
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Weekend Successful

Thursday, November 26, 2009
Thanksgiving Dinner


Q paid me one of the nicest compliments I've ever received as he ate tonight. He said that over the last couple of months my cooking has gotten to a whole other level. That it was always good but now it's really great. I guess I'll keep cooking for him. :)
Besides all the big things I have to be thankful for I was especially grateful for living in such a fertile state today. The Thanksgiving dinner ingredient roll call...
Turkey, potatoes, onions - Culp Creek, OR (40 miles) (biodynamic)
Cranberries - Bandon, OR (130 miles) (organic)
Celery - front yard (harvested just before cooking)
Sage, thyme, bread, salt, sugar - who knows
*** I know I could have made the bread from local ingredients and gotten the spices local but there's no need to be pedantic, is there? ***
I realized we're really getting a lot better on the local eating front. Tuesday's Beef Stew was made with local beef, beef stock (from scratch), turnips, rutabagas, carrots, rosemary, and red wine. Only the salt and thickening cornstarch were imports. Wednesday was chanterelle's in white wine sauce over egg noodles. Noodles were imported, everything else (except the salt) was local.
Tonight I made the marshmallows for tomorrow's salad. I ran out of corn syrup a while ago and didn't want to buy more so I used a substitute recipe. I think it worked although I don't think the sugar completely dissolved. This may be because I made a 1/3 recipe of the syrup and then directly added the marshmallow ingredients while it was still hot. Maybe make the syrup ahead of time, cool it and then make the marshmallows? Eh, the sample I took is good enough for me, only a tiny hint of crystals. Cranberry salad will be local cranberries, walnuts, and cream; homemade marshmallows from imported sugar; and pineapple from Hawaii. Some holiday traditions are just required though.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Pear Cider
Update, Thursday night: Okay, no pictures but we it ended up making 10 full bottles of cider plus a little bit. We'll see how it tastes in a couple of days.
The pear cider is almost bottled, pictures going up tomorrow but I wanted to get the nitty gritty details down tonight. It started at a 1.073 before fermentation. It was down to a 1.000 after. I added 2 c. of sugar to the must to bring it to 1.021 tonight, which suited our tastebuds. After crushing two campden tablets and dissolving them in a little juice we added them to the mixture and are letting it sit overnight before bottling. Better to have flat cider than the potentially explosive (even refrigerated) product from last time. The flavor seems good. Bottling will be a fun activity tomorrow morning while the turkey bakes.
The pear cider is almost bottled, pictures going up tomorrow but I wanted to get the nitty gritty details down tonight. It started at a 1.073 before fermentation. It was down to a 1.000 after. I added 2 c. of sugar to the must to bring it to 1.021 tonight, which suited our tastebuds. After crushing two campden tablets and dissolving them in a little juice we added them to the mixture and are letting it sit overnight before bottling. Better to have flat cider than the potentially explosive (even refrigerated) product from last time. The flavor seems good. Bottling will be a fun activity tomorrow morning while the turkey bakes.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Turkeys and Soup - It Must Be November


I really liked dressing them. It's interesting to see all of the different organs and demystify where meat comes from. We now have an 18 pound turkey sitting in the fridge ready to be roasted for Thanksgiving. Hopefully, I'll get a good picture of the final product.





Wednesday, November 18, 2009
New Hat Designs
I just finished my first hat using the owl pattern I created. I finished while I was in Grand Junction and Mama was kind enough to model. I also go an adorable picture of her smiling at me in it but I only got it by promising I wouldn't post it - so this is all the blog gets.
Q just did a modeling session for my new Space Invaders Bold. The one showing off the hat is posted on Etsy. The one showing off my dear husband gets posted here.


