Farm Life Realities

Morning friend!

Well this has been a hard summer for our farm.  Our wheat experiment totally failed (suddenly at the last minute, the wheat all molded).

One of our large grape vines has black spot and we have lost at least 4 gallons already.

Our blueberries took a huge hit from the heat and dryness last month and we have lost most of them.

It was too wet to get our flint corn in the ground in time.

All but three of our SIX HUNDRED onions failed.

The sweet corn is marginal at best.

We lost NINE orchard trees this year.












But like someone said, it is always a good year for something....

Our potatoes came in early and well.

Our new strawberry bed did fabulously.

Our muscadines are leafing out to beat the band.

Our green beans are producing like mad.

I have learned, though, that if one wants to actually live off of what one grows, to follow the Redundancy of Three that is used in preparedness planning:  three times what you need and three different sources.

What this means is that if one is growing, say, something to provide starch, plant three different types (say wheat, corn, potatoes) and three times as much as you will need to get to the next growing season (so if both wheat and corn fail, you still have enough potatoes to get to the next growing season). 

Of course that is if one is actually trying to grow ALL their own food.  Thank the Good Lord that we have grocery stores.

                             One of the grape vines that did not get blackspot (at least not yet).

Oh potato-tomato-potato-tomato.....

Morning!  Hope you are having a GREAT day.

I wanted to tell you a bit about our fantastic chip experiment.

The land we bought is thick Alabama clay (and swamp).  In order to amend the garden soil, we have a plan of rotating raised beds to different plots each year.  These raised beds are filled with good soil, compost, whatever we can find.  We grow potatoes in the beds, then till under the looser soil at the end of the year.  Then we move the wood frames to a different part of the garden to help amend the soil for next year.

I love to grow potatoes :).  It is such a treasure hunt to find them in the dirt.  I feel like I am digging for gold.  Plus I love how long potatoes keep.  I wish I had a root cellar, but the aforementioned swamp means that holes generally fill up with water.  In fact, when they dug the pond out, they hit ELEVEN springs.

Anyway, last year we harvested potatoes when it was about to turn cold.  My poor fingers were numb and the potatoes were pretty sad--bug et and weird.

This year TWS and I noticed that the potato plants started looking like something was bedding down in them at night.  Since our garden has a 6' tall fence, I knew it wasn't deer, and nothing that is small enough to get in would make that big of a bed in the potatoes.  TWS checked the beds and the potatoes were ready!  The plants were just falling over, done!

So in June we harvested our fabulous potatoes.  This year we planted German Butterball, Kennebec, Purple Viking, and Mountain Rose.  (We also have planted sweet potatoes, but those aren't ready yet).

These are crates that a guy just gave to us in the parking lot of Sams.  He owns a food truck called Strap's Roasted Corn and Grill (Locals, look him up :) ).



Fast forward to the 4th of July.  TWS made some fabulous hamburgers and we made potato chips out of some of our potatoes.  I will spare you the debacle of trying to find something to cut them into suitable slices (a potato grater that only slices UP, a mandolin that does not slice reliably, and a vegetable peeler that slices GREAT as long as you were not particularly fond of the skin on your fingers.  We found out that the best thing is definitely the kitchenaid attachment for slicing.  Worked like a breeze!).

TWS had been told that if you soak the potato slices in salt water, they will not stick as much.  It worked fairly well, but you still need to sort of separate the slices with your fingers when you put them in the oil.

They cooked in a matter of a couple of minutes.  I found out that you really want the slices thin.  I sprinkled them with popcorn salt (a much finer grained salt) when they came out of the oil EXCEPT for my own personal batch that were sprinkled with lime salt--goodness I love that stuff!

Soaking the Slices....



Here are mountain rose, kennebec, and german butterball chips.


Look how pretty the mountain rose potato chips turned out!  Like flowers!


Let's approach the incredible Crispy Utopia, visually savoring the numminess slowly....


A little bit closer...


Closer Still....


