Cooking and resting

I did some cooking today since I was too sick and tired to prepare the Bountiful Basket goodies on Saturday or Sunday. And though I went to school Monday I barely made it home, I was so sick by the end of the day. I'm home today, Tuesday, but I have more energy today than I did then. At least for the moment.

In cooking today, didn't use all of the eggplant we received in the Basket even though I made four trays of baked eggplant. Bountiful Baskets really IS bountiful. I got 2 eggplants and my friend gave me her two. The tomatoes were also from Bountiful Baskets. I didn't use all my spinach depicted in the photo. And I did not photograph the roasted broccoli I made today as well.

This is stale bread, patted with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and Italian seasonings, and baked. I'll put the eggplant on it for bruschetta later.

This is spinach, quick sauteed with oil and salt, and will remain in a container until I decide how to eat it. It can be eaten as a side dish just like this, or put in a pita pocket with black olives and feta and toasted, or thrown in spaghetti with some parmesan. I kept back some fresh spinach for a salad. I love spinach salad.

This is Brussels sprouts roasted till crispy. I quartered them since they were large, if they are smaller I usually just halve them. I put them in a Ziploc with olive oil and salt and pepper and tossed. Then spread in one layer in a good baking dish  and roast till golden.

Eggplant rounds with tomato slices on top, salted and sprinkled with Italian seasonings. I roasted them till soft, and then broiled it at the end. Of course I had to test one.

The weather has warmed up nicely, it was 70 degrees today, and sunny. I didn't go out except to do laundry in the detached garage, but my walk to and from the washing machine was nice, lol. There is a ton of birds now, they make a racket when they return in the spring. They're chirping and fighting and darting and swooping and generally having a grand time. So are the cats, running from window to window to glare at them when they perch on the inside of the window awnings.

Soon it will be too hot to cook root vegetables and I'll be making light fruit salads and sun tea. And the cycle of seasons continues.

New art on the wall

Yay, we are on a school break right now. We've got Monday and Tuesday off, which is really nice because the rest of February and March is a long haul until the next break. It's the most stressful, tiring part of the year. We've been advised to rest up, not think about school, and have a relaxing time. Always one to follow orders, I am doing just that.

While I waited for the word to leap in the car and go retrieve my Bountiful Basket from my friend who kindly picks it up for me, I scanned some collages I made years ago and found by looking through some of the older notebooks I have on my bookshelf. I made this one just after I moved to GA and was enjoying the first of the south's mild winters and early spring. I had a journal-type-day planner I'd done some art in. I like chronicling things. I Pixlr-ized the scanned journal page, of course.

This next one was from an old day planner in which I was obviously not looking forward to the New Year, lol. I never have been able to keep up a journal. I lasted with this ten year old one until Feb 4. Then I quit writing in it, chronicling in it, and doing art in it. Why I keep a nearly empty ten year old day planner is beyond me. I think this was the last gasp of day planners/journals I ever tried to keep.

I thought this was funny.

I have no clue what was on my mind when I made this. It isn't even cohesive.

Although as general advice, yes, avoid the herd mentality.

I finally bought some new art to hang over my bed. The art that was there before was a photo I had taken over twelve years ago. I like the photo itself, the composition, what it says, and the colors. But I remember that day, I remember that snowstorm, I remember that apartment, and I hated all three. Here is the photo I took down from over my bed, thus making a space for a new piece of art.

It is a watercolor of what seems to be a Greek villa overlooking the blue Aegean sea. The cashier asked me with a grin, if I am going to put the picture in a beachhouse, and I said, no, I am going to hang it over my bed and pretend I am there. If I have to look at something as I fall asleep, at least it's not a snowstorm from hell and frigid temperatures but of a soft sea with crisp white terraces.

It isn't a first edition, nor anything expensive or even particularly special. I liked the colors, I liked that for its size it wasn't heavy, and I liked the frame.

Our Bountiful Basket today was filled to the brim with goodies. I traded my oranges and grapefruits to a friend for her bok choy and beets. We also received a bag of pears, zucchini, broccoli, tomatoes, spinach, and cukes. I also have left over cauliflower and I still need to cut up the pineapple from last time. Yay! healthy food. Beets are so good roasted. You wouldn't even believe.

Well I hope you survive the Polar Vortex that is supposed to bring lots of low temps to much of the eastern seaboard this weekend. I have to say, today was pretty chilly and it's getting colder right now as the sun sets. I'm blessed to have food, clothes, blankets, a home and cats! Count your blessings, no matter what your circumstance, there are many blessings in your life.

Veggies!!

