Hummingbird season

The hummingbirds seem to be back in abundance. Now every time I go outside I hear their twittering and the hum of their wings. I've already seen them fighting for the feeders. It's quite a game they play.

Dinner last night

My husband is really enjoying his new grill. He now watches Steven Raichlen's show, BBQ U studiously.

Last night he made a recipe he'd seen on the show a few weeks ago. I tried locating it, but haven't been able to yet. I'll add it when I get it. It's a pesto-type topping on the salmon which sits on a cedar plank that's been soaked in water. The plank adds steam and flavor.

Recently, we bought some wild salmon that came with cedar planks at Sam's Club. It was a pricey purchase, but we'll be stretching the value of those cedar planks as far as we can. The planks can be reused and you can bet we'll be sanding them to make them last as long as we can!

Right now the season for fresh, wild, Alaskan salmon is upon us, and Publix has it for $8.00 $10 a pound. That's cheap for fresh, wild salmon! There is a growing concern about how healthy farm-raised salmon is because of the unnatural ways they are raised and the foods they're fed, unlike the natural food choices made by salmon in the wild. So we're going wild here. But we'll try not to eat it too, too often because we don't want to contribute to their dwindling numbers too much if we can help it.

(Correction from my hubby: "One minor correction to your post: It was Sam's club that had it for $8/lb. Publix price was $10/lb. I asked at Sam's, and theirs was Alaskan, wild, sockeye salmon, never frozen, just like what Publix was advertising. Either price is great, though - It was only a couple of weeks ago I was looking at the wild salmon at Publix and it was $18/lb! The cheapest I usually see the farm-raised stuff is about $6-$7/lb.")

Anyway, at the price we can get it for at Publix right now, it works out to only about $3 $3.78 per 6 oz. steak. Think of what that much grilled salmon would cost in a restaurant - it's probably the farm-raised kind you're eating there anyway - and it's actually a very good deal for an occasional special treat. No need to eat out. No need to tip and spend gas getting there and then have to endure the noise and the hassle. Why bother when you can eat so good at home for so much less?

He grilled asparagus and zucchini with it. The zucchini came from our garden. He was so proud of those cross-hatch marks he made on the zucchini. lol He really likes grilling! And I like eating it!

Cookies galore

Remember the other day when I caught my daughter making cookies on one of the hottest days we've had so far this summer? Well, I told her to turn off the oven after the batches she had on the cookie sheets were done and to package the rest of the dough up and put it in the fridge for later.

So she did. And this weekend she finished doing the cookies in the toaster oven. They turned out fine and the house wasn't turned into an oven this time.

Sketties

I got a few pics from the big skettie sauce session this past weekend.

Hubby was the skilled chef who concocted this sauce in his head! I wish I was better at this skill. I asked him just now (he's at work) if he could reconstruct the recipe for me and he said he can. Yippeeee! So as soon as I get it I'll pass it along.

Doesn't it look goooood?



Drool...

I've been enjoying his sauce so much for the last couple of days for lunch, which reminds me that I wanted to pass along a great find in the healthy food department.

These spaghetti noodles are so good! And I'm not alone in thinking so. I don't feel like I'm eating whole wheat spaghetti at all when I eat these. Yum!

Okay, now I'm hungry.

A worshipful album

Back in our Calvary Chapel days Mary Barrett came to one of our ladies' conferences and I bought one of her cds. I hadn't listened to it for ages, but today while missing church, and at home alone because it's "that time of the month" of the worst kind, I remembered that cd and pulled it out for a hearing. Well, if you listen to this cd you will not be able to NOT worship the Lord. It just brings you into His Presence. It's 13 years old, but as fresh as new.



Mary is a true worship leader. She knows how to sing to the Lord. If you've never heard of her I encourage you to check her music out. A preview of the songs on this album are here.

I noticed that she has been battling a rare form of cancer and that she's in remission. I'm sure she would appreciate any prayers we would be willing to offer up for her.

Recipe: Dad's V8 Juice

You never know what I'll post on this blog, do you? :) Milehimama asked for my hubby's V8 recipe so here goes:

My hubby created this recipe through a lot of trial and error. He loves it. I'm not a huge V8 fan, so I haven't tasted it much. The great thing about this recipe is that you can control the salt. The canned stuff is so high in sodium and the lower sodium version is better, but has that "tin can" taste. So give this a try if you like a cooking adventure. I added this to my Kim's Kitchen web page in case anyone would like to bookmark it.