Ahhhh.....Salty.  Crunchy.  :)


A jar of happy, right there :)

Bread and Butter Pickles

Hello dear one!

I have to admit that out of all the homesteady stuff I try and like to do, I am daunted by canning.  I am convinced that I will accidentally give the entire family botulism or something.

However, last year I made refrigerator pickles that were a huge hit, particularly with TWS.  I like to do things that make him happy--he's a good guy :).  This year we had a ton of Bootheby's Blond cucumbers come in all at once--much more than we felt like eating.  I figured I would make fridge pickles and everyone would be happy.

The best laid plans.....  First of all, I picked the cucumbers on Monday, intending to can them the next day, but ended up having to wait (thank the Lord they did not rot on my counter!  These cucumbers are pretty sturdy with a thick rind and dense flesh that is extremely aromatic when sliced--they make the whole fridge smell like cucumbers).

Then I tried to find the Ball's Bread and Butter mix that I had thought I had squirreled away last year (the stuff that got me rave reviews), but could not find it.  Went to FOUR stores--still nada (though I did end up with a plum tree and stuff to make cheese bread, so I still was a winner :D ).  So I bought Mrs Wage's Bread and Butter mix to try.

Finally on Friday I was ready.  Then I started googling.  Never do that. It is like pregnant women googling what can go wrong or using Web MD (Elbow pain:  could be elbow cancer). What I thought was perfectly safe (fridge pickles) apparently can develop listeria and one has to eat the pickles within three days to be safe.  I could not even eat this much CUCUMBER in three days, forget eating that many pickles.  xsighx.  SO I figured I would water bath AND make sure there was a ton of vinegar AND keep them in the fridge.  Layers of redundancy, yes?

Then, because I also could not find my canning pot (and it would not have mattered if I could because my stove can't handle it), I needed small jars that could be processed in my pasta pot.  BUT I did have a case of small, "mainstays" brand jars that I had bought at Walmart for a ladie's "bath salt and milk bath" thing we did!  They were half pints, sort of square-ish, really cute, and small enough to fit in my pasta pot for processing (I do love surprise alliteration :) ).  I also found a few Ball Pint jars in my cabinet.

Of course I had no rack for that pot,  BUT I am nothing if not obstinate about work the problem, so I tried a disposable aluminum pan bent into a round shape and resting on canning rims (ok, in this case, google came through with the canning lid trick :) ).

As much of a slow start as I got, the process itself went really smoothly.  I had to lose the aluminum pan (that didn't work at all), but the jars fit really well in the pot.  I processed them for a few more minutes than I probably needed to (one recipe said 5 minutes, one said 10...and again, this is not my comfy place anyway).  I also discovered that ball canning lids are awesome for the "ping!" that they do, but mainstays lids are very difficult to see if they have sucked in.  Next time we are just going to stay with ball lids.

The results?  Golden Deliciousness.  I used some pickle crisp so they are nice and crunchy.  I couldn't even wait 24 hours to try them :)  Plus the Bootheby's Blond cucumbers make very pretty pickles as their rind is a yellow, not green.  I also realized I need to put more slices in a jar, as the canning process makes them shrink up.  That was difficult though because the BB cucumbers were big fat things so I had to put in one slice at a time and shove it in--some of the slices didn't really fit!

Here is what I ended up with:

 I ended up with 3 pints and about 11 half pints of pickles.

 The juice looked so pretty with the light shining through!

 You can see how much room is left at the bottom.  I am not sure I could have shoved more slices in there and still closed the lid, but I will try next time.

Such a pretty yellow color and fabulous stacks--perfect for a burger!

I am now inspired for small batch canning.  Next stop:  Grape Jelly!

Bread: Naan

Hello!

I thought I would share with you our naan bread.  I enjoy bread baking, but often run out of time to let a dough fully rise twice and bake.  This bread does rise once (though I am going to play and see if it is necessary), but it has no second rise and cooks on a griddle.

