new logo! This one was created (again!) by the lovely and talented Aly. Perfect for July, dontchathink?
(Thanks, Aly!)
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I’m in the market for a vegetable slicer thingy. Got one you love? Tell me about it in the comments!
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Yesterday afternoon, as I was blanching a batch of pattypan squash in preparation for freezing, Fred wandered into the kitchen.
“Want to go to a movie?” he asked.
These are words I do not EVER hear out of the man’s mouth, but since he’d gotten caught up on the stuff he needed to do, he was bored, and wanted to see a movie.
I think we last went to the movies two years ago, but I can’t guarantee it.
I told him I did, but that I needed to finish the blanching, cooling, drying, and bagging of the squash I was working on. He said I had ten or fifteen minutes before we had to leave, and I got to blanching, cooling, drying, and bagging like my life depended on it.
I had just finished bagging the squash and was wiping down the counters when he wandered into the kitchen and said impatiently, “We need to bust a move!”
I gave him The Eyes and said “Oh NO you did NOT!” and he grinned and said “Oh yes I did!” and I said “Well, I’m sorry I spent all morning sitting on my ass in front of the computer so that I wouldn’t be ready to go when on a whim Your Majesty decided he wanted to go to the movies! Oh, wait! I did NOT spend all morning sitting on my ass in front of the computer, I spent all morning cleaning and cutting and canning and boiling and bagging and slicing and freezing the produce you insist upon bringing into the house every morning, fuckface!”, and he grinned and said “Did I mention we need to bust a move?”
So I changed into my public clothes (I never wear shorts in public because I wish to not unleash the horridness that is my legs upon unsuspecting innocents – plus, it’s always cold in the theater, so to wear shorts would be idiocy) and we left a note for the spud and went to the movies.
We were one hour into a two-hour movie (Live Free or Die Hard. What? HE chose the movie. If I’d been choosing, we’d have gone to see Knocked Up. But I wasn’t, so we didn’t) when the movie went very very dim, and then shut off. The power had been knocked out by the thunderstorm I wasn’t even aware we were having. We cooled our heels for about half an hour before the theater manager came in to let us know that the power was off all over the city and they’d give us tickets to see a movie at a later date (I suppose, technically speaking, the idea is for us to go back and see the same movie, but as much as I enjoyed the movie, I don’t want to sit through the whole first hour again, just to see what happens. My prediction: he Lives Free.).
So I suppose in another two years when Fred wants to see a movie again, we should check the weather before we leave the house.
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I spent all weekend – seriously, all day Saturday, half the day Sunday – freezing and canning and pickling and cooking. In the end I got something like 10 pounds of summer squash blanched and frozen, five pints of green beans canned, three and a half pints of zucchini bread & butter pickles canned, one pint of pickled jalapenos canned, five cups of corn (off ten ears of corn) blanched, cut, and frozen.
I’m still fairly slow when it comes to getting food ready for canning, and then canned. But I figure I’ll speed up with practice, and we’re starting to get a lot of stuff stored away for the winter. I look forward to canning (and pickling) the okra when it really starts to come in. Also, I’ve ordered a food dehydrator, because the Sungold cherry tomatoes are starting to come in faster than we can eat them, and I bet in dehydrated form they’ll be as sweet as candy.
I’m really looking forward to when the ripe tomatoes start coming in, because I’m going to make the hell out of some marinara sauce and can or freeze it. I’m trying to convince Fred that we need to hit the garage sales and auctions to find something to use as a canning cupboard – right now I’m putting all the canned stuff on the mantel in the dining room, and rapidly running out of space.
I listened to my iPod all day Saturday while I worked, and thus managed to get caught up on Keith and the Girl, which is just a bonus.
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Finally, we’ve got an open sunflower.
And one about ready to open.
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Happiest! Cat! Ever!
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Previously
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: Had I, in fact, ONCE KILLED SOMEONE and the memory was trying to break free into my conscious mind?
