REFRIGERATOR MAGNETS
Our next-door neighbors went on a fishing trip to Alaska last month and brought us back a magnet as a souvenir, as well as a beautiful piece of salmon. We always ask anybody who is traveling to bring us a magnet so we can put it on our refrigerator door. We collected quite a few ourselves during our truck trip out west in 2007 before we moved. We have so many now that Linda has to rotate them ever so often. Here is a picture of our refrigerator door as it is right now. The new Alaska one is the second from the top left.
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| Some of our magnets |
Here's a picture of two magnets from opposite ends of the US.
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| Alaska (top) and Key West (bottom) |
Out of all the refrigerator magnets that we have, I think this one below is my absolute favorite, for obvious reasons. Linda's sister gave it to us.
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| Sure, why not! |
PEPPER SAUCE UPDATE
On my last blog I was in the process of making some of my jalapeno hot pepper sauce. I just wanted to give you an update and let you know that it came out great, and I actually got to make another batch, too. Here is a picture of the finished product.
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| Yes, it's hot! | | |
BELL PEPPER JELLY
I usually make a recipe of jalapeno jelly every summer, but this year I still had some from last year leftover in the freezer, so I'm not going to make it again. However, I decided to make some
Red Pepper Jelly for Linda, since she doesn't like the hot stuff. I had to use a large red bell pepper that I had bought at the local fruit stand because none of my bell peppers turned red this year. I also used several yellow banana peppers and a few red shishito peppers. None of these are hot peppers. I followed
this recipe from the
Inspired by Charm website. I picked this recipe because it used a little less sugar than other recipes I found. It turned out great and Linda loves it! Jelly is always an iffy thing to make because sometimes it doesn't set right. I made some jalapeno jelly one time a few years ago that turned out to be as hard as a brick. I had to microwave the jars to even get it out of them. I don't know what went wrong that time, but I haven't had a failure like that since then. I am always secretly ecstatic when it comes out right. Here is a picture of the Red Pepper Jelly I made for Linda.
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| Looks like we have a red theme going on here | |
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ZUCCHINI BACON
My zucchini plant has been an true champion this year. I went out and picked four large zucchini yesterday, and already had two on the back porch. It has produced so many zucchini that one of my major quests this summer has been to find recipes to use it all up. My favorite recipe so far has to be
Zucchini Bacon. This is made by thin slicing the zucchini on a mandoline, soaking it in a marinade, and then dehydrating it. I used
this recipe from the website
Cooking the Deals. I mainly went with this recipe because it was posted by a lady from the Facebook dehydrating group that I belong to. It takes about 28 hours to dehydrate, but when it is done it is absolutely delicious! I have done four batches so far. I store it by wrapping several pieces at a time in a sandwich bag and then put the sandwich bags in a freezer bag, which goes into the freezer. It only takes a couple of minutes to thaw out and you have nice, tasty "bacon." Of course, this stuff doesn't taste exactly like real bacon, but it is a nice substitute. And it is crispy enough, like real bacon. Here is the process in pictures, with the final result as I used it several times this week.
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| These 2 large zucchini filled up my dehydrator |
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| Zucchini bacon and tomato sandwich, on white bread with mayo - heaven! |
WINTER SQUASH
Right beside my zucchini plant is my Delicata squash plant, a type of winter squash. These plants do not start producing until fall comes. However, this plant has been the exact opposite of the zucchini as far as production. In its defense, it got a late start because something ate the first plants that came up from the seed I planted. So, I had to plant more seed and wait for those to germinate, which seemed to take forever. I planted the seed in a pot so the plants wouldn't get eaten again, and after the two plants got to be a nice size, I transplanted them into the ground. They never really grew very much from that point on, and a couple of days ago we noticed that one of the plants was dead. It had a small squash on it, so I picked it and brought it in. The other plant has only one squash on it, and it is about twice the size of the one I picked. That isn't saying much, though. Here is a picture of the squash I picked, with a toothpick beside it for size comparison.
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| Pitiful! |
I don't know if I'll be able to eat all that in one sitting...
MULTI-TASKING
It's a good thing I got a lot of training and experience in multi-tasking during my working days because I sure use it now. For instance, today before noon I made a double batch of Zucchini Bacon marinade, sliced a
huge zucchini and let it marinate for an hour, placed it on the dehydrator trays and set it up in the garage. Also during that time I got my smoker going and loaded it up with five Johnsonville Hatch Chili sausages and five Beer Brat sausages. Plus, I mixed up the ingredients for a loaf of Chocolate Zucchini Bread and got that in the oven. And, I mixed up a jar of Jalapeno Vinaigrette salad dressing. I also started working on my blog while I was waiting for the zucchini bread to finish baking. All the while I was washing up dishes to make space for the next thing I was going to do. By the time lunchtime rolled around, I was pooped. While I was doing all this in the kitchen, Linda was out in the garden picking Red Cherry tomatoes and pulling up those plants. That was a big help as we need to get all the plants up before the end of next week. As her reward for being so good to me, she's going to get a nice slice of chocolate zucchini bread this afternoon. The garden is starting to look pretty sad, but despite the late start and all the hazy, smoky days that hampered production, I can be thankful for one thing. We did not have a problem with squash bugs or stink bugs this year. That was such a relief not to have to battle them every day. Here is a picture of the garden now. It looks funny with that huge bare area where the onions, potatoes, and the red cherry tomato plants were.
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| A sad sight |
I know most of you are just wondering what happened with the little Hab (
no?). Well, it is still hanging in there. It actually has four peppers on it, but sadly none of them have turned red. The biggest one still may be able to ripen but I'm not sure. At least it is in a pot so I can move it onto the back porch if we have a freeze in the next couple of weeks. Keep your fingers crossed that it will finally be able to turn red (
so I will quit talking about it). Here is a picture of the biggest pepper on the little Hab. It's about the size of a ping-pong ball.
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| My precious little Hab |
PARTING SHOT
Now for the part of the blog I know you've all been waiting for...the Summer Girl! She is still outside most of the day doing her thing, and we all know her thing is sleeping. Here is a picture that Linda took of her yesterday, after waking her up from a nice nap. I wonder what she's thinking?
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| "Seriously? You woke me up for a picture?" |
That's all for this week, please check back next week for more happenings around this part of the Northwest!
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