I used this recipe.   It calls for greek yogurt which gives the bread a wonderful texture and rich flavor. the bread, especially buttered and lightly sprinkled with salt, tastes like a cross between homemade white bread and pretzels.

After the dough has risen once, the recipe says to divide it into 8 pieces.  Truthfully that makes HUGE pieces naan.  I would recommend at least 12-16 pieces.  I did not make mine perfect--I love the rustic look of the bread.

Butter and salt (or whatever seasoning you like--cumin might go well with a curry dish, or garlic with a roast) both sides and put the naan on a griddle (I have a large one for making lots of pancakes at a time and it still took me two batches to cook all these!).   It takes only a minute or three per side, especially if you had rolled them flatter (no smaller than 1/4 inch.  Mine were closer to 1/2 inch thick)

Look at those beautiful bubbles forming!  The first side will not have the gorgeous brown bubbles, but the second side should.

A close up...see that wonderful butter and kosher salt?  I am starving already!

This recipe makes a STACK of naan.  These are thick, hearty but not heavy flat breads.  They are also Precious' favorite and a great bread to make on a cold morning or with a stew :)  I could see these also being phenomenal with added sugar and perhaps cinnamon in the dough.  Or maybe some berries or apples in the dough.  And with syrup. 

A note about butter:  I had gotten a brick of Kerrygold butter.  I am not sure if you have tried it, but it has an odd margarine flavor.  In fact, if someone had given me a taste test, I would have said it was Parkay! It is supposed to be from grass fed cows, but truly it tastes more margaine than "grass fed".  It might be my taste buds, but I think from now on I will stick with regular butter.  I used the Kerrygold exclusively with the first batch, but ran out and had to add some regular butter.  It tasted better.  Actually, one of my next projects is homemade cultured butter--I will let you know how that goes--it is supposed to be amazing!

Cake Plate Treat "Do You Want To Build A Snowman?"

Good morning sweet one!

It is a very cold 6F this morning!  Ice is forming on the pond, and we are in for several more days of very cold weather!

In fact, yesterday it even SNOWED!  Not enough to make snowmen out of, just flurries, so I thought I would make snowmen for today's Cake Plate Treat from a pin I found on Pinterest :)

These are easy enough to do, but I will be honest, they turned out to be a little trouble.  The donuts I bought were the Hostess brand, but seemed too dry and brittle for this (you can see how they are starting to crack).  These snowmen won't stand--the donuts won't bear the weight.  This would be best if they were laid out flat on a cookie sheet then CAREFULLY transferred to a plate.  It looks as if you are supposed to eat them off of the stick, but they will fall apart.

BUT they sure are cute (when they aren't falling apart! :) ).  And even broken donuts are fabulous!

I couldn't even get a good photo, but at least you get the general idea.  This is one Pinterest project that needs tweaking :)  Perhaps a different brand of donut would be better.  Maybe next time.  Or perhaps I will get the chocolate ones (I like those better anyway) and make "Mudmen" :)

Cake Plate Treat: Citrus White Chocolate Cookies

Good morning my most wonderful friend!  I hope your New Year's Eve was a fabulous one.  Ours was fairly sedate.  We went to bed before 8pm!  TWS and I are early (!) risers.

AND apparently I should have been making Cake Plate Treats, not blogging about them yesterday :).  Last night TWS harrumphed about absent treats ;).  Precious, throwing me under the bus, stated firmly that the Cake Plate *IS* clean.  (xsighx  Thanks.  You're grounded. ;) )

I mentioned left over Christmas Candy--no go.  Then I mentioned the tin of Danish Butter Cookies which bought me a little time to fill the void in our kitchen :D

I ahem "adapted" the recipe from here: Orange Creamsicle Cookies.  I did not have oranges, I had lemons.  I did not have LOTS of lemons for zest, I had one.  I cut the butter in half, added back in about a quarter cup of unrefined coconut oil, and added a LOT more lemon extract.  And squirted some lemon juice into the dough because it looked a bit dry (and I had rindless lemon halves and nothing to do with them).

