78. Quilt #4 I think 2012

I think this is the 4th quilt of the year. This one is a baby quilt, about 45x45, for the school auction/dinner/thingy coming up next week. One of the elementary classrooms made the colorful blocks--they are sharpie marker and rubbing alcohol. Then I trimmed them, squared them to 12 inch blocks with the black and white dot fabric, sewed them together, did a bit of stippling machine quilting, and done. It is already out of my hands and at school for the auction. When I arrived with it this morning I was met by the headmaster who said, "You went home and did that last night? Did you sleep?"

And now I know it takes me approximately 3 1/2 hours to make a baby quilt from fabric to finish.

77. Doberge Cake

I've never made one before.

It's Mardi Gras, at least for a little while longer, and I lived in Houston, which is close enough to East Texas and Louisiana to have some spillover. I took French in high school, for instance, but it was Cajun French, taught by this old Cajun woman with dentures that clicked when she talked. The French was the same stuff you all learned in your fancy-dancy Parisian French classes, but you know, it's the little differences.

I know how to make a decent gumbo, having learned from Monique Ricard's dad on a Food Day at school. And the guy I dated most seriously in high school was not Cajun, but Czech (another sizable minority in Texas), but the other guy, well, there was some Cajun involved there.

I've eaten boudin (white only), I've had bowls full of strange things I wasn't sure about but ate anyway. Crawdads and other scummy little creatures and rice and beans and all that.

One Mardi Gras Mme. Mallet brought in a Kings Cake, which I wasn't the biggest fan of. I wanted to do something sweet and over the top for Mardi Gras this year, but I knew I didn't want to go that direction. And I didn't want to make one of my standards. So I googled for a doberge cake recipe, and found one that included the ganache for the top. And I made the damned thing.




Mine was only a six layer--and one of those layers was in pretty bad shape--but it was still filled with the chocolate custard and topped with chocolate buttercream icing. I cooked up the ganache and poured it over the whole thing--it took me several hours of standing up in my kitchen to create this, and by the time I was done, I wasn't waiting for it to chill further. So we ate it. The girls moaned from the living room: "Too much chocolate!"

I couldn't finish my piece. I started to feel dizzy.

It was perfect. Awesomely perfect. Just what Mardi Gras is supposed to be.

The thing is so tall, my aluminum cake saver was too short. So was my tupperware one, which has fit every other cake I've ever made (most fit into the aluminum). This thing was ridiculous. So we upturned my stock pot. The one I make tomato sauce and salsa verde in--the big one. Cleared off the milk and juice shelf in the fridge.

It looked like something exploded--something tasty, but still--in my kitchen. I started to clean up but then thought, no, tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. I can do this penance tomorrow.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif


Edited, for Jules, to add link to the recipe I used for said cake. It takes a lot of time. But it is very very good (and lasts forever--we got probably 18 pieces out of this thing).

76. Kwyltz So Far

The first is one I owe Daisy. Her sister has its fraternal twin. Once upon a time, when I was pregnant with Daisy, I was in a block swap of purple and blue batik patchwork blocks. Later on, I divided the resulting hodgepodge of blocks into two sets, one tat was mostly blue and one that was mostly purple. The blue ones were partnered with a blue batik and backed in pink--that one was finished about 3 or 4 years ago. And I got distracted.

These were partnered with a purple and orange batik and backed in orange. It is now done. Daisy asks me why it's so much "crunchier" than Fiona's. I told her to let me wash it a few times and it'll soften up.A bit of quilting closer up.

This next one was a top I finished when, again, Fiona was little and still enamored with Strawberry Shortcake. Back then there were two girls, no boy, and I envisioned the two of them sharing the attic. I also thought my full-sized iron bed was going up there, too. It's now in the guest room and the two of them have separate spaces in the attic and Billy's headed up there ASAP. So this quilt, flannel, backed in flannel, minimally quilted just to hold it together in the, most likely, frequent washing it will endure, is going to be one of our "curl up on the couch blankets." Jake asked, "so...why do we have a Strawberry Shortcake quilt?" and I told him to feel it and then he'd know why. He's a fan of the flannel sheets and all that.