Dad's V8 Juice

About 24 medium-to-large tomatoes
1/2 large cucumber
1 green pepper
1 large onion
2 medium-to-large carrots
2 large stalks of celery
1-2 cups of fresh spinach
bunch of fresh parsley
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
6 oz. can tomato paste
Dash (or two) Tabasco
Several dashes of Crystal hot sauce (or Louisiana hot sauce, or Texas Pete)
1 cup water
1 can of beets (optional)

Dice the carrots; put into a small pan and add enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, and boil for 2-3 minutes. Set aside.
Blanch and peel the tomatoes. Put them into a large Dutch oven or soup pot. Chop the green pepper, onion and celery into small pieces; add to the Dutch oven. Add the spinach and parsley, salt, tomato paste, Tabasco, hot sauce and water. If desired, cut up and add the beets, with the liquid. Add the carrots along with the water they were cooked in. Bring the whole thing to a boil, stirring to mix everything up. Boil for 2-3 minutes, then turn the heat off.
Completely puree the drink. (The best and easiest tool for this, I've found, is a powerful immersion blender.) Once you pulverize the tomatoes and larger pieces, run the mixer for several minutes until the drink is thoroughly pureed. How long you run it depends on your tolerance for chunks in your drink. Alternatively, you could use a food processor or blender. If you don't like seeds or tiny chunks, but want a completely smooth drink, you can run it through a strainer, but that's messy and time-consuming, and you'll probably wind up throwing out a lot of good fiber and nutrients in the process. You can adjust the recipe to suit your taste in vegetables.
Makes about 4 quarts.

If you want to can the juice, I recommend adding 1 TBLS of lemon juice per pint or 2 TBLS per quart and water bath can them for 35 minutes for pints or 45 minutes for quarts.

Canning update

As of today:

26 pints of pizza sauce
7 quarts of "V-8"
Unknown amount of spaghetti sauce (still to be canned today)
5 quarts of spaghetti sauce canned, plus the quart we ate for dinner.

So we now have a year's worth of Friday pizza nights covered on the sauce front. Hubby likes to make his own V-8 juice because the sodium is easier to control. And homemade just tastes better, especially when using fresh-from-the-garden vegetables.

There are probably enough tomatoes on the counter to make another batch of spaghetti sauce. Maybe today. Then I can can them all at once.

I love this. Hard work, but so worth it.

Up way earlier than usual

Scotty got us up early this morning. When he barks we know he's stuck and needs our help getting up. Poor animal. So hubby goes down and helps him up. Then he lets him out. More barking later. More help needed. He got his pills early today.

*sigh*

Oh, the rain!

Well, the Lord blessed us big time today! We needed rain and boy, did we get it! A wonderful sight to behold. Thank You, Lord!

I had watered the garden this morning because I had no idea there was any rain coming today. Glad I did because the day was hot and dry and the rains didn't come until the evening. So some things might've fried had I not. For some reason I can't seem to make myself take the camera out to the garden with me. So no pics. I'll try to remedy that soon.

Picked a lot of tomatoes today. And the blackberries are starting to come in.

We're seeing a lot of yellow jackets around the yard (or something that looks like them), so I'm going to have to make or buy some kind of traps to get rid of as many as I can. They're everywhere! Any advice? I found some ideas online. Have you ever built a trap that worked?

Hot

So hot here. I think it was as high as 97 today. The 12 yo decided to bake cookies when it was 95 degrees outside. I was too late in stopping her and the house is now an oven.

Scotty being so old and feeble, I didn't think it right to let him stay outside on such a hot day. So we set up his crate in the downstairs bathroom and he doesn't know what to make of it. He keeps walking around. He did lay down for a nap once today. He's perkier, of course, since he's not quite so hot. But dern, I wish he'd nap more! I keep having to help him up because he keeps losing control of his back end. Poor thing. Life is a struggle for him these days...and for us. But at least he's cheerful about it.

Dry

It's getting really hot and dry here. We need rain. I notice that when we go a long time without rain the air seems to become charged. I can feel it. There's this tension that disappears once we get a good rain. I might need to bring out the vaporizers before long if we don't get any rain soon. The air is so uncomfortable right now.

The glorious grill

I tell ya, a gas grill is the coolest! You wouldn't believe how many dinners we've made on that thing. We've hardly had to turn on the oven all summer.