Truly I almost never follow the recipe.  I do, though, make sure NOT to write the blogger back and complain about how it did not turn out if I changed even one iota of the recipe :)  Usually my changes are fine, sometimes not so much.

Today the changes were really awesome :)  The lemon was suitable as a substitute, and the coconut oil added a hint of tropical flair.  The key to it, though, was the white chocolate chips.  They added a creamy, smooth depth that elevated the cookie from "eh, beats celery" to "Oh make it again!  Wait, you didn't write down what you did, did you babe...xsighx" (he knows me so well :) )

 Isn't that photo lovely?  Doesn't the deep rose of the tea look happy and beautiful in the cup?  Don't you just love food photography?

Hmmm....I love teacups but they are so small!  I finished the tea in the cup in....maybe three swallows.  Then I went back to the kitchen to make myself a REAL cup of tea.

 

THIS is what I drink my coffee in every day:  a French Onion Soup Bowl.  See the difference?  I don't know if you can tell, but the teacup holds only 4 ounces.  The onion soup bowl holds SIXTEEN!  Sixteen ounces of happiness and sunshine :) I DO have a pretty mug that I will drink tea in, but that still holds 8-10 ounces--enough to sip for a few minutes anyway :)

What about you?  Do you have a favorite mug, tea cup, bowl?   Do you use different vessels for different beverages?

Wheat Planting Day!

Hello again my darling friend!

Technology is a blessing and sometimes a huge frustration for me.  After months of not being able to post photos with this blog (and bearing false witness against google!), I have discovered that it was actually Internet Explorer that was being difficult.  So I downloaded a new browser and am excited that I can now seamlessly add in photos to my blog posts again.  Forgive if I am a bit "posty" for the next weeks :)

I am thankful that I can plant winter wheat here!  In fact, the winters do not seem to be a time of "cold and dead" but rather "cool and still busy"!

HEADY with our dried corn success of the past summer, we have decided to plant winter wheat in a test plot.  I had ordered a ton of awesome seed from Canada but received only an empty envelope with a note from customs.  I contacted the person I had ordered the wheat from and he said he had never had trouble, but refunded my money.  

I did manage to get some wheat from Baker Creek (which we love anyway), plus some local wheat at our neighborhood feed and seed (which is what we used for our test plot).  I am saving the "good" wheat until spring planting.

Our Test Plot

 Raking In The Seed

 The Wheat

Update 29 December:  We looked, STRAINED, to see the wheat and thought we might, possibly, not sure, but might have some sprouts.  Or the grass and weeds are just growing.  Stay tuned :)

Roasted Watermelon Seeds

Good morning my lovely friend!


Today's farm experiment:  Roasted Watermelon Seeds


I was cutting up a watermelon yesterday for the freezer for out-of-season smoothies.  I save the red part AND the white part of the rind, which gives bulk to smoothies and is flavored by whatever juice or fruit I add.  I hate that I do not have something to do with all the seeds and the hard dark rind, so I googled what to do with watermelon seeds and got this recipe.  Apparently watermelon seeds are very high in minerals, protein, and good fats.


Generally I buy seedless watermelons for this, but since we have grown several of our own seeded watermelons this year, I needed to find a way to remove the seeds.  I found a great hack for how to cut the watermelon that leaves the heart and flesh intact, and makes it easy to scrape the mushy seed flesh away.


Last night I rinsed the seeds and put them in my dehydrator to dry for a couple of hours on the lowest setting.


This morning I tossed the seeds with a bit of Olive Oil and sprinkled with kosher salt and baked them at 350 (the exact recipe is 1/2 cup seeds, 1/4 teaspoon of olive oil and 1/4 tsp of salt).  It was supposed to take about 10-15 minutes, but I could not hear the timer when it went off, so it was more like 20 minutes.