We received our Bountiful Basket today. I made granola/cereal, pineapple cake, roasted cauliflower, roasted peppers, baked a spaghetti squash, made pita crackers, and chopped three large mangoes (for smoothies). I also washed and prepared radishes, apples, oranges, orange peppers, and more. We had a good Bountiful Basket this time.

This week we received:

VEGGIES:
3 lb bag potatoes, Lg head cauliflower, Romaine lettuce, Broccoli, Asparagus, Bunch radishes, Orange peppers.

FRUIT:
6 apples, 6 Roma tomatoes, 5 oranges, 4 lemons, A Pineapple.

The produce is fresh-looking and luscious. It not only tastes better, it looks better. So of course I took photos, lol. The colors, shapes, and design of these pieces of produce are exquisite.

Helvetica, moms, soup, and cities

I enjoyed this visually graphic post about Ten Fonts that Designers Love to Hate. I am with them on Comic Sans. That particular font evokes a visceral reaction in me every time I see it, I hate it that bad. Unfortunately, most teachers love to use it, so I'm surrounded, lol. I had never heard of Bleeding Cowboys font before, go figure. And I was sad to see Helvetica dismissed, solely due to ubiquitousness. I prefer to stay loyal to the things that last and last. Try life WITHOUT Helvetica.

Helvetica lives! They even made a movie about it!

It's a quiet Saturday around here. It has been raining for a few days so the air is cool and the ground is muddy outside. I got a first wind, lol, and cleaned and vacuumed and did dishes and did laundry and even polished the furniture before 9am today. It feels like I have the whole day ahead when my chores get done early.

My friend is going to FB message me when she is ready for me to meet her and pick up my Bountiful Basket she has gotten in the city. She picks up at the site and I meet her halfway to grab it from her before she heads home. I am looking forward to some fresh and good produce. For a change of pace, I will probably make soup.

Here is a UK Daily Mail article about a Utah mom who sang to the tune of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah song but changed the lyrics to share her feelings about being a mom. She has a great voice and the lyrics are dead-on. The video she posted of herself singing it has garnered millions of hits on Youtube and Facebook. It's nice to see there are moms who love being moms. Hallelujah to moms who unashamedly love their job!

Utah woman with the voice of an angel sings her own version of Hallelujah with lyrics being about a mom... and now she's rightly famous

A Utah woman with the voice of an angel is a viral sensation after her version of ‘Hallelujah’ with lyrics about being a mom racked up more than two million views. Shannon Christensen Abbott posted a clip of herself singing Leonard Cohen’s famous song on her Facebook page recently. But she changed the lyrics to reflect her hectic lifestyle as a mother to young children, including: 'It's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it.'

I'm going to play with my photos today also. I have pictures of just about everything. Except...a cityscape. All the times I was in NYC or San Francisco or Miami or Fort Lauderdale or London or Montreal and all the other cities I've visited, even Portland Maine where I lived near for thirty years, I'm shocked I do not have ONE cityscape picture. I have a sunburst one of the street in NYC where the NYC Public Library is, and one top of the skyscraper pic of San Francisco, but that is about it. I'm amazed at the oversight. I'd wanted to play with cityscapes and light but I guess not.

Here are my city pictures and you can see that I took them with a different theme in mind and not the city landscape I now wish I had.

I was fascinated with the heavy door and the gilding, not the city.

I liked the colonial-ness of this Portland street

The closest thing I have to a typical cityscape,
but Portland Maine is a small city and so are its buildings

I framed this to show all the funkiness of San Francisco, contained in one shot

The County Fair is finishing up tonight. It is a very big deal around here. This fair is actually mainly an agricultural fair, given that our economy is so heavily based on agriculture. Of course there is a fairway and funnel cakes and rides and music to go along with the cows and the tractor sales and the sheep show, too. I have some old fair pics I'll probably noodle around with later.

At school we received a bulletin sent from our Superintendent (who is one of 4 finalists for State Superintendent of the year!) regarding the dangers of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI). As the State Coordinator at Georgia Emergency Management Agency-Homeland Security (GEMA) said, and I paraphrase his bulletin, given that poultry farming is a multi-billion dollar industry within the state of Georgia that touches either directly or indirectly every Georgian, and given that there are now many avian enthusiasts who won birds (especially chickens) in their backyard, a case of HPAI will significantly impact our beautiful state. This is something we want to avoid. If you own chickens, turkeys, or other birds please heed the warnings. I am told by farmers and state officials that there have been many meetings in GA lately about the increased risks. The reason the GEMA Coordinator sent the bulletin to the Superintendent is because the school systems are an area where information has been lacking, yet many teachers are also farmers who own birds of some kind in micro-farming endeavors.

