend, which would have obviated the need for me to do stuff myself, but with nasty head colds we really aren't feeling much like camping anywhere. It's not like going 5 miles would be such a big deal but you know how it goes sometimes.

Last night's supper turned out really, really well. Roast chicken with vegetables and red wine and ratatouille. mmmmmmm Have some chicken left and some of the sauce, too, so I'm set for lunch. Since the chicken weighed around 4 pounds you'd think that there would be enough left on the bones that I could make chicken and noodles or something like that. Not gonna happen. There's barely enough left to pick for my lunch, let alone do something with it.

There is no ratatouille left at all. Not one piece of eggplant, not a whiff of tomato, not a hint of zucchini. Hooray! I got up at 2 am to make a bathroom stop and DS2 was back up here, eating the last little bit. That is a situation I can live with, no leftovers.

For one reason or another, the dog didn't get put in her crate last night. When I opened the door this morning she had pooped and piddled. She had also polished off her allotment of dog food and drank all her water. I suppose that explains the mess. She usually can make it through the night without soiling inside her crate so not being able to do it when she's out makes no sense to me. The only time she has problems is if she has had "people food" with a high fat content, like steak trimming or something. I have some dog blankets out on the deck that need to be washed after the last episode of troubles. Ugh.

I do need to go to the store this afternoon. Had been planning on taking a drive down to my southeast but will not have the time nor gas to do that. It's also more important to make sure we have the makings for lunches and meals than for me to go fiddling around, sightseeing. After paying taxes yesterday I don't have a lot of leeway as far as funds go so will get what I must and pass on the rest.

Two of the inhabitants here need to learn to eat leftovers, too. Their refusal to do so jacks the grocery bill up something fierce. I think they should be glad to have food on the table even if it isn't something they are crazy about. Was hearing complaints a couple of days ago from one of them after being forced to eat chunky peanut butter due to the fact that we were out of creamy. That, in my opinion, is such a HUGE non-issue. So what? It's food, damn it. Eat it and be glad you have it.

Another issue in the food department is the stupidity of not liking anything that doesn't come out of a box produced by Big Food. I simply refuse to buy stuff like those "helper" mixes and Blue Box mac and cheese. It's full of crap that isn't good for anyone. Also, please consult with me about what meal plans are for the week before you start eating stuff out of my staples cupboard. God only knows how many times I have looked in vain for a vital ingredient for a meal and it has been eaten by one person. Or, almost eaten as there are some leftovers in the fridge that won't get eaten because they're leftovers. There isn't enough there to do whatever it was that had been planned for that meal so... it's pirate ingredients from a totally different meal which messes up the whole plan for days at a time. The situation is wasteful, selfish and ridiculous. Get your had out of your ass and THINK!

Still looking for some kind of a job that will pay enough for me to take it. The ones available are 20 miles and more away, pay $7 an hour and that would barely cover gas to get there and back. The one that interested me the most is working in the office at a cop, measuring grain dryness and weight. That would be an enjoyable job even with the normal job-related idiocies that go on. It's a jeans and sweatshirt job, too, so wouldn't need to invest a lot on clothes.

Have been using up coffee beans that I have had for well over a year. Even as old as they are the coffee from the Fench press is still better than the store-bought pre-ground. Switching back and forth from Kona to Costa Rican terrazo. Good stuff. Gotta watch that Kona, though. It's darned strong and gives me the jimjams if I drink more than 2 cups. One day I totally miscalculated the amount of beans and didn't manage to make it through one whole cup before I got the shakes. LOL Coffee doesn't usually do that to me so you can imagine that it was really tough stuff.

Having the same struggles with one of the adolescent males that has been going on for well over a year. Teachers are thinking it's no use scheduling a conference when it's time in 2 weeks because, no matter what is said or done, he will pay absolutely no attention. It's a lose-lose situation for him, though. It frustrates all of us no end to have the responsibility for this kid and have our hands tied by his total lack of understanding. He hasn't learned anything about responsibility or accountability, is unreliable and whines when asked to do anything around here. When he does get herded into working by his father, he spends a lot of time trying to sneak off or texting friends on the phone. Then, when called back there is the inevitable, and regrettable, sniveling about one of the rest of us who "never does anything at all."* Classic attempt at misdirection but it doesn't fly anymore with anyone. He also sees no reason why he should do anything around here. That baffles us to the point of total incomprehension. You're living here, eating our food, we're paying the bills and you don't know WHY you should be helping? Is it any wonder that we have all stepped back, raised our hands and said, "You're on your own, kid. If you are so smart and grown up, go for it..."**

I didn't watch the VP debate last night. By the time it came on I was ready for bed, pretty much asleep on my feet. This business of getting up at 4:45 am is wearing me out and messing up schedules.