The result?  They were excellent but a little hard to eat. :)  I tried eating the husk and all, but then realized they were supposed to be eaten more like sunflower seeds--crack the hull with your teeth, evict the kernel, then spit out the hull.  The kernel tastes wonderful, but I really want a better way to remove the kernel from the hull without mouthing it.  On the other hand, just like any other seed or nut, roasted watermelon kernels are a bit higher in fat than a snack I want to eat lots of, so having to crack each seed with my teeth does slow down the consumption rate enough that I get satiated before I eat too many.

There is another process of roasting them in a pan which might yield a softer (or more brittle, which would be helpful) shell.  I might have to try that next.

New Projects!

My darling friend!  How are you this morning?

I have had a wonderful nap (see earlier post :) ), and am now (almost) ready to get this party started!

I am bubbling with ideas of things I want to learn and do!  I am praying that the Lord will stop me from any foolish wastes of time, but I am not making myself nervous waiting for Him to actually slip me His schedule for my day.  :D

That being said, let's run down some of the things I am pondering and you can tell me which you like!

First of all, cheesemaking.  I would love to start making my own mozzarella cheese from time to time.  I may not become a "cheese maker" but I would love to have the skill.  I ADORE planting little seeds of capability in myself!  I might make these seeds grow, like the bread baking that, if I do say, I am fairly decent at.  Or I might sprout them but let them lay dormant (like soap making) until I need them again.  Spending a weekend trying a new skill makes it so much easier for me to take up that skill if I need it in years to come.  I think I will try a batch of cheese for instant gratification that uses vinegar instead of rennet.  In the meantime, I will order some rennet and citric acid to make mozzarella. 

Secondly, I want to redo the screened porch.  It is sort of.....brown.  Like flat brown paint with a weary off white ceiling.  I made the mistake of buying some curtains that I thought would make it look updated but actually just made it MORE dated!  The curtains are fine, but the valances are sort of scalloped and look very grandma-ish.

Now, I love grandma houses!  Don't get me wrong!  I just am not a grandma yet and am looking for something a little different. :)

My plan is to paint the supports of the screen and the ceiling bright white.  I want to paint the floor a happy, bright grey.  I am kicking around what color to paint the wicker--either white or black, I think.  Probably white.  Summers get hot here (at least that is what the rumor is...last summer was very cool! lol), so I want the screened porch airy with teal accents.  I plan to take the ruffled valances and put them at the end of the curtains as a)that will look better and b)the curtains don't reach the floor!

TWS has also offered to put us in a summer kitchen in the screened porch because my stove will not support the pots for canning!  I am designing the screen porch like a little studio apartment with an eat in "kitchen" with stove and running water.

This is where the kitchen will go......TWS can link the water and drainage right into the pipes that feed the kitchen on the other side of the wall. 

 

(that folding door is going to be painted and something nifty done with the inserts)

Do you see where the Louisiana basket is on the wall?  I am thinking about putting the daybed perpendicular to that wall.  I can't put it against one of the screen walls or people will get wet.  I like the idea of using the back side of the bed to delineate where the kitchen stops.

My other choice is to put the daybed towards the end of the room where the table and chairs are now.  I can use that as a seating area, with the bed having its back to the table and chairs which will go....

 

....a little further out from the swing.  I would like to keep the swing--it is fun :)  But we will have to see.  I might move this swing onto the front porch with the other swing that is there so everyone has a swing to sit on :)

If you go to my pinterest board (if you are interested) you can see the look I am going for.  I tried to post the pics here but that would have taken more time than I was willing to spend today--I wanted to get this posted for you :)

Here is the link to my screened porch kitchen board:  http://www.pinterest.com/atropine/screened-porch-kitchen/

It is going to have to warm up for us to do much though--it is too cold to paint.

Do you have any big ideas happening?  Any pinterest-y stuff to get trying?  Let me know! :)

Peppers

Hello sweetie!!