"Well, we'll use it a while, and then it'll get put away and somebody will take it to college as kitsch," he says with a shrug.

This last one is mine. I haven't quilted it yet--it's next in the queue. It's a one-block wonder, all 60 degree triangles, called "Walking Shoes." That's really just for my own entertainment. I haven't made myself a quilt in a long time...

75. My Homemade Pedialyte

Why do I make homemade? Well, I need it so infrequently that I don't want to keep the storebought stuff on my shelves for years when I can make it out of 3 ingredients I use all the time and one that I keep just for this (potassium salt, aka "salt substitute"). According to my sister, too, it turns out like salty kool-aid instead of the storebought stuff, which she refers to as "battery acid sugar water." That can't be good. I've never had it. But here's mine. The nurse on the help line said she hadn't heard that recipe before, but it sounded like a good one:

1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon salt substitute
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 Tablespoons koolaid mix with sugar (not sugar free and not just the flavor packets--if I didn't have koolaid mix on hand, I would use sugar plain, or I've read ones that use a bit of flavored gelatin powder).
2 quarts of water

Mix all together. I mix the dry with 1 quart of water and stick it in the fridge. When I need more, I cut it in half with plain water from the tap.

Daisy makes a face but she drinks it.

74. Donuts

I made donuts today. I used a recipe in a reprinted cookbook, identical to an ancient (well, 1940s) one that sits in my parents' kitchen. It, in general, makes lousy cookies and some creepy things (there is a recipe for possum & stuffing, for instance), but it is the source of my waffle recipe and now my donut recipe.

Jake grew up making donuts. I have never made them. Like fried chicken, donuts were something you purchased, not made. We made other things (like waffles, for instance) but we didn't fry anything.
(note: glass milk bottle, aluminum pitcher, unbrushed hair: just a glimpse of life in Chez Kennedy)
I didn't use a deep fat fryer--we used to have one but it was purged long ago. After I made the soft light dough and cut the donuts with an upturned glass and an icing tip, also upside-down, I dropped them into 3 inches of oil in a 3 quart saucepan, with a meat thermometer attached to keep it between 350 and 365 degrees.
h(note: this is as clean as the stovetop ever is. Mark this down, red letter day)
I have an electric stove, and I know many cooks look down their noses at it, but I've never found it to be a problem (except when you want a large pot on the back burner, but that's the stove's design, not the fuel source). I turned the burner to medium high and if the oil got above 365, I eased it half-off the burner. That was it.

I made a cocoa icing from the same ancient cookbook. Cocoa powder, butter, confectioners sugar, vanilla, and coffee. Perfect.(note: the cookbook is next to the donuts. I didn't even realize I'd done that when I took the picture!)

Jake kept some plain, and shook some fresh from the oil in a container of cinnamon sugar. The other third or so got iced. I have leftover icing in the fridge. I might spread a bit on toast tomorrow morn.

This could quickly become a New Year's tradition.

73. Bourbon Slush

I make some things. This is one of them. This is a method, more than a recipe, since I don't think I've made it the same way twice and this is from memory, in fact. So here goes.

7 cups water
3 cups bourbon
2 cups strong tea
12 oz can frozen lemonade
6 oz (or 12 if you forgot and got the 12 oz can) can frozen oj
1 1/2 cups sugar

Combine the day before. Freeze. Let sit out a bit before serving. Some folks put it in a glass and pour white soda over it. Some folks drink it straight.

My mom's has about half the bourbon and less water--it's more fruit juice and sugar, basically. It's snow cone for grown ups. My version is snow cone for grown ups that makes you slur your words and lose at mah jongg.

72. Christmas

Once I've recovered from Christmas, I will post some photos of the things I wrought this Christmas season: 3 afghans, a table runner, placemats, a circular quilt, minky dot pants, doll clothes, fleece blanket, 2 magnet boards, an embroidered picture of the book cover for 21 Balloons. But for now, I am simply reflecting on the insanity of doing all of this in December.

