WAGS TO RICHES

This past weekend Linda and I attended the annual BBQ & Brew Fundraiser for Wags to Riches, our favorite local pet rescue organization. Our attendance was courtesy of my former employer for the past 10 years, Avail Home Health, who graciously offered us a couple of tickets to attend and sit at their table. We have always enjoyed going to the BBQ & Brew event, although any true Southerner would be disappointed because it is not actual BBQ that is served. Out West, anything that is cooked on a grill is considered "BBQ." But that's a whole other thing back East, and we won't talk about that now. Anyway, we went there Saturday evening and had a great time visiting with some of my former co-workers and enjoying good food and good beer. This year, on each table there were a bunch of painted rocks for people to take and keep or hide around the community. I belong to a group that does this, Yakima Valley Rocks, and I posted about this phenomenon in an earlier blog. Rocks seem to be popping up all over the place! Here is a picture of a couple of the rocks that we "found" on our table at Wags. Thank you, Avail, for enabling us to attend!

Wags to Riches painted rocks

RESULTS OF CHERRY JAM

I promised last week to give the verdict on the Cherry Jam recipe I made. Let me put it like this, it was good, but not up to par to what I used to be able to buy years ago. I believe I put too much pineapple in it because it tasted like Pineapple Jam instead of Cherry Jam. At any rate, it was good enough to put on some pancakes that I made Sunday morning.

See, it even looks like Pineapple Jam!

I was going to include a short video of me using my cherry pitter so you could get a look at how it works, but YouTube is not letting me upload it for some reason.

GARDEN HARVEST

The garden is starting to pick up, although things are at least two weeks behind where they should be. I double checked my journal from this same time last year and we had picked substantially more produce by now than we have this year. But I did get to pick a few things, and I am heartened that my little Hab is doing so well and adding new leaves (I won't bore you with yet another picture of it). I do need to report that I picked, stuffed and grilled my first Tam Jalapeno and man, was it forevermore HOT! The Tam is the plant that is supposed to produce "less hot" jalapenos. I have five of these plants in my garden. I am hoping that maybe this one particular plant may be producing hot ones and the other plants will have mild ones, or else it's because it was the first pepper off that plant. However it turns out, I will be prepared next time I pick one. I also stuffed and grilled an Anaheim pepper, which is supposed to be way hotter than the Tam, but it was not all that hot. I quite enjoyed that one. The Tam pepper just about set me on fire! 

Zucchini, cucumber, tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers

In the picture above (clockwise from upper left) we have a zucchini, some Red Cherry tomatoes and Sun Sugar tomatoes, a couple of Verde Tomatillos, the notorious Tam jalapeno, two Sweet Banana peppers, an Anaheim pepper and a Suyo Long cucumber. We don't have any Lemon cucumbers or Armenian cucumbers yet, nor do we have any Yellow squash. So things are kind of dragging along, but they are starting to come off. The tomato in the picture below will be the first one off of our big tomato plant, the Cherokee Carbon.

We have nicknamed this the "Ballard Tomato" plant after Linda's dad

KITCHEN ESSENTIALS

I don't have a recipe for you today, instead I decided to go over what I consider to be my list of "must-have" kitchen essentials. First is a little gadget that I got in my stocking for Christmas. It was only a dollar or two, but I have found it to be worth it's weight in gold. If you do any canning, "putting up" of produce or making jelly, you need one of these. It's a wide-mouth funnel. I don't know why I didn't have one of these years ago! Trust me, it saves a lot on clean-up.

Wide-mouth funnel

Next on my list is something I got for my birthday, a counter-top spiralizer. I had one of those little hand-held jobs but I was always cutting my finger half off when I used it, so I wanted a bigger one. Thank you to the Clouse Family for coming to the rescue! This is the Cadillac of spiralizers, with five separate blades to choose from. I have used it many times already and our favorite thing to do is spiralize a potato and then cook it on the grill in a cast-iron fry pan with a minimal amount of oil. Voila, guilt-free curly-cue fries!

Briefton's Five-Blade Spiralizer

Another new gadget that I think is indispensable in the kitchen is a blender. I had one years ago but got rid of it because I got a food processor, thinking it would replace the blender. But that isn't entirely true because a food processor (or at least, the one I have) will not crush ice. I have been craving some nice frozen cocktails this summer, so when Linda's sister gave me a gift card to Bed, Bath and Beyond for my birthday, I knew exactly what I wanted to get with it. I am looking forward to a Frozen Gin Tonic this weekend. If it turns out any good, I will give you the recipe next week.

My new blender

I have many more favorite kitchen gadgets (like the cherry pitter, salad spinner, etc.), but the ones above are my newest obsessions. What do you have in your kitchen that you couldn't do without?

RESCUING A PLANT

This time of year when we go to the grocery store, we always like to walk around the Garden Center to see if they have any good perennial plants in the mark-down section. This week when we went Linda found a nice little Rudbeckia plant. When we got home, we discovered that we got a bonus along with the plant. Can you see it in the picture below?

Something is lurking on our plant

PARTING SHOT

I did have a sweet little video of Summer Girl watching the birds out our front window. However, YouTube is still not letting me upload my videos, so you will have to be content with just a picture of her in her bird-watching spot...but not watching any at the moment.

Excuse the boxes, we are storing them for someone!

That's all for this week, check back next week for more from the Southerner in the Northwest!