So that is my Saturday morning. I hope you all have a great weekend yourselves and enjoy the time, but better yet, redeem the time. (Ephesians 5:16).

Bountiful Basket Saturday

We had two solid weeks of steady rain, accumulating to about 6 inches. The past three days of sun were glorious and well needed. The sun shone all day, the birds sang, the humidity was gone, and everything was green, green, green. April in Georgia is simply stupendous.

At 4am the rain began again. I don't mind really, my plan for today was to pick up a Bountiful Basket and use the oven to roast whatever is in it, plus the butternut squash I got last time. And chick peas. If you haven't had roasted chick peas, you're missing out! They make a filling and tidy little snack.

My monthly Tea Time magazine is filled with tea history, serving ideas, and recipes for cute little bites for your afternoon tea. One recipe caught my eye: English Pea Salad in frilled phyllo cups. Phyllo cups were on sale at the store so I am going to make a tea for myself Sunday afternoon, using the Whittard Tea Clipper set with rose hip tea and the pea salad cups. I'm fancy.

I've enjoyed this week's challenge at Pixlr, post-editing photos using their newest overlay pack, "Gibson." I've favorited Clark and Constellation as the best of these for my tastes. I notice on the Pixlr blog the archive of Gibson entries almost uniformly use the birds. I like the birds but man, it's just as easy to go outside and actually take a photo of birds. So for my entry I entertained myself by using a photo of an actual bird with the other Gibson overlays. I posted two of them earlier this week. The lines are phone wires.

Here are some more post-processing editing efforts.

I really like the 'Metal" overlay in the Default pak.

Yes. I caved. Here are birds from Gibson. I liked how they reminded me of the neon steam circles, changing into birds once set free from the coffee cup.

It's a few hours later now and I've gotten the Basket. It contained cukes (which I promptly gave away) mangoes, honeydew, apples, a lot of great looking broccoli, orange peppers, spaghetti squash, onions, potatoes, and lettuce. I probably forgot a thing or two.

I roasted some of the broccoli, butternut squash I had from last time, peppers, and the spaghetti squash. The spaghetti squash is so hard that once I get my cleaver a quarter inch into the rind, I can't get it to move in more nor can I get it out. I've taken to going outside at the walkway to the front door and smashing it on the pavement. With the knife stuck in there, I simply lift it entirely and then crash it to the ground, Even then, it's a cement rind. The cookbook wasn't kidding when it said "the rind is seriously hard". But I must look pretty funny out there...smashing pumpkins squash.

Have a good day everyone!

Dr Seuss week amid weird weather and great produce

I got a Bountiful Basket last Saturday!!! It was the first time since last August, when our local site closed down. The next nearest site is Athens. I don't get into Athens much, nor do I want to. And besides, the pick up time is early. So I put it out of my mind, and decided to simply fondly remember a blessed period filled with inexpensive yet high quality produce, ephemerally here today and gone tomorrow.

A friend at work said she was getting a Basket and would pick mine up for me, so I happily accepted her offer and got a basket. Plus, three add-ons.

The add-ons:

Banh Mi bread, a dozen baguettes. The flour is organic and the bread is FRESH.
Heirloom tomatoes
California Strawberries, about $1.50 per flat, 8 flats total.

Included in the basket were two heads celery, two heads lettuce, sweet red peppers, huge carrots, pineapple, bananas, avocados, asparagus, broccoli, and more that I am sure I am forgetting!

I roasted the red peppers, broccoli, and carrots. For breakfast I made fritatta with red peppers and feta cheese on the toasted banh mi, and a fruit salad containing strawberries and pineapple with homemade granola. Life is good.

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When I'd received a gift certificate to Amazon.com for Christmas, one item I purchased is a laptop stand. Here it is. This was a very good purchase. It lifts the laptop just enough so that it does not heat up so much. For my personal settings, it lifts the laptop enough so that I don't have to hunch. (My chair is high which makes the laptop low). See it here-

The proper name is Ergonomic Aluminum Portable Foldable Cooling X-Stand for 12"-17" Laptops, Notebook PC, MacBook. It was $20. I recommend it!

We have had an incredibly confusing two weeks of weather. We had snow, ice, sleet, black ice, wind, and storm. We have had interspersed with that, dense fog, near 80 degree temps, sun, breeze, and blooming daffodils. So weird! One day I'm in a coat and scarf, the next I'm in bare fet and short sleeves. Oy.

One thing that spring brings is tornadoes and windstorms. So be assured that the weather radio now has a fresh bank of batteries in it.

By the way, lunch was ziti in fresh pomodoro sauce mixed with steamed asparagus and Parmesan cheese. I love Bountiful Basket.