I had a stressful autumn, and I kept putting off Christmas until later. I made little bargains in my head: I don't have to make Advent banners this year, so I'll have more time...Fiona's older and can help on some of the tasks...and other total BS that we tell ourselves to keep us from screaming every moment of the day.

Thanksgiving came with an inflamed masseter jaw muscle and no ambition to do anything. December began. December ticked away. I had doll clothes done, and two afghans ready to seam, but really? Nothing. And then it was December 16.

I made a nice little list. I am never happier than when I'm making a nice little list. I had it all worked out. I would get it done. Of course, this didn't account for visits from friends or sisters (both of whom I very much wanted to sit and chat with, and did so, knowing I would pay for it later). It didn't account for showering or cooking meals or running to the pharmacy at the last moment or any of those things. It was solid sewing from start to finish. And a little spray painting.

But I got it done, all but one of the afghans, and that I finished at my leisure on the 26th and handed to the recipient (Jake's brother Sam and his wife Michelle).

I knew I had lost my mind when I had the prep work done for a set of placemats for my mother-in-law, and I looked at it and thought, "this should be a quilt. A round quilt." And I went for it. Wha?

So this year, for Christmas 2012, it is getting underway in February. Because it really only took me a few hours to make that round quilt. And it's insane that I waited until the morning of the 24th to start it. Insane. I could spend a week in February and get 4 quilts done and feel better about myself and about life and my jaw muscles and all that. Wouldn't it be nice to sit still the last week before Christmas?

I get better at Christmas every year. I adjust and learn how to make things better for myself and folks around me (Jake, kids, our families, friends). This one, however, came at great expense to my sleep schedule and mental stability. And that's just crazy. Like the whole semester has been.

But things are looking up in many directions, finally, and I have to start this in February. No more denial, no more superhuman feats of sewing.

2010 was the year of the quilt. 2011 was more generalized. I do better when I have a focus. 2012 will be the year of the traditional quilt. I need to go back to the basics of quilting. I need to go to Luckenbach, Texas. If you understand that, good for you.

71. Zip

I did two things for the first time yesterday. I used a zipper foot on my sewing machine. I replaced the zipper in a sleeping bag. So I suppose it's only really one thing, in two parts. But I spent a long time sewing yesterday.

Mike's aunt's mother-in-law has a robe, an old terrycloth robe, very simple construction, and it is her favorite. No other robes equal this one. They either don't lie flat enough along the neck, or the pockets aren't square pockets. So I was handed a robe and minky dot fabric and asked to make another just like the first. And I did. I hate tissue paper patterns, so I laid out the fabric and the robe folded to specific pieces in order to get the diagonals correct. I made 4 pairs of pajama pants this way already for Christmas, and I don't think I'll use a tissue paper pattern again. Bleah.

So anyway, I made the robe while Jake's uncle Johnny sat in the living room dropping not so subtle reminders of his political bent. I was glad for the task.

I finished it quickly--about two hours including a short break for dinner. I had brought one other project to accomplish this break. The sleeping bag zipper. Fiona and Daisy each have sleeping bags that I found at a resale shop on separate occasions. They are flowered and vintagey looking on the outside and lined with a thin flannel. Fiona's is blue and pink; Daisy's is red and green. I love them. They look like something my grade school friend Nicole would have had at her house for sleepovers. They are not cold weather sleeping bags, but they are cute and lovely. I had one, not with the flowers, but in a wine-red-brown, that was very much like these. And so I like them. I've always been a bit wabi-sabi about things. Things that are old and a bit shabby but still functional? Keep them and love them.

But this blue and pink sleeping bag's zipper was in bad shape. First, it stopped threading well and so I made a stopper with a zigzag stitch. Then the zipper, an old metal one on a stiff fabric tape, began to disintegrate. The teeth fell off in chunks (like my worst dental nightmare). Fiona brought it to me and asked what we could do.