Tonight we made our Friday night pizzas in it. They were very good, but we had the heat up a little too high and the bottoms got burnt. Easily remedied. We put the pizza stones in there and everything. Our electric bill will certainly be more manageable with keeping all that heat outside.

I'm so glad we gave Hubby that grill for Father's Day! Worth every penny!

Poor Scotty

We're having such a time of it lately trying to make Scotty (our 16 yo dog for anyone new here) as comfortable as possible. His back end is really weak and the meds are only so effective. It seems that for a few days after he starts a new med he is feeling so good and has that old puppyishness about him. Then a few days later he's barking to get us to help him up. Even after he gets up he still can barely stand. And this ON the meds.

So frustrating.

We got him the doggy equivalent of Lortab today to help him in the latter part of the day when his morning meds wear off.

Here's hoping for some relief for him that lasts. And some peace of mind for us. This is torture!

30 pizza nights

We did 3 batches of pizza sauce yesterday. That's 15 jars, 30 pizza nights.

Frugal hair conditioning

Instead of glomming a dollop of conditioner on your hair while bathing or showering, wait till you're done and squirt just enough to lightly, lightly coat your hands and rub them through your hair. No need to rinse out.

How to get kids to exercise?

Buy a trampoline. The 7 yo will be 8 next month, and she is a jumping bean! She jumps on the sofas, she jumps on the beds, no matter how much we scold her. She must jump! Recently she was being scolded yet again and she blurted out, "I wish we had a trampoline!" Aha! Birthday gift idea! But I'm a Paranoid Mom and what if she breaks her arm, or what if she hits her head? Okay, party-pooper, don't take all the fun out of life for goodness' sake!

So we bought her a trampoline. A Sam's Club trampoline, with the net and everything. It's niiiiice. And sturdy. And heavy. And the kids have been jumping on it for hours with red faces and everything. They're all so happy, especially the 7 yo. And they're getting exercise the old fashioned way.



It wasn't long before the flipping started.



And Dad had to do something silly because it's his genetic predisposition.









I don't think he meant to do that.

The 7 yo thought it was pretty funny.



And then off she went to do more jumping.

Oh my goodness! A thatched roof!

Teresa, you're gonna love this. Alice Gunther at Cottage Blessings is going to get her roof thatched!! Is that not the coolest thing? Go Alice!!

How I spent my Tuesday

What I love, yet hate, about gardening is the abundance. It's a wonderful and terrifying sight. On the one hand, I'm dreaming of the months of fresh homemade pizza sauce we'll get to enjoy on our homemade pizzas every Friday night. On the other hand, I'm thinking of the dreadful job of blanching all those little tomatoes, pureeing them, and gathering up all the stuff to make the sauce. Then hot water bath canning the whole mess when the sauce is done cooking down.

Guess I'm just feeling my age. Wouldn't it be nice if gardens thrived best in cooler weather? Unfortunately, they don't. Such is life.

So here is the latest wave of Romas for batches 2 and 3. Each basket is one batch's worth. Ready for blanching. No pics of that, sorry.

This is what's left. All the green ones were the accidental drop-offs when Hubby was tying up the plants for me. Next year I MUST not procrastinate!! Most of these ended up being made into salsa yesterday. The yellow 'maters are called "Lemon Boys". Pretty, aren't they?



After the blanching and peeling and pureeing, this is the lovely result. Oh, did my house smell heavenly!!



Jars ready for action, and every counter full to bursting.



She loves to help. And she's really good at cutting things up for me. Here she's cutting up strawberries for another batch of freezer jam:



I probably would've had enough for 2 batches, but someone wanted strawberries for breakfast, ahem:



This is the result of my Tuesday work. What you don't see is all the salsa Hubby made. That's in the fridge melding flavors. He doesn't cook it.



I didn't take pics of the work I did making the peach jam, but it was a bit like dealing with the tomatoes: you have to blanch and remove the skins. The rest is like making strawberry jam except you have to pit the peaches. And boy, does freezer peach jam taste good! Like fresh peaches! Yum!

So that's what I did on Tuesday. Soon it will start all over again. ;)

Box turtles like tomatoes

Did you know that? I was wondering who was taking big chunks out of my tomatoes. Apparently, it was a very determined box turtle, probably around 6 or 7 inches long. I finally got around to getting hubby to put in some bamboo stakes to trellis the tomato plants off the ground, and lo and behold, he found a box turtle in one of the beds! That little trooper climbed a 6-inch board to get in!

He's now roaming around the yard, and I think I need to get hubby onto fixing that hole in the garden gate!