Dr Seuss week is over. Each year we have fun with the kids at school by celebrating the notable author and illustrator's birthday. One day the cafeteria even served green eggs and ham! The kids were split on it, half tried it and liked it, half either avoided altogether or tried and didn't like. I think the character should have kicked that pesky critter Sam-I-Am's butt out of there and gone to get a pizza.

We have daffodils blooming out front. Sheep are bleating in the back.

Flowers there

Flowers' flair

Shep rest

Sheep sleep

And Dr Seuss fun is done.

Last Bountiful Basket day

It's Bountiful Basket Saturday, but it is a day of mourning. It is the last Basket pick up for our location. There is no volunteer who can step up consistently to administer the site so it shut down. It's been a good year and a half.

This week we received:

huge head of cauliflower
bag carrots
red potatoes (lots)
onions (lots)
'big-as-a-baby's head' tomatoes
celery bunch

papaya
yellow plums
mangos almost as big as a baby's head
Black Corinth champagne grapes (small that look like blueberries)
cantaloupe

Photo is NOT representative- does not include cauliflower, carrots,
potatoes or onions which I already put away and was too lazy to get out
for the picture. I traded my cantaloupe away, too, for more mangoes.
One of the tomatoes of from the swap box.

I read the champagne grapes are susceptible to mildew
so I will need to eat these quickly. I received two containers.

Succulent doesn't cover the magnificent taste of this grape.

About Black Corinth Grapes (AKA Champagne grapes, Zante currants)
--the smallest variety of all seedless grapes.
--one of the few parthenocarpic fruits commercially available.
--in botany and horticulture, parthenocarpy (literally meaning virgin fruit) is the natural or artificially induced production of fruit without fertilization of ovules. The fruit is therefore seedless, says Wikipedia of parthenocarpy.

One of my go-to sites for learning about these different fruits and veggies is SpecialtyProduce.com Here is what they say about champagne grapes:

Description/Taste

Champagne grapes are the individual pearl-sized fragile skinned fruits, aka the berries, of the seedless grape variety, Black Corinth. When eaten fresh, they are known as a table grape. In dried form the Champagne grape is transformed into a raisin, in which they are known as the Zante currant, or dried currant. When the berries are fresh, at their peak maturity, they are intensely sweet and succulent with a mere hint of tartness. As a currant, the grapes' sweetness is magnified, their size dramatically reduced and their texture typical of a raisin

I've just eaten a bunch and they are the BEST GRAPE I ever tasted.

Applications

Champagne grapes are ubiquitously utilized for garnishing champagne flutes and decorating desserts and cheese trays. These traditional uses as an accoutrement merely celebrate the fruit as a table grape. The grapes can also be used in many other forms, added to pastries, such as scones, muffins and cakes. Like many other fruits, Champagne grapes make a great addition to fruit cereals, granola and yogurt. They can also be cooked and reduced down into a jelly, added to sauces for savory pairings with lamb, game and pork. In dried currant form the Champagne grapes can also be added to pastries as well as couscous, rice, fruit and green salads and paired equally with aged and fresh cheeses alongside charcuterie meats.

Not bad for $15!!! I sure will miss this. In addition, at the pick-up I chatted with a bunch of friends. It was a nice time.

I will roast the cauliflower, onions, and carrots, and bake the potatoes. I will make pasta and a sauce out of the tomato. I will enjoy the fruit with yogurt, plain, or atop the on-sale pound cake I got.

So I am back to routine for school. Saturday mornings I don't deny myself a leisurely cup of coffee, and I read my bible. But while it's cool, and early, I do chores. I vacuum, put a load of laundry in and do the dishes. On BB Saturdays I clean out the fridge and process the old fruit if I have any left over. This week, I did. I cut up three oranges and threw in a few of the grapes I had left, for an instant fruit salad later. I re-arrange the myriad tupperwares containing left overs and get the fridge ready to receive a batch of new produce. My Basket of fruits and veggies is being soaked right now in a sink full of water and white vinegar.

The vinegar cleanses the produce and a happy bonus is it makes it last a bit longer too. In a moment I'll dry it off and put it away.

I am done with chores and it is only 11:30 in the morning. I have the rest of the day to myself.

What I will do is:

--watch this week's episode of The Quest,
--read more of Elmer Gantry (more on my book buying spree and of good writers in the next essay)
--take a nap
--late this afternoon, write an essay for the other blog.

So that's it, have a good day everyone.

Bountiful Basket day: fruit infused waters

There are things I do every other Saturday morning to prepare to the onslaught of fruit and veggies I receive on my produce co-op's local chapter. It's called Bountiful Baskets and I have written about it many times.

