Saturday, November 17, 2012

Saturday Morning

Good Saturday  Morning Everyone,

Well, I am up, and am waiting to get to the church where I pick up my Prairie Paks grocery items.  I am so glad, as its early this time because of the Thanksgiving Holiday here in the States.  I am glad as my fresh produce is running very low.  Since I do meals for my parents, usually on the weekends, I have dipped into it more, so I am now going to purchase maybe one or two more paks for December.  This is really the only way I can provide grocery for the household.  Since the garden is finished til spring, and the price of produce is out of the roof here, I do not buy. I may buy some mushrooms and a little splurge item, but I really try to stick to my not buying anything out of season.  Anyway, the produce is very poor quality.  I went yesterday to pickup some potatoes, both whites, and reds, and the 10# bag of reds were some of the worse I had ever seen, and on top of it, which really pissed me off, was the fact that a lot of the potatoes, especially in the middle, where generally people don't look, they were rotten and mushy.  Being in the mood I was in, I caught the produce lady and showed this to her, and she just shrugged her shoulders and said, "that's what we have to offer" and gave me a deer-in-the-headlights-look and walked off. So, next year, I am going to definitely experiment with potatoes in my ghetto buckets, and try the fingerling's, and maybe some different varieties for these 20quart blue buckets I use. I am also going full steam however I have to  start my mushroom beds under my porch.  I am now declaring war on poor expensive produce in the market, take that CH Robinson.

I am watching my spending and voting with my dollars, like everyone else is.  We have problems here which I am sure that everyone else may have with very poor quality produce and products. We are not blessed with a year round farmers market, which I wish we had, but its just not feasible with winter.   I will not buy produce from Wally, I do get my bulk staples like flour and sugar from there as we do not have any place to buy that, I have no Aldi's or Costco, or anything else even close to me.  I get my meat from a small locker in a village about 50 miles from me here, and that is covered.  I think that soon, you will see a more turn to voting with dollars than ever before. I see it in the grocery, and watch people buying and what they put in their carts, and they are buying with dollars that are spent wisely. Not everyone, but a lot.  I seen the ones who do not cook, or are on food stamps, they buy the boxed processed crap and load up with pop and energy drinks, which I absolutely will not touch.  And when they check out, I almost fall over because of the price. Oh, well.

There really isn't anything to talk about or mention.  Its the blah time here, no garden, no flowers, very drap and dreary in the yard.  People are not outside.  We still have issues with stealing gas, and stealing things that are not strapped down.  The last few nights, the animals have been restless, and I had one of my cat's growlng at the window, which they only do when someone is walking by or around the house.  I do not know what the park owner is doing with the cesspool park here.  The sale did fall through, and my assessor told me that he was totally bent out of shape about that.  Duh....moron doesn't know that you cannot sell anything without papers, and titles, and bills of sale.  This should give you a vision of what kind of man he is. Idiot is a better word.
There is no rain yet.  We are so, so dry.  I am very worried about the farmland and our gardens if this doesn't change soon.

I have got so much housework to do, right at the moment, I am trying to find room for my prairie paks in the frig.  I also went over to my folk's home yeserday, and got some pork shoulder sausage we had a year or so ago.  At the time, we had it done in large brat links, but now I wished I just had it ground and packaged in 1# packages.  So I am just slitting them and then mixing my spices in with the Kitchen Aid mixer, and then I need to go and find a patty maker.  We like them a little more uniform in size, so I am just letting everything sit to marry the spices together in the frig, and then I will make patties and then drag out my vacuum sealer and do serving size patties. I made D hot and spicy and then I made some mild sage.   I still have so much in that freezer, so next week, I am taking quite a bit to the homeless shelter, and the Salvation Army food pantry and sharing.   We just cannot eat what we had processed.  The pork that we had this made from was from an overload D took to California.  There were two huge whole pork shoulders, and when D was ready to close the doors, the warehouse told D that they were throwing away the meat, for no reason, it was an overload, so D asked if he could buy them, and the warehouse foreman gave them to him, no questions asked.  I could not believe that they throw away perfectly good meat because of overload on an order.  Don't get me started on this waste subject, as I don't want to rant today.

Well, I had better get going, and go find my patty maker, and then get this done. 
I wish everyone a wonderful weekend, stay warm or cool, where ever you are.  I will see if I can find a good article to share from Countryside Magazine.
Take care,
Hugs

Monday, November 12, 2012

A very late Veterans Day Salute

This is a very late tribute to Veterans Day.  So I am posting this morning to give my salute to all vets, past, present, and future. I salute you.
I was going to post yesterday, but I was having really bad issues with our Internet service here.  It was on and off, and then I had technical issues that involved my being on the phone for about and hour and a half with my service provider trying to get my account and email issues figured out and fixed.  You would think that these companies who provide service would know something about their technical issues, but unfortunately, I had to go through three people before the fourth was able to finally fix my problem.  We were not sure if someone hacked into the account, and probably never know, but its fixed. But for how long, I am not sure.
So, anyway, I just thought I would pop in and give my salute to all vets.
Have a wonderful week
Hugs

Friday, November 9, 2012

Fixed a blogger problem

I just wanted to post that I think that I fixed the comment box.  I have no idea what happened, but I think that the box is back on.  Go figure....
Thank you for the emails notifying me of the glitch.
I just looked at the updated weather, and we get a little snowy here.  Again, I'm not going to hold my breath until I actually see something :{-)
I will try to post something from the Countryside Magazine for you over the weekend.
Hugs to All

AWOL

Good  Morning everyone!