Waggywaggy has the leaks, again. She is dripping all over the place so, until I can find her doggy diapers, she's banished outside. Currently, she is out there barking. Woof.......woof........woof. She usually settles down and lays in the sun after a while. This doesn't happen all the time and it's impossible to tell when she will do this. She's totally unaware of it, too. Doc said we could try to get a sample to check for bacteria but how the dickens would I do that? I may try giving her a rimadyl just in case it's due to her lame butt. Now, where are those diapers.....

It has warmed up considerably but is still only 55 degrees. That is good for the drivers and guys out harvesting, though, even if the rest of us must wear sweatshirts.



* This is arrant bullshit as every last one of us works our butts off, day after day after day.
** He's wormed his way out of some really nasty situations in the last month using charm and "gawrsh, ma'am, ah jus dint know." That won't last forever, though. The longer the reckoning takes, the worse it will be. That wall is gonna hurt when you hit it. Just don't come to us expecting a bail-out because we won't do it.

Autumn is here

It's noticeably cooler, leaves are cascading, spreading color across the grass. Geese practicing their precision formation, crying in the wind. Winter is coming.

This time of year is also canning time. For the next 10 days, it's tomato heaven around here. Am doing 12 quarts at a time in the water bath. It takes a while for them to cook down so it's possible to stage the process and be able to accomplish other things while they cook.

Here are some photos:



The tomatoes seem to be an heirloom variety called Oxheart. They are almost solid meat and cook up beautifully.



These are almost ready to go. The foam is changing color, turning darker, and they have thickened considerably.


The finished product. The fruit kept its color with no added ingredients, salt or anything else.

I have the last 30 pounds of maters on the stove, cooking. The first two batches were around 25 pounds and the extra 5 was just enough that I had to get a second stock pot for the excess. I am "guesstimating" that I might get as many as 16 quarts from this batch. Have another 2 bushel coming this week so will continue with this. She offered another 4 bushel in the weeks to come and I may take her up on it. (We need around 124 quarts of tomatoes to get us through winter as we use a LOT of them.) 100 pounds of tomatoes for $40 is one hell of a deal and well worth the money.

Have spoken to a number of people over the last week who can't imagine doing anything like canning tomatoes. "Why don't you just buy them? It's a lot easier." Well, yeah, I suppose it is but I get something from doing this. Not just wonderful, fresh-tasting produce in the depths of winter but some kind of personal satisfaction. Like many home canners, I take pride in the fact that I can do this, do it well, and do it quickly. (I also take just pride in the fact that over the 30+ years I have been doing this I have had only about 5 jars that didn't seal and only one that broke in the pressure canner.)

I started quite young, learning the process, in my mother's kitchen. Back then, if you didn't grow it and put it up yourself you were likely to get darned hungry by the end of winter. We did tomatoes, beans, beets, froze corn, made jelly... all that kind of old-timey stuff. Mom didn't really enjoy the process, though. It was a matter of survival and it had to be done. Dad liked it better than Mom and he ended up being drafted on weekends.

The pickles are done, for the most part. I may do a few more pints to share but we don't use a lot of them so there is no need to make up a bunch. I wish I had been able to find more sweet corn but it was such a bizarre season that it was horribly expensive. Beans and peas are long since gone but I may be able to find some beets, if I'm lucky. I need a dozen or so squash and must remember to call the grower for potatoes and onions before it gets too late.

Have 2 dozen chickens coming next month, a beef in November and another hog in December. We are only get a whole half-beef this time and hoping the cost goes down before we need more. Even with the higher producer's price it is still cheaper than buying it. The quality is much better, too.

Great food blog

I love this guy. Other than being an interesting fellow, he posts marvelous recipes. Even better? A lot of them are Greek.

I adore Greek food. The freshness of the ingredients, the dill, mint and various herbs used in seasoning, the ease of preparation...

I think if I ever get a chance to travel, I want to go to Greece.

Maybe I'll just stay there.

He has posted a technique for baked potatoes that is similar to what I have done in the past. The difference is the seasoning, Montreal Steak seasoning. That is something I probably wouldn't have thought of trying.

I will this afternoon, though. Am grilling round steak which is marinating with a chipotle/herb mixture. The taters will be sliced almost all the way through, pour over melted butter, sprinkle in the seasoning, wrap in foil and bake them. mmmmmmmm yummy!

Thanks, Peter! Your recipes and photos always make me drool.

Should never, ever have looked.

Ever.

I know better.

Now I'm hooked.

Food Porn Daily

Fried

Yes, I am totally fried. Tired and thinking I am glad to be done for the day.

We started, as usual, around 7:30 this morning. Have cleaned, power-washed, cleaned, waxed, cleaned, washed... well, you get the idea.