When I get home on BB Saturdays I like to soak and wash the produce in vinegar water. To prepare, I wash the dishes, clean the sink and then sterilize it. When I get home I put it all in the sink and fill it and add a half cup of vinegar. Let soak for 10 min. I do this even with fruits or veggies that have a hard rind like oranges or cantaloupe.

I learned this week that cantaloupe is one of the top ten dirtiest foods that can make you sick. Cantaloupes can contain Listeria. Apparently the fact that they lay on the ground as they grow, in soaking water that may contain sewage or other contaminants, and are easily retained in the wrinkled rind, launch them into the top ten along with chicken and beef. When you cut into a cantaloupe the germs on the rind travel inside to the fruit and infect you as you eat. Gross, I know but important to know. So not only do I soak cantaloupes in the sink's vinegar water but I turn them every few minutes as they bob.

I decided to try fruit infused waters. I'm sick of looking at juice ingredients and seeing sugar, sugar, sugar. Corn syrup or High fructose. All the same, sugar. I don't drink soda and Orange Juice is too expensive, especially the kind that's juice only. I usually have a jug of water in the fridge I put a little lemon in when I drink it. I also have jugs of sun herb tea. I easily eat the BB produce in two weeks but occasionally I have some left over, like this week with three mangoes. It's nice to actually have extra produce in which to branch out. I figure they'll be perfect to try fruit infused waters with.

Eating regular fruit gives you the fiber, and it the best way to consume it, I believe. But chopping it up and adding it to water and ice with some herbs or spices isn't too bad either! The only problem is that I don't have a pitcher. In my mode of "use what you have" rather than "run to the store right now and buy one" I thought and I thought and I remembered I have two wide-mouthed vases in the top shelf of the unused cupboard.

The one on the right has a rim that is the same size as the lids on commercially bought dips etc. so I'll be able to cover the top. They both hold 48 ounces of liquid. A lot of that space will be taken up by the fruit and by 3 cups of ice, but that's OK. I don't think regular pitchers are a lot bigger.

I'll start with "Day Spa Mango Ginger Water". I have the mango, which I mentioned already. I've chopped it into cubes and it's freezing as we speak. I don't have real ginger but I do have powdered. It'll have to do. I dug out the ice cube trays and made room in the freezer for those. I don't like ice in my drinks so the trays were relegated to the back shelf long ago. But the fruit infused waters don't use ice in the drink, only the infusion process. The ice cubes are placed in the pitchers to hold the fruit and spices down and help it infuse. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 inch Ginger Root, peeled and sliced
1 cup Frozen Mango- fresh is fine too

Get Started:

To peel the ginger use the back of a spoon or a vegetable peeler, just peel the part that you will be using. Using a sharp knife slice ginger into 3-4 coin sized slices. You want them about the size and thickness of the coin.

-Drop into your pitcher and add in the mango.

-Top with 3 cups of ice and then add with water.(the ice is important, it holds down the ginger and mango to help infuse the water)

-Place in your fridge for 1-3 hours before serving.

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They don't recommend the powdered ginger, which they say doesn't have the same flavor and clumps in the water, but oh well. Maybe I'll toss the frozen mango chunks in some powdered ginger before putting it in the water. Below is a link to a less commercial discussion about naturally flavored waters.

If I'm going to toss in slices of lemon or orange or other fruits into water I plan to drink, then it is triply important that I've washed the outside, the rind, and thoroughly disinfect the item. I'm not a huge fan of cucumbers but I've read that adding cukes to water is 'seriously refreshing' so that is another frugal aspect, I can not only infuse waters with items I haven't gotten to eat within a ripening time frame, but also use produce that is second-tier in a way I may enjoy more.

This link shows the waters infused in mason jars, which I really like, because mason jars are a great way to both store things and use. I like the single serving aspect, too. A friend gives me canned items in mason jars and I have half a dozen jars now. I love them. I'll try the pitcher and the mason jar method and see what works. I think living frugally and cooking well both stem from a willingness to experiment.

Here is an excerpt:
Naturally Flavored Water by Monica Matheny
"The KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) approach to Flavored Waters
My natural tendency is to go overboard and overcomplicate things, so I really have to fight that when I'm developing recipes. I read about and was tempted to try all kinds of methods for flavoring water that involve blenders, boiling, specialty infuser pitchers, and lots of different ingredients. But, I know myself. If I truly want to transition completely away from soda & juice and drink more water throughout the day, I have to make this simple so it can be an easy routine for me to maintain. When I read celebrity chef Jamie Oliver's quick and uncomplicated approach to making flavored waters, I was inspired to follow his lead and keep it simple. My easy formula for making KISS flavored waters is to use only fruit and herbs, water, ice, and a jar or pitcher. This is something I can make in a minute or two so I can always have flavored waters on hand in my fridge."