I apologise for being away from blogging.  I haven't actually be "away" *I wish* I could disappear for a while, but alas, all of the problems, and chores would still be here. I have been visiting all of your blogs and keeping up with all. 
I have been working around the house, just doing house things.  Trying to clean up the rest of the outside and put mowers, and tools up and away. Also, parent care.  Wrapping the porch up in my ugly white tarp to keep the cold wind and air out a little.  It isn't pretty but gets the job done until I can get a more sturdy shutter system up.
I have not felt real good the last few weeks also.  I have a terrible ear infection, from a bad wind storm we had here a few weeks ago, and it blew something in and I and several cats have been ill from upper respiratory infections. I have a doctor's appointment this morning, so hopefully I can get something to calm it down. My ears and jaw hurt really bad and its very painful to bend over to pick up things. I am so very stuffed up.  So I have been running the cool mist humidifiers and trying to keep the air moist.  Its so very dry here. Still no rain, or moisture of any kind since I wrote last.  We are *supposed* to get some snow tomorrow. This will be our first real cold Arctic air, so I got the furnace filters changed and vacuumed out the furnace. Everything else is pretty much done and put to bed until spring.

I have mentioned that I have been playing around with wine making.  I have made several rounds of wine. My very first batch was a kind of Sangria, which I like.  I personally thought it turned out fantastic for my first time around.  I thought it tasted so very much better than what I got at the liquor store.  I will tell you that it does have a alcohol content as it does have a *kick*, but I was very pleased with it.
I have two 1 gallon jugs going with a grape juice and wine yeast, and another with a apple, cherry raspberry juice with champagne yeast.  I am experimenting with different yeasts as it gives a different wine. (I'm learning).  I need to get some bottles, which I have some, some recycled coffee syrup bottles, the 750 ml size.  I just need to wash, sanitize, and then rack my wine up.  I want to start another batch of Sangria and also a white or rose. What I am using is just the frozen juice you get in the store.  I get the canister which has no added sugar and then go from there.  As I can afford to do, I will try the fruit mixtures the brewing company I buy from.  Oh, and by the way, I am ordering from Midwest Supplies Co. in Minneapolis, www.midwestsupplies.com  I also am ordering some kits for making a fermented fruit brandy.  This is for some holiday gifts for my house neighbors.  I need to start soon as it takes about 3-4 weeks for this to ferment and be bottled up in time for the holiday.
  I am very pleased with their service and have had no problems getting things in the mail. They even have yogurt cultures which I have ordered and have used and I am VERY pleased the way my yogurt has turned out.  I love creamy rich yogurts, and not low fat ones either.  I use whole milk, and evaporated milk,  so since I have used these cultures, they are creamy and rich and very nice in the morning for breakfast. They also carry cheese making supplies and brewing supplies for beer, if this is your bag.  I highly recommend them., so far. I will try to post what I am doing with this.  I do want to let everyone know that it is very simple to do, and you do not need complicated equipment, just some gallon glass jugs, and a few CO2 vents to vent off the gas so you do not explode your jugs. Sugar, yeast *I first used just regular bread yeast*  and a warm place and you are off and running.

This year, I am doing all homemade holiday gifts, mostly food gifts.  I just do not have money for gifts, and personally, I do not have family to give expensive gifts to anyway.  D's family was one of those, which you had to spend huge amounts of money on to show how much you loved them, the more money spent, the more you were appreciated.  I did not fall into this trap and stopped it right off the bat.  You also had to buy gifts for the nieces and nephews and other shirt tail relatives, which I did not do, as I did not have the money to do this.  So I stopped it, and was considered the *outlaw* in the family and was shunned ever since, which as you can tell, doesn't hurt my feelings or bother me. I love gifts that are from the heart, and from the soul.  So, I am going to start here very soon on food, and then freeze it so its ready when the holidays come around.

I have photos of  Dexter and Sophie.  I am still trying to figure out the new blogger interface and will get those up, I am just afraid that I will mess up and delete the blog into the cosmos and Internet purgatory.
I also have some photos of the jams I did put up, so I will try to get to that this weekend.  I need to dig through my very old recipes for a blogger I have met, and send her a recipe for *scrapple*.  This is a very old recipe from the Penn-Dutch, Amish colonies.  My grandmother made it and I have grown up on it when I was younger.  It is a mixture of ground  pork, and spices, and then mixed with corn meal and made into loafs and then baked and  can be fried.  The mixtures are as many as the stars, and can be mixed with, pork, chicken, turkey lamb,  or beef.  When I find this basic recipe, I will post it, and then make suggestions.  It sounds gross, it does take some to get used to it,  but its not.  Just think meatloaf.  It is very filling and makes a great breakfast or lunch fixing with stews or soups.  It also can be crumbled up into a casserole and baked with veggies, or noodles.  It is a great filler.

Well, I am looking at the clock, and I need to get ready and head to the doctor's office so I can be looked at and see if I can get this ear ache and infection out of the way.  It makes me feel miserable and not able to get what I need done.  But I hate going to the doctor anyway.  Not one of my favorite places.

I wish everyone a wonderful day, and a wonderful productive weekend.  Stay warm, and just be so very thankful for your many blessings and gifts that we are given, no matter how small, or simple.

Hugs to all