I have cayenne peppers in the dehydrator right now. Tomorrow, first thing in the morning while the dew is still on, plan on going out and cutting the top half from the sage plants by the watercourse. They will go into the dryer next. Then there is the Greek oregano that is ready to be taken care of, plus the spearmint. Then there will be the purple sage and tri-color sage, the parsley, chives and thyme.

I didn't grow any rosemary this year since the Herd seems to have decided, for no reason that is obvious to me, that they don't like it anymore. Have totally given up on growing basil, too. I just can't seem to get it to go. There seem to be hordes of people around who have Monster Basil Plants growing out of every spot that isn't already inhabited by something else but I just can't get it to live. This is kind of a pain as I use a lot of basil. Thyme is no problem, nor is spearmint. The only problem those 2 present is keeping them from taking over the world.

3 of my 4 roma plants are producing lovely, large fruit but that 4th one has the blight, or something similar. It has produced fruit that is about the size of a shooter marble but does taste good. Not much use for canning but tasty to munch on. The other hybrid plants down on the terrace are loaded with fruit and some of them are starting to show some color. That's a good thing and I hope we have enough summer left to allow them to ripen fully. If the weather turns, I will have to bring whole plants in and hang them upside down in the laundry room or somewhere to allow the fruit to ripen. That is a messy and cumbersome operation so would rather not have to fool with it.

Since I only have about 1/3 of the amount of tomatoes that I would have under normal circumstances, I am seriously considering slicing them and just putting them in the food dryer. Dried tomatoes are great for a lot of things and can be reconstituted for marinara, paste, and sauces.

The hot banana pepper plants have done a nice job of producing fruit, too. Since I don't use many of those, I only have 2 plants but they have some nice yields. Those will go into the freezer since they don't dry well. The jalapenos are doing well but not producing like I expected. The peppers are very nice but there aren't many of them, maybe a dozen and a half total, right now. I still have some in the freezer from last summer so this won't be a real problem. Unless someone decides they are going on a jalapena jag and then we're in trouble.

That gross of onions are doing nicely, too. There were actually more than 144 of them but some died and some haven't grown. Went out this morning and thinned the ones in the long container. Last weened I thinned the ones in the pots and the remaining onions are now growing a lot larger and may produce some nice winter tastiness.

We planted several dozen onions down on the terraces but the rabbits ate the whole blasted lot of them, dammit. The radishes down there didn't get eaten but Himself never went down and thinned them so he doesn't have any radishes. He kept saying that he would "do it pretty soon" but he ended up distracted by other issues and never got to it. They were too close together and, since they had no room to grow, went to seed rather than making radishes. I figured, since I don't eat radishes, I would leave the thinning to the Radish-Lover and it didn't turn out well. Not my loss and I don't suppose not having radishes will make much difference for him, either.

I broke down a couple of weeks ago and used a chemical spray to kill that blasted crabgrass around the front of the house and down along the driveway. I really hate using that stuff but, even with weeding like crazy, it came up so fast and thick that we couldn't keep up with it. Now there are big brown and dead patches around the place that have to be plowed up and reseeded.

Also having a weed problem down around the watercourse and ponds. This spring was so wet that the things that could grow the best seemed to be the weeds. Some of our ferns came back but most of the stuff down there just died. That's a p.i.t.a. because we spent a lot of cash and a lot of sweat on preparing the ground and planting stuff. DS1 came up one day last summer and spent the whole day, scooting around on his butt, planting ferns. I am hoping that his labors will pay off next spring but who knows?

The river is so low that the kayakers who came by last weekend had to paddle right under the cliffs at the bottom of the yard. I miss having boaters, canoeists, and kayakers come by in the afternoon. The fishermen aren't even bothering to go out on the river. The only fish up here are carp and they might migrate further upstream. Still have soft-shell turtles coming out to sun themselves but the Canada geese, herons, and egrets are gone. It is also starting to smell. It doesn't smell nice. Dead fish, river bottom, mold... ick. The city says it has a "study" ongoing to figure out how to fixthe levee with the least expenditure of money and the best results but it may be years before we see any results. I estimate that the river level is about 10 feet down and, now it's late August and dry, it will go lower. This pretty much puts paid to the water trail project for the foreseeable future, too. That's a shame as it would have brought money to this town and shown folks that it isn't a total shithole place to live.*

We had planned on going to visit some friends at their acreage this afternoon but ended up not doing that. I had to take some allergy medicine, which I abhor and avoid like the plague, which had made me shaky and short of breath. We will most likely go out to see them tomorrow afternoon, as long as they are available then. It's kind of a weird situation, too. He has been our friend for many years but she avoided any contact with us until a couple of years ago. Not sure what changed her mind but we now can sit and talk for hours about all kinds of subjects. Both of us are having problems with adolescents, she with a girl, me with a boy. Gives all kinds of room for discussion. And then there are the men... LOL!