I worked in a fabric store and I knew sleeping bag zippers existed, but I'd never replaced a zipper. I sat down next to Jake's brother Kevin and his wife Liz, playing scrabble on my mother-in-law's new Nook tablet. The couch is such that you kind of sink towards the middle. Anyway, I clung to the side of the couch, half-watched Thor that was playing on the TV, and ripped out the old zipper.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

I have this old zipper foot in my sewing box. I think it is probably from my grandmother. I gave it a try. I broke three needles in the process but the third one stayed intact and it worked. It did. I got the zipper sewed on and then rebound it with the original matching bias binding. The zipper is black, where the original was white and metal, but it works. It zips so nicely.

So now all the projects are completed and it's time to think about next year. Because as God is my witness, I swear on the grave of my scary great-great-great grandmother Jenny, may she haunt me persistently if I fail to fulfill my promise, that I will start Christmas sewing in February this year.

70. Brussels Sprouts Kids Will Eat

Start with young Brussels Sprouts. What is up with the capitalized name for this vegetable? Is it named for Brussels, like, the capital of Belgium?

Anyway.

Start with young Brussels Sprouts. Cut in half.

Saute in a hot pan with olive oil. Salt and pepper them lightly. They will turn brighter green and yellow at the center.

Take off the heat and powder them with Parmesan or Romano. Google wants to capitalize those words, too.

Serve hot. Fiona's comment: I wish we had more.

69. Salsa Verde Original Recipe and Changes

Here is the salsa verde recipe from Farmgirl:

Makes about 3 pints
Recipe may be doubled; increase cooking time by 10-15 minutes

2 lb. green tomatoes, cored and chopped
1 lb. white or yellow onions, chopped
3/4 lb. sweet red peppers, cored and chopped
1/2 lb. tart cooking apples, such as 'Granny Smith', cored and chopped
6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 Tablespoon kosher or sea salt
4 jalapeno peppers, cored, seeded if desired, and finely chopped
2 Tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 teaspoon ground cumin (optional)

Combine the tomatoes, onions, peppers, apples, garlic, vinegar, and salt in a large,nonreactive saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened, about an hour.

Stir in the jalapenos, cilantro, and cumin and simmer for 5 more minutes. Carefully puree the mixture using a stick blender until still somewhat chunky.

If canning, return the pureed relish to a boil, then ladle the hot mixture into hot jars, leaving 1/4-inch head space. Process 15 minutes in a boiling-water canner. Store in a cool, dark place.


And this is what I do if I'm not canning:

1. Throw all the green tomatoes in a huge pot.
2. Add enough vinegar and water to get them simmering.
3. Add whatever onions you have lying around. Garlic, maybe a handful of cloves? A few green apples. The tarter the better.
4. Chop a sweet pepper if you have one.
5. Dump in about 6 seeded and cored, chopped jalapenos. Maybe more?
6. When everything is mushy, stick-blender it (or pour it into the blender in batches).
7. Bring to a boil again, add lots and lots of cumin. Some salt. Some chili powder, maybe.
8. Simmer a while. Let it cool down. Pour it into freezer containers and hoard it away!

68. Canning Supplies

When you set out to can, you really don't need many supplies, but the few you need? You really need them.

1. You need jars. Canning jars. I'm sure there are people out there who reuse pickle and mayo jars from the store, but unless you are canning-for-the-fridge (meaning, making a small batch of jelly and sticking it in the fridge right there and then to use as your current jar of jelly--pickles are often done this way successfully as well), you need canning jars. They are sold by the flat at most grocery stores. They are made by Ball and by Kerr, which may be the same company? Not sure.
You can reuse jars as long as they are in good shape. We open jars, use the contents, and then use them as drinking glasses. The ones that survive to the next canning season get sterilized with the others and get put-up again.

2. With the jars you need bands and lids. The lid is the flat thing on top with the rubber seal. The band holds it on. You can reuse bands until they rust. You cannot reuse lids. If lids look damaged or weird (see below), discard. Just don't even go there. The one on the right has some sort of weird spot on it. I discarded.
3. You need something to process the jars in. I use the official canner from Kerr or Ball or whatever. It doesn't have to be that--any large flat-bottomed kettle will work. But the part that is implied here:is the rack. The rack is what makes it all work. You don't want jars to rest on the bottom of the kettle, where they are likely to burst. They need to rest just slightly above the bottom. There they'll do fine.