Now my go-to beverages will be water, herb sun tea, and fruit flavored natural waters. I'll let you know how it goes.

Bountiful Baskets: daikon. Also, chow chow, and zucchini

Many of you have mentioned on Facebook, real life, and on this blog that you especially enjoy when I write about what I'm cooking. I don't consider myself a very good cook. As a matter of fact, I am a better writer than a cook, so when I write about cooking it always sounds better than it came out in real life. My hopes never quite match up with the execution, but I keep trying.

I'm sort of handicapped in the cooking department, not having a sense of smell at all and my sense of taste reduced to bitter-sweet-salty. I have no palate. Although Christine Ha's blindness didn't keep her from winning Masterchef 3, so I guess there is no such thing as a handicapped cook when it comes down to it. Effort, determination and perseverance are the ingredients for the successful cook. Unfortunately, I have none of those either so I'm back to square one in the success-of-dishes department.

My skill comes from frugality, consistency, and creativity. I mostly cook using handy ingredients, things on sale, and my preferences. I cook the same things, on the same day, contentedly. (That's the consistency). I also get the Bountiful Basket every other Saturday, and I stick to using whatever is in the basket for my main ingredients.

This week we received a daikon. Apparently it is a kind of Asian radish. It is supposed to be mild with a small bite. I looked up a bunch of recipes and the one that seemed best was pickled daikon. What made it best was:

--the recipe used few ingredients
--I also received carrots in the basket and the recipe called for carrots

Here is what it'll look like

Source

Now, I don't usually make a practice of going to the store to buy one item, that destroys the frugality of the dish. But the recipe called for rice vinegar and that IS one of my staples. I also needed garbage bags. I'd run out. So I headed to the Dollar Store for those items plus creamer for coffee, and raw pinto beans (because someone gave me chow chow relish and the two go together wonderfully. I will crock pot cook them while I'm at church Sunday.)

Anyway, off I went. But the Dollar Store didn't have rice vinegar. They had plain vinegar, apple cider vinegar, and other Asian condiments like soy sauce but no rice vinegar.

That is a toughie to substitute. Rice vinegar is sweet and distinctive. I went across the parking lot next door to the little grocery store run by an Asian lady and her husband. Surely they would have rice vinegar! Not only didn't she have it but she acted like she had never heard of it.

OK, I still wanted to make julienned pickled daikon and carrot relish. I thought and I thought. I came up with two ideas:

1. Find a recipe that doesn't use rice vinegar.
2. Use the sweet pickle juice in the almost-finished can of pickles as the rice vinegar substitute someone had canned and given me.

In the end I found another recipe that uses warm water and sugar, but I am still going to use a bit of the sweet pickle juice.

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On another topic, someone had given me a homemade can of chow chow. Canning is alive and well in the south, and so is chow chow. Chow chow is a distinctively southern dish. The Armadillo Peppers blog says that chow chow is

"What is Chow-Chow Relish? The short answer is “good”. Chow-Chow Relish has long been a favorite on pinto beans in the South and its appeal is even broader when you consider hot dogs, hamburgers, black-eyed peas and its use on various greens such as turnip greens and collards. Chow-Chow (or Chow-Chow Relish) is made from chopped green tomatoes (and sometimes red tomatoes), cabbage, mustard seed or powder, onions, hot peppers, sweet peppers, and vinegar. Other optional ingredients include cucumbers, celery or celery seed, carrots, beans, asparagus, corn and cauliflower. Unlike most condiments, Chow-Chow retains a chunky (chopped) texture and is not pureed. The taste can be sweet, tangy, hot or a combination thereof. It is typically served cold and like many foods, there are various varieties with an increasing availability of “hot” versions."

The piece continues with origin and history of chow chow. All I know is that this relish is GREAT on top of pinto beans. I will wash and soak the pintos overnight and then cook them in the slow cooker while I'm at church tomorrow. Mmm hmmm, I might could make me some cornbread too, as they say in the vernacular.

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The last thing I plan to cook is a yellow squash and zucchini casserole. I received both in the Bountiful Basket. I looked a long time for a recipe that doesn't use 8 or ten eggs (yes it's ridiculous, I agree). I found one that doesn't use eggs at all, which is OK, but the recipe doesn't use anything else either, except shaker cheese. So I am going to beef it up a little by using up my cottage cheese. We'll see how it goes.