DS3 has retreated downstairs, DS2 is going to a friend's for the night, SS is, well... who knows where and Himself is at the bar. This leaves me free to do absolutely nothing. YeeeHA! Of course, since it isn't 6 p.m. I can't in good conscience put on my jammies but sure would like to do just that. Rats.

OK, since Himself is at the bar I suppose I should get my butt in gear and go have a drink with him and make sure he doesn't get out of hand. He has been behaving strangely of late. It isn't just him, it is a number of males. I have heard from several women that their husbands, boyfriends, or SOs, have been acting weird. Since there isn't a full moon I don't know what's going on but I sure wish I did. Maybe I could help. Maybe not. Don't think most males have the self-awareness to figure out that something is bothering them, what it is, and how to deal with it. Ah, yes, men...






* Granted, I want to get the hell out of here but not because I hate my house or whatever, just because there is nothing to do unless you like hunting, fishing, golf, or sitting at the bar getting stupid. I don't care much for any of those things and would like a variety of food options, museums, libraries that have books other than fiction or romances, and people who have a few thoughts about how things are and why.

Our main course this evening is...

coq au vin.

I adore the stuff. It's so easy to make that the results are almost like cheating. The recipe is as follows:

2 broiler chickens, cut up or 8 thighs, bone-in with skin
1 750 ml bottle of a decent dry red wine, decant it carefully and let it breathe for an hour or so
1 large onion, sliced thin
1 large carrot, sliced thin
4 springs thyme
5 sprigs parsley
2 T butter, clarified if you have it. unsalted if not.
1 pound small white mushrooms
1 pound white pearl onions
3 garlic cloves, chopped fine
4 slices good bacon, cut into 1/4" pieces
1 bay leaf

In a bowl, place the wine, onion, carrot, thyme and parsley. Let it sit for at leasst 4 hours. Overnight is better.
Strain and reserve wine and vegetable/herbs separately.
In a large heavy pan (I use a 12" enameled cast braising pan) sweat/fry the bacon chunks until crispy and brown.
Remove and reserve.
Add 1 T butter to drippings. Brown chicken, in batches. Set aside in large bowl.
Add 1 T butter to pan, scrape well and brown the pearl onions until golden. Put in bowl with bacon.
Add the mushrooms, stirring well until they release some juice and start to brown. Add garlic and stir until garlic's aroma is released, about a minute. Remove all and put with onions and bacon. Set aside until later.
If needed add more dripping and/or butter to pan. Cook marinated vegetables and herbs until very limp. (The carrots won't cook through. Don't worry about it.)
Whisk in reserved wine and return combination to a slow boil.
Add chicken back in and cover. Simmer until chicken is tender. (Usually about 45 minutes.)
Return bacon, pearl onions, mushrooms and garlic to pan, placing them between and around the chicken pieces.
Recover and simmer until sauce is beginning to reduce. (try to keep this well below a boil. Depending on what kind of wine you use and it's quality, boiling with usually give a nasty "bitter" taste to the sauce. It's icky and you don't want to waste all that good stuff. Even using a heavy pan, I put a heat diffuser under it and turn the gas as low as possible while still maintaining a decent simmer.)

There's 2 ways this can be done. If you don't like the sliced onion and all that in your dish, remove the chicken from the pan and strain the wine. Do this before adding in the onions, bacon and so forth. Return chicken to pan and add that other stuff.
Otherwise, if you don't mind the slices (which I don't) just continue simmering. If you are concerned about cooking the chicken too long, remove it for the time being. If you do this, you can simmer the wine and stuff until it's a consistency you like without worrying about the fowl falling apart totally.

This is tasty is cooked one day, cooled and kept in the fridge until the next day. Then reheat.

Serve with baquettes and salad or whatever you want. Mashed taters, rice, noodles, it's your call.

NOMNOMNOMNOMNOM as DD says.


I don't generally have a problem with stuff burning during the first few steps. If your pan is heavy enough and your heat is low enough and your patience is, well, patient? You will be fine. It would be a shame to burn something and lose the accumulated flavors and aromas from all the good stuff being sauteed or sweated or whatall.

Another thing... if you prefer to use olive oil in place of the dripping and butter, go ahead. It will change the final taste a bit but cut down on the saturated fat.

If, for some reason, you aren't happy with how the sauce is melding, a sneaky (and not authentic) way of bringing it together is to use about a tablespoon of tomato paste. Take everything out of the sauce, return to simmer. Stir in the paste and put everything back in. You won't taste the mater but it sure does tend to pull all the flavors together. Maters, the miracle fruit/veggie/dobob.

If you prefer to not use so much wine, a nice way to proceed that works just great is to use 1 1/2 to 2 cups wine and sub 1 cup chicken broth and 1 cup beef broth for the remaining volume.

Near the end of the cooking process, taste the sauce. You may need to add some salt, and various herbs to your personal taste. I do sometimes, depending on my mood at the time.