Michael and Jaspenelle

Nightmare on 29th Street

My hands are stained red, the cutting board and knife drip crimson, chunks of scarlet bubble away in the crockpot, anything that didn’t fit in there is in the freezer, for future use…

Bwahahahahahahaha!

*Cough* Um, this isn’t the start of a B-flick! I just finished processing a bushel of pluots! I also have most of the latest ripe (and a few green just to experiment) tomatoes from Shannon’s garden in my dehydrator. Can you believe I filled 8 square feet of space and still have a few pounds to go?

I still have a bushel of apples to either freeze or dry, as well as more summer squash. Thank goodness I love zucchini (I made relish with the last batch.) I also roasted a chicken and made an apple pie from scratch today. My pie crust was a little chewy (hey I am a bread maker, it feels weird not to work my dough) but got the Michael seal of approval, which is good enough for me. I have some sage and oregano to jar and label before bed still.

Oh Eternal Spirits of the Harvest, how I love this Autumn bounty! But if I see one more pluot… Oh wait, I still have 20 on the table. *Horror-movie-esque scream*

Jerky

I made jerky in my new dehydrator (Excalibur ED 2500.) This batch is spiced with Italian seasoning and is soooo good! I am trying to save it for next weekend’s camping trip. I am going to make Backpacker Jerky Stew. Dehydrating potatoes, corn and tomatoes for it at the moment, as well as some of Shannon’s green beans and zucchini. I also have some yogurt in there, supposable I can make yogurt bites.

Can’t wait to go camping!

So far I really like the Excalibur. It has a wide range of temperature settings, even one for living (raw) foods and making yogurt. The unit is warm enough that it will rise bread quickly too, which will be a huge perk during the winter. It works much better then my last machine (Mr Coffee brand Goodwill find) but that isn’t saying much. That one took 24 hours to do what this does in 4 to 6, and the quality of these dried goods are much better.

I am enjoying experimenting with this one. I found some living food recipes recently too that I am thinking of trying out. Some of them sound pretty good! Harvest season is here so there is no shortage of fresh produce. Another tool in my food preservation arsenal.

Sharing my Weekend

Two Phrases That Destroyed American Culture - I ran across this article yesterday and loved it, so I thought I would share.

I also thought I would share some stuff from my weekend::

I made cinnamon rolls from scratch:

They were yummy! Next time I am going to use different icing though, maybe just a milk/sugar glaze.

Michael had to be at work from 4am to 8am on Saturday, so he napped with Damian while I made them:

I made labels for some things in the kitchen:

The olive oil bottle says “Olive Oil (now with extra virgins)” because… well, it just amused me.

I got some new shoes at ShopKo (on clearance and 50% off, so $30 shoes for $3!)

We also picked up my diaphragm from the midwives and bought storage bins for my 25lbs of bread flour and sugar. But you don’t need pictures of those.

I got some reading in.

If you are into herbalism I strongly recommend Family Herbal by Rosemary Gladstar.

Last night be went over to Shannon’s and she gave us some organic produce from her garden, yum! Five cobs of corn, lots of green beans, a couple Anaheim peppers, a cucumber and a few more zucchini! I think I am going to be making zucchini relish with them this time.

I’ll probably be dehydrating some zucchini as well, for future use in pasta sauce and maybe to take camping in a vegetable soup mix.

And to end my sharing post, I wanted to share an amazing speech by Archbishop Tutu! What will happen when the last of our great leaders die? Do we have new ones within our generation? I hope so. (On a slightly amusing note, Archbishop Tutu refers to “ubunto” in his speech, defining it is “the essence of being human.” The Linux distro that I use is also called Ubunto!)