No dessert this week. I'd bought some ice cream and have been nibbling on that. I don't need to make any cookies, muffins or brownies or even anything light like angel food cake with fruit. I'm about filled up with sweets. The ice cream did me in.

The Farmer's Market is behind the Dollar Store so I swung by to see if Jose had any bread left. He had hardly any, only two loaves by that late hour. The two he had remaining were not the crusty focaccia or olive bread I enjoy so much, but brown sugar-raisin-walnut. More of a breakfast bread. The loaf was huge though. Aw, man, twist my arm, it only took a few seconds of deciding before I said YES and scuttled away with a brown sweet loaf under my arm and visions of Pâté to spread on top dancing in my head.

Blue potatoes are just so wrong

We're winding down in this school year. In Georgia we go to school from August to May. This year had a later start in August so we'll gt out at the end of May instead of the middle.

I enjoy having a 9-month job where there are school breaks sprinkled throughout the school year and then the summer off. Its pay is a 9-month job, but stretched out via paychecks that are sent out 12 months. It's enough.

If one has the money, one never seems to have the time to enjoy things because they are always working, if one has the time, like me with a school year calendar, one never seems to have the money. LOL. I'll take the time.

The rest of the school year (about 16 days for the children) will be finishing end-of-year testing, the usual academics, but also field day, field trips, ice cream party, school talent show, and the like. In between, of course, we'll keep teaching up to the end. But I do enjoy seeing the kids be able to relax a little. The curriculum is very stringent here. They are always working.

I have no particular plans for the summer, other than to relax and enjoy it. I do plan to read a lot, both non-fiction (theological) books and some fiction. There was to be a new neighbor moving in next door (the other side of the house) but they partly moved in on May 1 and moved out on May 2. So that was that. When the final tenant moves in that will be an adjustment and we'll see how the routine goes.

The other neighbor moved out because as a single, divorced mom she wasn't saving enough money to buy her own house, and moved back in with her father to save a bit. It really does take two incomes these days to make a go of it. It is no easy task starting out these days. I'm glad I'm not.

The storms that rolled through the south have so far drifted north of us to Tennessee and South Carolina, and south of us to South GA and the panhandle of Florida. I can't say I'm sad. But I can't say I'm relieved, either. Tornado season isn't over.

Today I made a pan of roasted potatoes, roasted broccoli, roasted carrots, brownies, and boiled some quinoa for tomorrow's dinner of salmon patties with steamed asparagus on the side. I also cut up a cantaloupe and a few mangoes to make smoothies later.

The potatoes we received in the Bountiful Basket were Adirondack Blue potatoes. Yes, blue. Almost purple. They are a hybrid, made so that they'll have more 'anthocyanins'. Blue potatoes also boost the protein level of the meal. I decided I don't like blue potatoes. I don't like hybrids. They taste just fine. The look weird in a salad. Just give me golden mashed potatoes and I'll take care of the protein content myself, thanks. If I want more anthocyanins I'll eat blueberries.

It's a gorgeous, non-humid, cool but warm day. (Air is cool, sun is warm). With no one living on the other side of the house it is quiet here on the property. The cats are napping. All is well.

It's vacation week and was Bountiful Basket weekend

It's spring break and Saturday was a Bountiful Basket Saturday. Yay!

I had lots of peppers. I'd bought a reduced package of tiny sweet red and orange peppers. I also had all the Anaheim peppers left over from the Basket two weeks ago. I had one left over wrinkled green pepper from some era long before. And, in the Basket on Saturday were three large red peppers. So, I needed to use a lot of peppers, lol.

What to do? I roasted them. Then, I mulled. By Sunday morning I'd looked up recipes. It's not rocket science. I googled "How to use a lot of peppers." Literally. That's the kind of searches I do. I just ask, and google answers. I try not to think about the Orwellian implications of this.

I found a recipe for a pepper tart. I often make quiche and I'd thought briefly about a pepper and cheese quiche. But I only had four eggs left and I didn't want to use them all. The tart called for 1 full egg and 1 yolk. Of course the tart comes out thinner but that was OK, quiche is heavy anyway. I liked the fact that it used fewer eggs, no flour and only cooks in the oven for 15 minutes. The oven (and the dryer) takes so much electricity I can tell by the monthly bill when I've cooked a lot. I had feta cheese on hand so I topped the tart with that.

It came out great! I only had a deep dish pie shell on hand but next time I'll get a shallow pie shell or phyllo dough for a real tart.

You see how the tart definitely doesn't need a deep dish

It's thin, but I like that. The flavor of the peppers is more prominent

Now the other problem: I had 6 pears left but they were weird. I'd eaten one the day before at school for my lunch, but it was hard even though it looked soft. As a matter of fact half of one pear was rotten in my bowl, but the rest were still hard. It was one of those situations where they'd never soften up, so I'd need to cook them. Throwing them out was out of the question. I don't waste.