4. A few other random supplies that could be substituted for other similar objects:Tongs; a jar-lifter to bring it out of the hot hot water; a wide-mouthed funnel (which is frankly so useful it gets used all the time in my house); pectin if you are going for a firm-set jam or jelly and you are worried it might not set. I'll talk about pectin later. I have used it successfully, I have used it unsuccessfully (by not following the directions, oops). I have set jam without it as well.

5. And as Daisy is demonstrating there, you need water. Lots and lots of hot water. Many people, myself included, boil jars before using them. I rest lids in hot water but I don't boil them because I want the rubbery seal to stay hard until I need it to soften and do its job (seal). And hot water to process jars in, too, is key, of course, in "hot water bath" canning. It's such a large kettle of water that I start it on the stove before I do any other prep work (except chopping if I'm working with hot peppers, or pickles which have to rest in cold water a long time first). But straight-forward tomatoes or jam or jelly? The water goes on to boil first.

That's it for the hardware: jars, bands, lids, kettle, rack, a few utensils, pectin (the only "special" ingredient), water, and a stove to heat it on. Towels are good. Spoons. Knives. But those things you probably already have ready to go.

Next up: the basics of jam.

67. Shamefully Returning to Posting

It's been a really busy, really hectic return to school this year. Not only am I taking an online class that I'm too advanced for (long boring story omitted), but I'm volunteering 5 hours a week at school and Leo goes to speech therapy 2 hours a week. So there hasn't been a lot of anything that would qualify for this blog. Really. The garden is declining. I have a dying cat. The treehouse is all but done, but my part of it is the part that is all-but. Girl scouts are underway but nothing really for here to say right now.

But I have a few canning photos. So I'm going to go ahead and start that. Right now.

66. Learning to Can

Melinda came over yesterday. I don't know Melinda--she is a friend of Jen's across the street. They know each other from craft shows. Melinda wanted to learn how to can, how to "put up". She is part of a community organization for sustainable food and growing your own and all that. I told her to come on over.

Raspberries were cheap, the cheapest I've ever seen. I picked up plenty to make raspberry jam, something I would normally not waste raspberries on, frankly, because they get hoovered up at my house at an alarming rate. I pick them myself when I am able (the fall crop is coming in out at the farm where I usually pick, so Leo and I might head out early sometime this week).

She came over Sunday morning, and about 10 minutes before she was due to arrive, I realized I had no pectin. I always cheat. Always. Every jam I make has pectin in it. So much work goes into it, I don't want it to fail. So I had a mini panic, realizing I couldn't run to the store in time, and Mike was camping with the girls so I couldn't have him run out for me. By the time Melinda arrived I had shifted gears. Raspberry sauce, I told her. She was thrilled I was going to do a demonstration and not just a lecture.

Cut to the end: I used a Ball recipe for raspberry jam, warning her it probably wouldn't set. But it did. I followed Ball's recipe exactly and it set fine. It's definitely a homemade variety, it is runnier than store-bought, but it isn't just a sauce. It is jam.

But anyway, I went through the process with her and I realized that wow, I've been doing this for 12 years. Once again, not a novice anymore. And while the internet is probably not the best source for information, pretty much across the board, I'm going to do a few lessons about canning. Maybe it would be better to call them tips. It'll be a few days. I didn't take pictures of the whole process yesterday. I'll need to can something else. Salsa verde perhaps. Hmm.

65. Caprese Salad and Crostini

It is summer. August, specifically.

There have been many Augusts of Caprese salad. This year is no exception, although the tomatoes aren't coming from my yard this year, but from the CSA. Little candy-sweet sungold grape tomatoes. Romas. Big red lovelies for $1/pound because the farm that raises them doesn't consider them worthy of full price.

Mozzarella, the soft white kind, not the gummy string cheese kind. I found the latest batch at a local grocery chain, hormone free.

Basil from the yard. Handfuls of it. It's getting a little on the anise-ish side of basil this time of year (I've missed the perfect moment to make pesto but I'll still make it).