Monday, November 16, 2009
Pumpkin Soup



I was very lucky while I was there and got to see a beautiful light snow storm - big fluffy flakes that fell just long enough to leave everything covered in a sparkling white layer. What a treat.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
The Pumpkins
Apples are amazing. Here are the 4 green pumpkins we sealed in a box full of apples for a couple of weeks (can't even tell which is the one that came off the vine orange can you?)...
Hmmm....maybe ordering that turkey wasn't such a good idea since Q and I should have an exclusively pumpkin based dinner apparently. After all, the pumpkins above are in addition to the 6 c. cooked I already have in the freezer.
After the new windows were installed we rearranged the living room. It is better in every way.


After the new windows were installed we rearranged the living room. It is better in every way.


Friday, November 6, 2009
What's He Doing?

On a totally unrelated topic, I used the green pumpkin. I followed a deep dish apple pie filling recipe, substituting thinly sliced green pumpkin for the apples, and baked it, covered, in an 8"x8" pan for about an hour at 350F. It turned out very yummy, especially topped with whipped cream.
Monday, November 2, 2009
The Driveway is Empty

Where it went...
- A large amount got moved in below the front window (visible below) for next year's asparagus bed, which requires deep soil. There's so much fill rock there that it was way way easier to just build up a bed.
- To the left of the driveway, there has been a challenging weed patch on a thin layer of soil over rock, so hopefully the cardboard/dirt combo will take care of that.
- The irises on the right of the driveway have been way overgrown for a very long time (since even before we moved here 5 years ago). I knew grass had invaded them, lurking there. The grass used this stronghold to mount an attack on the new corn/bean/squash bed this summer, which means it was time to fight back. All the dead iris got pulled but there was such a mass of root that I couldn't even begin to weed out the grass from it. Scorched earth became the new tactic. If the iris survives this harsh treatment, good for it. If not, too bad, new things will be planted there. That soil should get moved over in bits this spring to the other end of that bed, where we're putting in a potato box.
In a true me-like moment, the reason the dirt getting moved made top priority is because I'm hoping to get the City to deliver 7 cubic yards (the only size available) of dead leaves on our driveway. Grass and weeds are in several places where they have no business being and hopefully sitting under a foot and a half of leaves all winter will kill them dead dead dead. Anything that hasn't disintegrated into nothingness by the end of the winter gets thrown into the compost bin and it's a win from every angle.
Due to the time sensitive nature of this endeavor and the relative lightness of leaves, I'm anticipating that the leaf pile will get much more quickly dealt with. After that, I'm considering pressure-washing the driveway to discourage any more hare-brained schemes for a while.
Once the leaf mulch gets put down the garden will officially be put to bed for the season and I'll just keep occasionally checking my three winter beds, ready to throw protection over them if a serious frost is expected.

On Halloween Day, I pulled out the last of the vines and brought in my last 6 pumpkins. (I'd harvested 3 before.)
One was ripe - stuffed pumpkin or pumpkin soup in its own shell for dinner later this week? One was irrevocably green. I found recipes online that suggested paring it, slicing it thin and baking it like you would apple pie. I will report that experiment's results when it is completed.
Four were not quite ripe. The handy internet suggested placing them in a bag with apples. Apparently, the apples release ethylene gas, which will ripen the pumpkins to orange. It warns about less flavorful pumpkin but that's what nutmeg and ginger are for, right? Another experiment that I will report on when I learn the results. Pumpkins are currently locked in a box surrounded by Jonagold and Golden Delicious apples from Thistledown.
We siphoned the pear cider off into the other carboy on Saturday. It seems like it's going to end up tasty. A little weird right now but the apple was also not as fantastic when it was totally fresh. We're letting it sit a bit longer to clarify and then we'll probably add more sugar to get it nice and sweet like I like it, used Campden tablets to kill the yeast, then bottle it.
The last bottle of the apple cider was drunk on Halloween night. It was very bubbly and very alcoholic. Fermentation had continued quite nicely, even in the fridge. I know it's desirable to have it a bit bubbly but I'd like a product that can age for a few weeks at room temperature in its bottles this time, even if that sacrifices sparkle.
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