Voila, pear sauce. I simply peeled and chopped them, put them in boiling water and cooked until they were soft. I blended them with ginger and cinnamon, lemon juice and just a tablespoon of sugar. You can see it filled a large Ball Mason jar. (I've already had one helping. It used to be filled to the top. ;)

Of course I never turn the oven on unless I can stuff it. This saves electricity. The costliest items in the home for electricity are the air conditioner, the dryer and the oven. So when the oven is on, it's working to cook several dishes, not just one. Using all the food you have with a minimum of extra ingredients saves money too.

Here is the photo of the Bountiful Basket and all that was in it. The photo is from our local co-op Facebook page.

I ate the strawberries right away. I roasted the carrots whole. The cauliflower will be roasted next weekend. I've already eaten some of the bananas and apples. I roasted the peppers as mentioned. Below was my Sunday Brunch after church. The potatoes were from the last Bountiful Basket two weeks ago.

Not everything was a success. The carrots came with tops. They were two feet long and green. I love anything green so I looked up recipes for how to use carrot tops. Yes they're edible, and I set about to make carrot top pesto. I stripped the leaves from the top so I wouldn't have the hard thin stems to deal with and put the leaves in boiling water to blanch them, in order to soften them up. I don't have a hand blender so I put them in the regular blender with lemon juice and olive oil. There wasn't enough bulk to blend and the whole thing ended up being a propeller-stalling stringy mess with splattered olive oil up the sides of the blender. And the carrot tops didn't taste good anyway.

Well, I tried not to waste anything. Maybe next time I'll roast the tops...

Today is 78 degrees and tomorrow and the next day are predicted to the the same. I have plans to have breakfast with some gals on Thursday morning and another date with a different gal friend later in the week. It's all good.

Bountiful Basket day and crazy kitties

It's a warmish spring day and I went to Danielsville to pick up my Bountiful Basket. There was a lot in it. Here are two photos of how pretty the food looks.

Good looking produce, huh?!

I plan to make a black bean-corn-sweet pepper salad. We received a jicama in our basket and I plan to make a Jicama Salad with that and the strawberries and the rest of the peppers I don't use in the black bean salad.

We also received broccoli, so I'll roast that. Asparagus will be steamed. Romaine goes on sandwiches. Heirloom cherry tomatoes will be mixed into Penne and likely some of the asparagus too. We received lots of citrus, including mandarin oranges so I'll peel those and make an orange and pineapple salad for my lunches.

I could go on but that's the gist of it. I'm sad I forgot to buy quiche shells at the store yesterday, I'd planned to make a quiche. I love broccoli-cheese quiche. That'll have to wait till next time.

I took a walk around the yard to see what was what. It's in good shape. The place seems to have weathered the hard winter pretty well. I cleaned out my flower pots and got them ready for new seeds. I filled the bird feeder and the birdies are happy. And I spotted some of these strange looking colorful objects in the yard also, hm, what could they be????

Soon there will be a ton more out there. I really do enjoy bringing in a flower or two for my kitchen windowsill.

A boy at school has been missing his parapro, who is visiting her grown & married daughter and her new grandbaby for a week. On Friday I let the kids play at centers for 10 minutes or so. They can go to books, marker board, blocks or art. This week I also added Legos. As I asked each of the 7 children in the group what they wanted to do they all slid off their chairs and went to their chosen center. But one boy said "I want to write a note and draw a picture" for the parapro that he was missing so much. He worked a long time on the picture and then asked me to help him write the note. It all took about 10 minutes and during this time the other children were playing and laughing and having a good time. He persevered. When he got done he asked to go to blocks.

I was both inspired and ashamed of myself. Next to the boy was a tantalizing and fun playtime with fun toys, but this 6 year old boy sat and did something to serve another, selflessly. If I had been sitting three feet away from a fun or a tantalizing thing would I have resisted long enough to have finished a task that would benefit another? Probably not. That's why I was ashamed f myself and inspired by him. Kids are amazing.

My new kitty runs around like a nutcase at night and often wakes me up. Especially when he runs over the CPAP machine and steps on the button that turns it off. I have to sit up and turn it back on. Also he likes to play with the tubing so I have to haul that up and tuck it under the covers so his claws can't puncture a hole in it. This means I can't turn over as much. Sigh. I know when he is older I'll long for the days when he was so cute in discovering everything and running around. But all it means today is that I'm tired and I'm going to take a nap! Till next time...