2003: “Yeah, I see you, you portly little cat. You don’t scare me!”
2002: Some Eminem lookalike just drove by and put a flyer on my mailbox.
2001: I have the sinking suspicion that we’re going to be homeless by August 1st.
2000: No entry.]]>
Wow Robyn. Look at you go with the canning. Do I recall Fred mentioning on his site that you had planted watermelon? If so, what about watermelon rind pickles? My Grandma used to make them and they were so unique and tasty too! She colored them red and green. Man, those sure were good. *drooling*
Are you pickling any green beans? A friend of my parents used to make those and they were soooo good!
Hi! Are you going to put all of your canning/pickling/whathaveyou methods, techniques and recipes up on your recipes page? I confess I know nothing about pickling, but bread and butter pickled zucchini sounds wonderful. My grandmother make the best zucchini relish ever, if you’d like the recipe I can send it to you.
Since the theme of today is helping people with country questions….I have one too! 🙂 Did Fred find a website on how to plant the garden or did y’all just do it and hope that everything went OK with it? We’re talking about having a garden next year and I’m afraid we’ll plant one and then everything will eat it or it’ll just become a big, brown, crispy pile of compost matter.
The quickest vegetable slicer thingie I have is my cuisinart food processor. It’s an older model, DLC8S and the slicing blades that came with it are thin and medium (2 and 4 mm respectively). Even medium slices are thin. You would probably want to buy a thicker blade in addition. There are 6 and 8 mm blades available from other vendors online.
It’s also great for making dough 🙂 (I hate kneading.) Only downside is I don’t have room to keep it out. It’s a pain getting out and then back in the box exactly as it has to go. But it makes quick work if you have a lot food to slice or chop.
Regarding pickling, have you ever considered pickling some green tomatoes? Those are good!
Robyn,
Great job on all the pickling and canning – you’ll be happy come winter!
By the way, you might consider labeling everything on the lids (the top part that can’t be reused – not the rims). I’ve found it has saved me a ton of time in not having to soak off the old labels the following year. I just use a sharpie on the lid and pitch it in the recycling bin when we’ve eaten up said product.
Cheers,
Lisa
Loved Live Free or Die Hard. I’d be very happy going back and rewatching the first hour again if that had happened to me. That movie is so unbelievably silly but so much fun. Highly recommended.
I also want to go see Knocked Up but so far haven’t been able to get the man into the theater. I’m hoping to so but so far it’s looking like the next one I’ll be able to get him to go see will be the new Harry Potter.
I just want rub the hell out of his belly!!! It’s all I could think when I saw that picture, well, that and “I’m mmmeeellltttiiinnnggg!”
I’m not totally sure because of the distance but I’m pretty sure that hawk is a kestrel (sometimes called sparrow hawks). They won’t eat anything much larger than a mouse. Mostly they eat insects and very small birds.
http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/Infocenter/i3600id.html
I saw Knocked Up. It was pretty cute. Although I’m not a big fan of that girl who plays Izzy on Grey’s Anatomy.
For slicing veggies, I use my KitchenAid food processor. I won it (I was caller number 13) and it took me over a year to actually try to use it.
And I love it. I would marry it but Darren would be jealous. It came with 4mm and 6mm blades (I think), and a shredding blade, plus the whirly-blade thingy, and a smaller whirly-blade and egg beater (basically a plastic version of the whirly blade). I generally use the 4mm blade and will actually slice up all my veggies when I bring them home from the store, pop them in tupperware and they’re ready to go.
Luckily, I have the counter space to keep it out. It came with a fancy plastic box to keep all the blades and stuff in it which stays in the pantry.
As you can see, I could go on for days about my food processor 🙂 I use it for just about all the chopping I do (even hard boiled eggs and meat products).
After I picked it up, I went to Home Outfitters (up here in Canada, that’s a big-box housewares store: kitchen, bedroom and bath) and priced it. The KitchenAids are somewhat pricey: its a $300 unit (Canadian dollars, plus tax which is 6% federal and 7% provincial)
I have a mandoline slicer that I picked up at a resturant supply and I love love love it!
