Britesea - Living the good life in rural Oregon

[Britesea]

I posted the recipe over in the Kitchen thread It turned out so good!

Last night I made Chicken in Gravy over Biscuits, fresh Corn on the Cob, and Vinete (a Roumanian eggplant salad, similar to Baba Ganoush). This morning, I'm scarfing down the last half cup or so of the Vinete with a few Ritz Crackers... yum! Tonight I think we'll have Summer Spaghetti.

I have a bunch of sweet corn and going to make Sweet Corn Relish today, as well as finally freeze that last watermelon and start a batch of watermelon pickles with the rind. When that's all done, I need to slice up the apples and dry them, as well as reserving one shelf to dehydrate the corn silk for medicinal uses later.
I also am all out of my deodorant, so I need to make up a batch of that as well. I swear, I never get out of the kitchen! I also have to do some more laundry.
DS is going to be put to work weeding in the garden area; I never got a garden planted, but the weeds sprang up in its stead and you almost can't tell there are raised beds in there. Once the paths are clear, he's going to lay down some of the weed barrier cloth in the areas that need it, and then layer a good thick pine needle mulch on top. He also needs to repair some of the soaker hoses that sprang leaks - notably in the raspberries and hazelnuts.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Thank goodness you don't get out of the kitchen! You give me/us inspiration!

 

[Denim Deb]

I planted a garden but didn't really do anything w/it. It was just too hot and dry this summer and I didn't have the time to keep up w/it.

 

[creativetwinszoo]

That vanilla caramel pear butter sounds amazing!! I'm drilling on my keyboard thinking how good it sounds!!
The watermelon rind pickles are good, though I think their weirdly reminiscent of a either pumkin pie flavor or very Christmasy goody flavor- not sure which lol.
Do you think corn silk from store bought corn would be alright to dehydrate?.? A lady I work with always drinks corn silk tea (though she gets hers from the oriental market plaza by her home)

Twinnie and I are hoping to get a garden going up this year, if we can ever get the yard weeded out and fenced (the neighbour kids for some reason love playing in our yard -_-; )

 

[Britesea]

I think the corn silk would be as safe as the corn itself... sweet corn is not GMO'd I've been told, it's primarily the field corn that is GMO. The cornsilk likely will have at least SOME pesticide residues, but maybe not too much? I hope so anyway, because at least SOME of the corn I've been getting is from the Produce Connection and is stuff that was originally headed for the grocery stores. I don't have room in my garden for enough sweet corn to make it worth my while so I mostly get mine from organic farmers at the Farmers' Market.

So today was Friday- Produce Connection day. We have 2 more weeks, I think, until this ends for the year. My girlfriend and I went together today; We got cucumbers, sweet corn, cabbages, potatoes, apples, pears, and watermelon. At least this time, they ASKED us how much we needed, so I only got enough corn for tonight's dinner, and enough cucumbers for a week. Got lots of everything else though! The cabbages may get krauted if I don't use them all up on Sausage with Cabbage, Corned Beef and Cabbage, and Fish Tacos. More potatoes to dehydrate, maybe as hashbrowns this time! *whew* I want to turn this batch of apples into apple pie filling, and dehydrate the pears. That last watermelon will, I think, give me enough rind to do a full batch of pickles, and I ran across a recipe for watermelon jelly on the Pick Your Own website that sounds intriguing. I'm getting addicted to odd and unusual jellies since I bought one at the Farmers' Market of Rogue Brewery Hazelnut Ale Jelly (it makes divine jelly omelettes!) My Sweet Corn Relish turned out really nice, but it only made 3 pints. I think it would be especially good with something like Barbecued Pork of some persuasion.

I think I'll pull out one of my canned Chicken and Vegetable jars for tonight. I'll thicken up the liquid and pop a crust on it for a Chicken Pot Pie, then steam the sweet corn, and add a green salad with lettuce, vine ripe heirloom tomato, ripe avocado and cucumber with a blue cheese vinaigrette and call it good. Instead of sorbet tonight, I think I'll go for a chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting. (and there goes my diet tonight, lol)
Then, I'll pull out some T-bone steaks for tomorrow night since DH can grill them and it's not supposed to rain. Maybe use up some of those potatoes on a potato salad (hmmm- traditional or German?)

Tomorrow, I need to give Millie a bath so she'll be all clean and ready for surgery on Monday. Yep, gonna do the spay finally! If I have enough energy, I'll try to wash Lucy as well; maybe then I won't be finding hair drifts the size of rhinos for a while.

The ducks are starting to molt; I'm down to 3-4 eggs a day. That's fine, since my big customer has temporarily stopped buying eggs. I just hardboiled a dozen of the oldest eggs for quick meals (just as they are, or sliced into ramen soups, or on top of salad, or old fashioned egg salad). It's a shame that DS is allergic to duck eggs, though. Next spring I really need to pick up some chickens for him.

Today I washed some of DH's work uniforms. A presoak with ammonia to cut the grease, and two washes later and they STILL smell of diesel and engine oil. I will be SO glad when he retires and we don't need to go through this every week! At least line drying in the sun reduces the smell a little bit or I wouldn't be able to countenance hanging them in the closet.

 

[Britesea]

We went to the Farmers' Market again yesterday. I managed to get a real good deal on 33 pounds of tomatoes, and one of the local grocery stores had advertised hatch chiles at $5 a CASE! Nearly 25 pounds for $5! Anyway, I made a batch of salsa yesterday (but didn't get it canned), and started roasting and peeling the rest of the chilies for canning. I ended up making Shrimp Scampi on pasta, and cooked up the green beans I picked up from the Farmers' Market, but I was too tired to make anything for dessert finally.
Today, I spent the whole day continuing to process tomatoes and hatch chiles. I canned the salsa, then canned a batch of marinara sauce and now I'm finishing up a batch of enchilada sauce.
I cooked up a roast with yorkshire pudding for dinner, but the roast ended up more well-done than we like *sigh* it still tasted good though. No dessert again, just that and a salad. I feel like I'm failing you all, lol.

Anyway, I need to go to bed soon so I can get up early and take Millie to the vet for her big day.

 

[Denim Deb]

It still all sounds good.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Definitely NOT failing us - that's still good inspiration. Especially the Yorkshire pudding...with roast...and gravy...YUM!

 

[Mini Horses]

Well, you can chop up the roast, add some canned veggies and the gravy for a yummy soup/stew! That's what I do when I get it a touch over preferred. Just say it was "planned" LOL

Dessert is great but, we can all go without it for a few days a week. UHHHH, just be sure to have at least one day a week.
Or we (out here) will have withdrawals!

 

[Britesea]

Cock-a-Leeky soup tonight, with chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting from scratch for dessert.

Got another batch of kombucha bottled today. Other than that I didn't do very much; my hands are still sore from all the processing I did over the weekend. A friend dropped off a large box of wild concords from their farm. I see grape jelly in the near future...

It's turned cold finally; we turned on the heater this morning.

Millie is still feeling sore, poor girl. I left off the "cone of shame" and she's been real good about not licking at her stitches.

Not too much else to report except that Miss Fisher's Mysteries' 3rd Season is on Netflix-- Yay!