And we had this package of crostinis from the CSA. Crunchy, tasty, perfect with a slice of mozzarella, a basil leaf, a little orange tomato.

We've had it for dinner, just this and maybe some chicken strips from the freezer for the kids, for 2 nights this week. I'm out of mozzarella but that will be remedied tomorrow.

64. Summer Garden

We left town for 5 days. Only lost one basil plant, a poorly placed container, not enough dirt to support a good sized basil. Everything else survived.

No tomatoes. I have heard lots of theories, but since it's affecting everyone I know, I'm going to blame the heat. I read something about how fruit won't set if the night temperatures don't get consistently below 75 degrees. Well, it's laughable these days because I don't think we've seen a seven in the tens place in a month? Today is the first morning it felt, well, normal, outside since the 4th of July parade.

So the Russian tomatoes, I can see why they're suffering. The Ozark Pink kind of ticks me off--it's from even further south than we are. Ah well. Some years are not tomato years. At least everyone is having trouble so I don't sit here worrying about my dirt or my watering procedures.

I had 4 bean plants that are spent now, but enough beans to freeze and eat over several meals. Peas of course are gone but they were fun, too. And the lettuce! Cilantro bolted I think the moment it sprouted, ah well, but the parsley and basil are hearty. Mint, in a separate undisclosed location, is making it just fine.

Now it's cucumbers and okra and jalapenos and small sweet peppers (maybe some variation of banana?). I lost one watermelon, baseball sized, to a water-crazed squirrel, but I have three more about that size, several little ones that may or may not take, and two about the size of Daisy's head. It's the first year for okra and watermelon. Both plants are kind of scary. The watermelon, if I didn't train it back and up the fence each day, would have covered my back gate by now. And the okra has huge leaves and fruits (I planted a cultivar that doesn't get stringy or woody even at 6 inch fruits).

I make pesto early next week. Tomato sauce? I bought 20 pounds of "seconds" from the CSA. Just freezing it this year. And we'll see about pickles. Looks likely.

63. Paneer

I stood at my stove in my own kitchen and made paneer, an Indian farmers cheese. I got help on the internet. Here's what I did:

I put a half gallon of whole milk on to boil. I let it come to a boil while I took these pictures and marveled at how I think the kitchen is clean enough but the camera always catches me in denial.

It boiled and I added a 1/4 cup of lemon juice diluted in a 1/2 cup of warm water.

I stirred.
It separated, which was actually kind of gross, like what you don't want milk to do, there I'd done it on purpose.

I poured it into a cloth napkin I'd draped over a colander. I didn't have cheesecloth and it was too late to run upstairs for muslin. I just used a clean cloth napkin.
I rinsed the little globs of cheese to get rid of the lemon taste.

Then I put the globs into a glass container until I needed it for saag paneer. I could have pressed it further and made it more of a solid, like a tofu consistency, but I was sort of pressed, myself, for time. So it was more of a ricotta-esque, only dryer, kind of cheese.

Which made me realize something, that I no longer had to hope for the best and no antibiotics/hormones in my domestic ricotta--which of course is too much to hope for. I buy antibiotic and hormone free dairy products and meat--you would too if you'd had an antibiotic-resistant infection during childbirth. But the only product I could never find that way was ricotta. So every time I made lasagna I felt a bit queasy. Paneer is not equivalent to ricotta. But it could substitute. Easily.

I also started reading up on how to make my own ricotta, for that matter. Perhaps stay tuned.

I love the feeling of learning something new and being empowered by that learning.

62. Dice Bag

Jake lost his dice bag.

What?

From high school, and college. Dice bag. As in "I play roleplaying games that require dice of multiple shapes and sides".

I blame the girls. They've started playing a cute little game called Fuzzy Heroes and the dice bag disappeared.

It is our 15th wedding anniversary. The theme is "crystal" and I decided dice fit the bill. I picked up a variety of dice online and then made a bag for him.