Trying to play the Glad Game

It has been years since I went to a Fourth of July fireworks show. The crowds, the waiting in traffic, the heat, the bugs just don't excite me. Oh, and the weather.

Tonight we were to meet my friend, M. and watch the fireworks in a nearby city. They were having the show at a park, a wind-y, narrow-streeted park, where you pay $5 to park off the curb and walk half a mile. Okay, I was willing.

We get there (after over an hour in traffic), park, walk and find a spot to set up our chairs. Of course, immediately the 7 yo needs to go potty. Thankfully, there is, besides the rows and rows of port-a-potties, an actual building with bathrooms with sinks and stalls and toilet paper, but no soap or paper towels. The 7 yo is wearing a skirt, but she forgets to pick it up rather than push it down when she goes. And, of course, the floor is wet and dirty and her skirt is, of course, white. You can imagine.

So we get that taken care of, walk back to our spot and wait for the fireworks, which are running late.

Then we see lightning, and it thunders.

Okay, do we sit there in an open field and risk our lives to watch a fireworks show (like about 90% of the people there) or do we start our trek back to the car which will spoil the whole evening, but we'll still be alive? Back to the car we go.

Then it starts raining. Oh, and there's wind. So we're getting wet as we walk the half mile back to the car. We get to the car to head out and...traffic comes to a stop. Why? I don't know! So we sit there in our car with our backs to the minuscule view of the fireworks that we are afforded thanks to the trees and wait, and wait, and wait, hoping to get out in time to see at least some of the show. But, alas and alack.

Finally, we hear the "big ending" and then the traffic starts moving. Thanks. a. lot. Then we have to turn right instead of left out of the park entrance because a policeman said so. So we have to drive waaaaay out of our way to get home.

On the way home I was feeling pretty down because it was such a lot of work for so little enjoyment. I was especially disappointed for the kids. But I thought I should play the glad game, so here is what I'm glad for.

I'm glad:

...we didn't get hit by lightning.
...we got to see my dear friend, M..
...we got to give M. some strawberry jam and some salsa made last night.
...we got to get a jar of M.'s blackberry jam (she was the one who originally gave us some of her blackberry bushes).
...we got to see some of the wonderful fireworks as we were walking back to the car.
...we got out quicker than had we stayed for the whole show and oozed out with the entire crowd that was there.
...we have another interesting memory to talk about.
...to be home!

Hope your 4th was a happier one.

Goodbye Elizabeth Spriggs

Elizabeth Spriggs died this past Wednesday. You might be wondering who she was. If you are as crazy about the movie Sense and Sensibility (the 1995 version) as I am you'd recognize her. She played Mrs. Jennings, the mother-in-law to Robert Hardy's Sir John Middleton.

She and Robert Hardy added such an amusing and light-hearted tone to a very serious film.

Here's a scene from the movie where she and Mr. Hardy were in fine form:



I'm sorry to see her go. Such a fine talent.

A puttin' up kinda day

I had a vague idea that today was going to be a make-the-pizza-sauce kind of day when I saw that I had a kitchen counter full of very ripe tomatoes. I also knew it might be a making-salsa kind of day since many of those tomatoes weren't Romas. But I had no idea I would allow the words to fall from my lips to my husband's ear that I wanted him to pick up 2 large packages of strawberries so I could make strawberry jam. But that's what kind of day this ended up being. So we now have lots of salsa, pizza sauce and strawberry jam, and I'm tired. Very tired. But happy.

Lazy boys

Our newest family member - George

A young girl who lives down the street has a rat who recently had a litter (she has the papa, too, and a whole menagerie of other pets). She wanted to know if we'd be interested in a baby or two and so we decided to take at least one boy. She had 2, but one died early on.

So today she brought over the only boy left and we named him George, as in Curious George, because he is terribly curious! Plus the name goes well with Oscar and Barney, don't you think?

He's only 4 weeks old, but is already weaned and eating regular rat food. Amazing, isn't it?

The name does fit the little guy. We can call him Georgie until he's bigger. We'll keep him quarantined for 2 weeks just to be on the safe side. So far, no sneezing or anything. He looks quite fit. After the quarantine period we'll introduce him to the other boys. I read that males will accept another male if he's a baby. I guess then there's no question of who's the boss. ;) The other boys will tower over this little feller. He's from wee stock. He's not a dumbo or anything extraordinary. But dern if he isn't a cutie pie!