You can buy them almost anywhere, a good one will cost you about 25 bucks.
Easy to use, quick clean up and no storage issues.
I use it so often that I ditched my full sized food processor, and now only have one of the little ones for chopping mass quantities of onions and such.
#1087 Ultimate Mandoline from Pampered Chef looks pretty cool and it’s around $60.00. 🙂 Your going to bring some canned stuff with you to Maine right? :OP
I agree with Tink in on the Mandoline. we have one by OXO and love love love it.
Knocked up was hysterical. I loved it. I’m also looking forward to Live Free. Glad the first hour was good! 🙂
I got the slicer linked below from Amazon and I love it. Mandolin’s can be expensive ($150+) so I thought I’d start with this cheaper version to see if I would like it and use it. I’ve used it many times and see no reason to spend anymore money. Mine had 4 very sharp blade (thick and thin slice, thick and thin julienne). Well worth the $35
http://www.amazon.com/Borner-V-1001-Swissmar-V-Slicer-Plus/dp/B0000632QE/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-5101902-1596033?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1183420091&sr=8-1
Katrina – well, I think you should go see Knocked Up alone, if your man won’t go with you – but tell him that there is plenty of guy-humor in it! (From the same guy who wrote 40-year old virgin.)
This weeks number one reason to have Twitter is to get these messages in my friend queue:
Robyn, you are so funny! I laughed out loud! Seriously!
I loved “Knocked Up”! I think you liked “40-Year-Old Virgin,” right? If so, you’ll enjoy this movie.
You definitely need a canning cupboard and not just because they’re cute as hell. It’s best to store canned goods in a dark place, and a canning cupboard does just that (and looks cute as hell).
Good tip you got on labeling the lids–I can’t tell you how many labels I soaked off before someone clued me in.
I had a mandoline until I came VERY close to losing half my thumb new year’s eve.
My husband is now in charge of cutting his own damned onions (me hates onions) and that stupid mandoline is gone forever. It was not the first time it attacked me without provocation, but this time took 4 hours in the ER, 9 stitches and a hearty prayer. The doctor was quite certain that I would lose about 1/4 of my thumb from the first knuckle up. But I supposeI got lucky. (And I never have to cut onions again! YAY!)
I’d say go with the food processer type if you are in ANY way a wee bit clumsy.
Gina
I also think you should see Knocked Up, even if Fred won’t go. My hubby hardly ever drags his butt to the movies and I either go alone or take my own teeage daughter.
Ratatouille is also extremely good, even if you aren’t usually a cartoon type.
Your canning looks so purty!!!! Good job!
As for ideas for the tomatoes, shish K bobs!!!!!! YUM!!
‘Knocked up’ had me shaking my head at times with it’s crude humor. That said it was an enjoyable movie 🙂 I will watch it again when it hits DVD.
I just bought the Vidalia (as seen on TV!) chopper at Linens-n-Things and I am very happy with it, it’s low tech but it get’s the chopping done. Also I really liked Knocked Up and Waitress – today I am hoping to get the hubby to go see Sicko.
I know you’ve been getting lots of suggestions for things to can, but I can’t help but throw my two cents worth in. I can my own version of Spicy V-8 juice. Just throw all the vegies you like in a pan with lots of tomatoes (it helps if you start the tomatoes first so you’ve got some juice) I don’t even peel the tomatoes – cook it till everything is mush, put it in the blender, then through a food mill to get rid of the seeds and skins. It’s a little thicker than V8 but I love it. I use onions, green peppers, jalapeno peppers, carrots, cabbage, just about any vegie I have on hand. I also add just a bit of salt to each jar. Good stuff maynard!
I LOVE zucchini, but have never had patty pan squash. Not to sound stupid, but how do you cut that up? Do you eat the rind? Thanks!