You people, I swear
I go away from the Net for THREE DAYS and I come back to find that y'all've had alllll kinds of luscious idiocy ripen and harvest in the meantime. Couldn't save any of the good bits for me, then? I guess not. *hmph*
In the meantime, however, I have been awesome. Truly.
I:
-didn't kill anyone this weekend who was both an idiot and ahead of me in line, though it was richly deserved
- put up 8 quarts of dill pickles,
- 4 quarts of bread and butter pickles
- 5 pints of sweet pickles
- 2 quarts of green beans
- 2 quarts of wax beans
- 9 half-pints of strawberry freezer jam
- a double batch of eggplant parmigiana (this time with much, much less salt)
- processed raw foods for all of this and more to come
And I did this on 18 hours' spotty sleep over the past several days because Rose has decided that it can't possibly be bedtime in *her* bed if it's after midnight, which is when B and I have been going to bed.
Tomorrow will be several pints or quarts of pink-eyed purple-hulled beans. And I'll be making three-bean salad with some of the wax beans and the green beans I kept back for that. Later this week, there will be the purchase of nectarines for making nectarine chutney and peaches for either a combination of spiced peaches for wintertime peach cobbler of awesome or spiced peaches and peach chutney. I also have some Roma tomatoes which require some processing, but I may simply remove their skins and seeds and process them for tomato puree.
Now, on top of all of this preserving have been trips to and from stores for supplies (see Item 1, not killing anyone). I swear, it took me as long for that as it did for the processing and canning.
The good folks at the Ball jar co. make Mason-style jars, as y'all likely know. They put out an inexpensive recipe book this year. Sweet!, sez I, and buys it.
Not so.
I think on purpose that they underestimate by half the requiring amount of brine for pickles. I weighed the cucumbers (they had no approximate numbers) and inevitably ended up with half as much brine as I need and meanwhile the cucmbers are sitting in hot jars while the freakin' jars start cooling and the jars with boiling brine and cukes in them sit and cool, too, as I wait for the new brine to finish up. I was Most Annoyed. Naturally, when I went to make the brine for the sweet pickles this morning, I said "Screw that for a lark!" and made a doubled pot of brine. God laughed heartily then, but you see, I couldn't hear Him over the girls. There was just enough cucumbers (though thinly sliced, not short spears) to fill exactly as much space as the recipe advertised. So, having some cucumbers left over, tomorrow I'll slice those and make more sweet pickles - or possible relish - to use up the rest of the brine. Maybe a couple of pints of mustard relish, hm.
Okay. I have now earned my reward of WoW for the entire rest of the night. Bwahahahah.
In the meantime, however, I have been awesome. Truly.
I:
-didn't kill anyone this weekend who was both an idiot and ahead of me in line, though it was richly deserved
- put up 8 quarts of dill pickles,
- 4 quarts of bread and butter pickles
- 5 pints of sweet pickles
- 2 quarts of green beans
- 2 quarts of wax beans
- 9 half-pints of strawberry freezer jam
- a double batch of eggplant parmigiana (this time with much, much less salt)
- processed raw foods for all of this and more to come
And I did this on 18 hours' spotty sleep over the past several days because Rose has decided that it can't possibly be bedtime in *her* bed if it's after midnight, which is when B and I have been going to bed.
Tomorrow will be several pints or quarts of pink-eyed purple-hulled beans. And I'll be making three-bean salad with some of the wax beans and the green beans I kept back for that. Later this week, there will be the purchase of nectarines for making nectarine chutney and peaches for either a combination of spiced peaches for wintertime peach cobbler of awesome or spiced peaches and peach chutney. I also have some Roma tomatoes which require some processing, but I may simply remove their skins and seeds and process them for tomato puree.
Now, on top of all of this preserving have been trips to and from stores for supplies (see Item 1, not killing anyone). I swear, it took me as long for that as it did for the processing and canning.
The good folks at the Ball jar co. make Mason-style jars, as y'all likely know. They put out an inexpensive recipe book this year. Sweet!, sez I, and buys it.
Not so.
I think on purpose that they underestimate by half the requiring amount of brine for pickles. I weighed the cucumbers (they had no approximate numbers) and inevitably ended up with half as much brine as I need and meanwhile the cucmbers are sitting in hot jars while the freakin' jars start cooling and the jars with boiling brine and cukes in them sit and cool, too, as I wait for the new brine to finish up. I was Most Annoyed. Naturally, when I went to make the brine for the sweet pickles this morning, I said "Screw that for a lark!" and made a doubled pot of brine. God laughed heartily then, but you see, I couldn't hear Him over the girls. There was just enough cucumbers (though thinly sliced, not short spears) to fill exactly as much space as the recipe advertised. So, having some cucumbers left over, tomorrow I'll slice those and make more sweet pickles - or possible relish - to use up the rest of the brine. Maybe a couple of pints of mustard relish, hm.
Okay. I have now earned my reward of WoW for the entire rest of the night. Bwahahahah.