I am slowly getting back into my routine after being weighed low by a bug.  I went out to harvest some peppers off of a plant that we had bought.  All in all, I think we actually bought 47 pepper plants.  Yes, 47.  :)  We joke "if it is worth doing, it is worth overdoing".  TWS loves to make his own seasoning pepper blends and I cook with bell peppers often.  Basically we just kept putting pepper plants in our cart until a slight but pervasive sense of plant-gluttony got to the "can't be ignored" level. :)

 

It is a pretty plant :)

The day's harvest.  We ended up with 1 jalapeño, a few bells, some hot banana peppers, and the misc peppers.

Peppers.  We do not know what kind they are. Too stubby for cayenne, not hot enough for boonie peppers.  No discernible flavor for a gourmet pepper.  However, when I need a bit of heat, these will do nicely.

Chopped the stems off.  The chopped stems looked very pretty to me--like Christmas ornaments or earrings :)

A tentative taste.  I was not sure how hot these peppers would be.  Turns out they were relatively hot, but not unbearably so.  However, they were ONLY hot--no pepper flavor, just heat.  Well, that is ok, but I wanted a more complex flavor, not just a hot sensation.  So I added in some hot banana peppers that were milder but had more actual flavor.

Hot banana peppers.  Probably the same heat as a mid-range jalapeño.  I sliced some for freezing, but chopped some for drying.

Here are my peppers ready for dehydrating.  My toaster oven has a dehydrate setting that works wonderfully for anything in small batches.  It took....hmm... maybe 2-3 hours?  

 After drying and cooling.  Ready to grind with my marble mortar and pestle.  I love this little thing!  It was inexpensive, made of marble, and pretty as it can be :)

 

It was easy to get the peppers to the "fish flake" level of ground.  Getting it all to powder did not quite work as the seeds did not break down easily.  I am not concerned...I can put it in a coffee grinder we have for this purpose if need be.

 

A little more ground....

 

These were the jalapenos and the hot banana peppers.  They went in a baggie of "seasoning peppers" in the freezer.

 

These are the bell peppers.  They went into the freezer as well.

I find pepper plants extremely economical if one can get even a few peppers off of them.  We got such a late start this year that I am not sure how many we will harvest, but this was a nice, small harvest for getting bacon on one's feet.  And I am certain that inhaling all the hot pepper powder was probably good for knocking this cold :)

I am eager to find and plant my boonie pepper seeds from Guam.  Those are an extremely hot pepper--a single pod can nicely warm a pan of lasagna.  There is a wonderful sauce called finadene sauce from Guam that I cannot wait to make.  I am sure I can make it with regular hot peppers, but I am convinced that only a real boonie pepper will do :).

What are you pulling from your garden, my friend? 

A Busy Saturday!

Good Morning my dear friend!

 

I hope this Sunday is a blessed day of rest for you and that you will spend a little time just enjoying your Creator who loves you mightily (if you have any doubts or guilt or wondering, please feel free to contact me--I know ALLL of those feelings and can tell you that they are not for you :)  He wants you close to Him because He loves you and in Him there is no shame--no matter what you have done! :) ).

 

Rest.  What a beautiful word!  When I say "rest", I can sometimes feel a desperate exhaling deep in my spirit, a tender, almost crying feeling of gratitude. :)  Rest.  Peace.  Joy.  Such beautiful words!

 

But there is also such a wonderful feeling in the words "work", "industry", "providing from provision", "serving"!  While my spirit loves its downtime in rest, it also LOVES a purpose, a goal, a good thing done with the hands!!  Work is the sunshine while rest is the moonlight--both of them beautiful when balanced with the other :)

 

I cannot thank the Lord enough, dear friend, that He allowed us to move here.  My neighbors are some of the kindest, sweetest people.  Our next door neighbors keep bringing us provision from their massive (and slightly envy provoking ;) ) garden.  We had much that we had to put up, and I spent yesterday doing just that!  Let me walk you through my day....