The first bag was drawstring, lined, made of the same fabric as the ottoman cover I made earlier this year. I liked it. It was cute. But it didn't pull all the way shut. Fail.

So I went into my stash and found a doubleknit skirt that my sister gave me for the fabric (I made her a doubleknit quilt last Christmas). I cut it, salvaged the zipper, and made a sort of pencil case-ish bag that zips shut. It's red and white striped. Pretty ugly because the lines are nothing like straight. It is, in fact, entirely made of skew lines. But the dice go in and it's small enough to stash in a drawer where it will belong: the checks, 9 volt battery, and dice drawer. Of course.

61. Harvest

*Just a handful of potatoes. Enough for a big potato salad, or for two dinner side dishes. Mystery why they didn't work. I'm just starting them over for the first time so I have years ahead of me to figure out. Plus, besides the work, they were free, so I'm not too upset.

*Carrots. Oh my goodness why didn't anyone tell me about homegrown carrots? Like tomatoes, they are amazingly better than store-bought (in comparison, basil is the same either way, just cheaper at home; cucumbers just taste like cucumbers but in more volume, etc). These carrots are little ones, purposefully, although I picked some of them early and they were teeny. But all of them are so so good. They are now the fridge snack for the week. And I'm planting more tomorrow.

*First of the sweet peppers. I've never been great at growing sweet peppers but I have two little ones in the harvest bowl in the fridge. Hmm.

*First of the beans. A handful, but I wanted them to keep producing. I may freeze them...or I'll throw them into tomorrow's deer stew. I don't know yet.

*Basil and parsley ongoing--just bits here and there in the cooking.

*Garlic. Heh. I've talked garlic before. My crops are self-propagating at this point. I have three main areas where they grow: inside the "tomato cage", right outside the cage, and along the back fence. I picked the cage bulbs tonight, and a few outside the cage. Their stems were dead and dry so it was time. The cage harvest was huge (cutting the scapes does do something after all). The ones I could tell were first year growth I scattered in the beds for next year but put the rest on the table on the back deck. I'm freezing it this year. I tried dehydrating chopped bulbs but they lost more flavor than I hoped. I know they'll stay good in the freezer. And if the cucumber harvest goes well, I'll have plenty of bulbs for garlic dills.

*Other growing things: the tomatoes have blossoms and I've picked all the suckers. The lettuce remnants are removed and the areas where they grew are ready for something else (more carrots and beans?). Cucumbers are growing and there are teeny blossoms. Jalapenos. And the 3 watermelon plants I took a chance on because Maeve begged? They're wandering around the west side of the yard. Blooming. I may hand-pollinate to be sure.

60. Daylilies

I fried daylilies last night. I picked a bunch of blossoms and a few unopened buds. I dipped them in a tempura batter:

1 c flour
1 c water
1/4 t baking powder
1/4 t salt

And I fried them. I didn't have enough canola, and so I had to resort to some olive oil, and therefore they weren't as crispy as I would have liked, but they were yummy. So weird.

The buds were the best. I may try them again in other ways. And I hear the tubers are potato-esque. The daylilies in my alleyway are weeds. I like to eat weeds.

59. Guest Room

My mother-in-law is coming tonight. She's staying, which she usually doesn't do, mostly (I think) due to our cats. But I need to leave the house at 7 tomorrow for canoe training and water rescue certification, so it makes sense for her to come tonight and just start the day in the morning. This meant I actually had to clean the guest room, which is my Dorian Gray Memorial Room, frankly. It falls apart so the rest of the house can appear clean. These days it has been covered in my dining room--all the stuff from the walls, the cabinet, and so on. Plus it is also my sewing/craft room and therefore creeps towards chaos at every moment.

To top that all, the cats love this room. They love sleeping on the bed and leaving giant mats of fur. The older two are fond of barfing on the rug. So I had to dig the place out, change the sheets and blankets, and vacuum the heck out of it.

But now it is done. Still cluttered and definitely my sewing area, but the bed is clean and made, the two dressers (Leo's and a blanket chest) are tidy, the table with my sewing is explainable instead of shameful.

Time for the rest of the house to promptly fall apart.