 

Firstly, I have been longing for blueberry muffins like my mom used to make.  I actually have a nickname for the amount of blueberry muffins I could put away as a young child. :)  We have been blessed with an abundance of blueberries from our own bushes, so yesterday I set to work making blueberry muffins first thing.  Not only did I want them, but I thought the children would enjoy having them ready for breakfast when they awoke.

Because Precious has to eat gluten free, I made hers first.  I had bought a box of gluten free muffin mix--what a time saver!  I added the requisite butter and eggs, then also threw in a can of pumpkin.  Precious had been remarking about how dry some of the breads are...plus pumpkin is so good for you...that I thought it would help take her muffins to a higher level of moistness and nutrition.  Boy was I right!  Her muffins were SO moist from the plump fresh blueberries and the pumpkin that I thought she might not like them!  However, she informed me that "these muffins are going to be problematic" (meaning they were so good that she was having a hard time not eating them all :) ).

 

The can of pumpkin also greatly extended the batch.  It made the gluten free mix a little more cost effective (though I do need to make my own mix for her--another project for another day :) ).

 

Then I made our muffins.  I used my mom's recipe (though added a bit more sugar to balance out the pumpkin I added to ours as well). At the end of the cooking session, I had a couple dozen+ large muffins and many dozen mini muffins!

 

Then I went on to making pickles.  Our neighbors had graciously brought us some delicious cucumbers from their garden.  Truly they were different than store bought--made for pickling but tasted wonderful fresh.  I have not canned much, and never made pickles, so I opted for refrigerator pickles and used Ball's Bread and Butter spice mix.  TWS had asked for bread and butter instead of dill, and I did not mind either way.

 

Below are just some of the cucumbers.  I forgot to take a photo of all of them :).  I used my new mandolin to slice them.  TWS came in and was...curious about a)using a crinkle cut and b)the thickness of the slices (0.5 inches).  Now, at this point I was tempted to say "Y'know, I CAN actually do this without messing up..." lolol  However, I stopped and thought "He had mentioned his grandparents making them...perhaps that has something to do with it".  I explained my choice (I had always seen b and b pickles crinkle cut and that 0.5 inches is what the recipe said) then acknowledged his memories of his grandparents' pickles and asked if he would prefer me make them like his grandparents did, if his heart wanted what he remembered.  He stopped and thought a moment and then assured me that I should follow the recipe. 

I am thankful for that moment.  I usually get defensive (gah!) and sometimes react in a less than gracious way.  I am trying to stop that, though, because he a)did not mean any harm and b)he was touching a memory with his heart.  I am thankful that the Lord gave me the wisdom and ability (and that I USED it lolol) to see deeper and to ask. :)

 

 

 
The mandolin took a bit getting used to but eventually I ended up with this.  It was an incredibly easy process:  boil sugar, vinegar, and spice mix, pour over the slices, then let cool in the bowl.  Pack the jar with slices, put a rounded 1/8 tsp of the crisping granules (see below) then ladle the juice until the jar is full.  Put in fridge for up to 3 months, taste is best after developing for 3 weeks.  Easy!!

 

 

Then it was time for the tomatoes.  I diced them all up and bagged them except for this little beauty that I was going to use for BLT's for supper.

 
What a gorgeous bowl of tomato loveliness!!!

 
Bagged and marked because these look remarkably like the diced watermelon that I have in the freezer...what an unpleasant mix up that would be!  (That reminds me of the saying to tell between knowledge and wisdom :)  Knowledge is knowing that tomato is a fruit...Wisdom is knowing not to put it in the fruit salad :) )

 

 

Speaking of watermelon....I had bought one on sale.  For about $3 I ended up with a ton of fruit, smoothie base, and rind candy!  I will admit I was going to be lazy and just scoop out the wonderful middle fruit.  But then I saw all the left over rind and the light pink, not quite as sweet, part and just could not waste them.  It did not take long to scoop out the good stuff, slice off the light pink/white fruit, then separate the outside rind from the inside.  The light pink/white fruit makes a WONDERF base for smoothies!  It has very little flavor, but much more flavor and fiber and vitamins than using ice cubes!  Add some OJ or lemon juice or pineapple, and there is a hearty, but light, fiber packed smoothie with what would normally be thrown out.

 After cutting up the watermelon, it was time to snap some beans. Fresh green beans are my favorite food.  I used to eat them every day for lunch.  I bought these at a local farm.  They were a little tougher than I like, but still good, so I sat on the porch and snapped off the ends.  I was going to do this in the kitchen, but I wanted the charm of "sittin on the porch, snapping beans" :) 

 
All broken up and ready to be placed in the freezer for a pot of tex mex soup when the weather turns colder :)

 

 

Back to the watermelon rind.  The rest of the watermelon had been put in the freezer and fridge.  I poured off the juice and had a wonderful glass of watermelon juice to refresh me during my work.  Now I decided to try my hand at watermelon rind candy.  I keep my computer close in the kitchen--I am forever needing to google a recipe or something :). 

I found several recipes for watermelon rind candy, but many of them were "pickles"--kept in a jar in fluid.  I wanted dry candy.  I found one for a basil mint and many with anise.  Neither flavor was what I was looking for, so I made my own with key lime juice, powdered ginger, cumin, cayenne (just a dash!), and allspice.

 
Here are the strips I cut of the rind....

Here are the rind strips in water, sugar, salt, and the seasonings.  You boil them until the rinds are translucent.  This took forever!!! :)  I am sure I must have missed something, because eventually I got tired of waiting and just scooped them out onto a sugared tray to be put in the oven to dry and they became more translucent as they cooled.

My first (or maybe second?) oops!  I was going between recipes and missed the "put them on a SUGAR coated parchment".  I had no parchment, but I tumped these off onto another piece of foil that was sugared.

Much better :)

 
This....ah this....:)  This is the wonderful syrup that was left over after  boiling the rind.  It is incredible and will be wonderful over ice cream or as a flavoring or to use for basting pork.  I wish the light was better--it was such a lovely color.

You might ask how the rind candy came out....the flavor was incredible!  It had the tiniest bit of warmth and heat after you ate it, and the citrus was delicate and not overpowering.  It was delightful.  However, after trying to dry it for way too long in a 250 degree oven as a recipe said, it just became sticky, sticky goo--like raw caramel :)  Next time I will:  allow the fruit to macerate in the sugar that the syrup is eventually made of for several hours (as many of the recipes suggested!).  I will boil it for less, and make sure the syrup does not reduce too much--there is no way that I could see for the candy to dry when it was coated in a thick, thick glaze.  Also, I will turn the oven down to 170 (a much better drying temperature).  However, I will not change the flavorings at all--they were wonderful!

 

 

As I waited for the hours to pass for the candy, I googled how to fold paper boxes to deliver the muffins and blueberries in to my neighbors.  It took a few tries until I found directions that were easy to understand :).  I had purchased this pack of paper for $5 at Walmart.  It was an incredibly cute and inexpensive way to present little treats.



These are the finished boxes.  Once I got the hang of folding them, they were very easy and very quick.  I can see myself using this often in the future.  I tied ribbon around the sides to give them some stability and to doll them up a bit.

I had to figure out some dividers as my original idea of using cupcake cups was not working well.    Here they are, all filled :)  I placed these in an adorable "US Mail" basket that TWS had gotten me for my birthday this year, and placed fabric over them to keep the bugs out.  Then we got in the cart and (whilst hoping we had enough battery!) drove up and down the road delivering these to neighbors.  Two of our neighbors were not home, regrettably.

 

After we came home, I was exhausted!  It had been quite the day :).  I did not even get to the eggplant and the peaches that also need to be put up, but that was for another time.  About an hour after we came home, one of my neighbors brought over more cucumbers, tomatoes, okra, and such :)  I love living in the country!!!  I hope I can be a blessing to them like they are to us :)