Waste Not, Want Not

 Cranberry-Orange Relish - yummy

    
     This past Thanksgiving I made a cranberry-orange-nut relish that I used to make many, many moons ago.  For some reason, I hadn't made it for several years, but thought of it this year. It was every bit as good as I remembered it... It was a hit.  Moshe is using up the leftovers by eating it over vanilla icecream, which got me to thinking... maybe I should make another batch of it and can it... So, that is exactly what I did this afternoon.  And, while I was cooking and canning,  poor Moshe was outdoors (in intermittent rain and constant cold), cutting and stacking more firewood, and restocking the indoor supply of wood for the pot-belly stove.
     And, I got to thinking, we are certainly not experiencing any real hardship in our lifestyle.  Oh, some people might think we are, but we sure don't.  What we ARE is frugal, prudent, ever looking forward.  We  try not to waste anything. 
     One example:  We save all our chicken and turkey bones, skin, grizzle, etc.  We keep throwing them into a gallon-sized zip-lock bag until it's full; then, I cook them with a few cups of water in the pressure cooker.  Once they are cooked, I grind them either in the blender or the cuisinart, and they become an excellent additive for Moxie's dogfood (which we also make!)

...later on we'll conspire.... as we dream by the fire....

 Another example is saving anything paper to use as kindling.  Although this might sound like a "no-brainer", you'd be surprised how much you're accustomed to throwing away.    I still forget sometimes, and poor Moshe "rescues" the stuff I throw away and adds it to the burn box. There's no reason to throw away a paper towel, unless it is REALLY yucky - most anything on it will burn well.  And, how 'bout the cardboard core from TP and PT?  (Toilet paper and paper towels).  Empty pasta boxes. Junk mail!!! Even the ashes from the woodstove are carried out in the bucket and added to garden spots.

      We save all our eggshells... Some are added to the compost pile (several blogs could be written just on the subject of composting;   My hubby, Moshe,  has written about this subject on his blog, aptly named,  thecompostfiles.blogspot.com  )   We place the rest of our eggshells in the gas oven and let the pilot light dry them until they're real brittle;  then, we grind them in a spare coffee grinder.  This also becomes a calcium-rich food additive for the animals.  Ha!  Eggshells... they're not just for breakfast anymore!  We have discovered that when we harvest any type of vegetables or herbs, that the parts we previously would've put in the compost  can be diced up small, and the chickens absolutely love it!  They also love potato peels, carrot peels, apple peels, etc. diced up the same way. ( One day Moshe said that the chickens are just pigs with feathers!)
     There are, of course, many other items to recycle, reuse, rethink.  Waste not, want not/ back to basics is  the good life.
                Shalom Y'all - Twyla

Twyla's Pear Delight

     A couple days ago I said I was going to prep, cook, and can the pears we bought last Friday.   Well, I did just that - right on schedule, too.  But, I never followed up with the recipe as promised. So, here it is:

Pear Delight on Moshe's homemade bread!

                 Twyla's Pear Delight
         (named by my hubby, Moshe)
                  7 pounds fresh pears
                  1 Orange
                  2 Cups Raisins
                  1 Cup Goji Berries
                  6 Cups sugar
              1 and1/2Tablespoons each:   Cinnamon,       
 Nutmeg, Cloves,  and Allspice
                   1 and 1/2 teaspoons Ginger
                   1 Cup Vinegar

     Preheat oven to 200 or 250 degrees;  place jars in oven to heat while making the pear mixture.  (This is THE  BEST  WAY to have your jars nice and hot for canning!)  Also, start heating your water  in your canner so that it is ready for water-bath canning when you need it.
     Wash pears. Cut into quarters and remove cores and any bad spots. Cut orange into quarters. Process all of this in food processor; place in large cooking pot.  Add all remaining ingredients.  Cook on medium heat, allow to come to boil, then simmer for forty minutes.
      Fill hot jars with boiling pear mixture; apply lids; and, process in boiling water bath for 25 minutes.
      Makes  approx. 8 pints.

Close-up of Fabulous bread w Pear Delight

  Shalom,
           Y'all -
                 
                    Twyla

Canning Planning

     Whew! I feel almost completely human today - almost completely over my cold and eye infection.  Still need to take the antibiotic eyedrops a couple more days, and go back to the doctor Tuesday. Eye infections are not something to mess around with! 
     Haven't had much to say the past few days.  Haven't done a whole lot, either.  Sometimes I think a cold is the worst kind of illness.  You just don't feel good enough to do anything other than the very basics.  Then, when you start feeling better, there's a lot of catching up to do. Today I caught up on the laundry, cleaned the kitchen real good, and did all the floors - sweeping, mopping, vacuuming.  Tomorrow I hope to catch up on  food prep.

a few jars of Summer's bounty

      Which brings me to todays' topic: planning canning/ canning planning.  I have all the jars and the ingredients lined up on the breakfast room table, ready to make some wonderful minced pear relish tomorrow.  I made a batch of it about a month ago, and it was dee-lish!! I've been looking for more pears ever since... finally found  a few more pounds of them a couple days ago, so will make it, can it, label it, and shelf it in the morning.  Now, I'm not talking about the pears you buy in the grocery store. I don't want 'em sprayed with pesticides, and  waxed to prevent bruising.  Not driven across the country and stored  for weeks before arriving in the store. No.  I'm talking about locally-grown, organic, IMPERFECT pears... the kind that make PERFECTLY delicious preserves.   Maybe tomorrow I'll share the recipe and  some photos.  This recipe is so good it'll make you wanna' slap your Mamma!
                                         Shalom Y'all - Twyla
   

The Sisters of Sarcasm

      Well, it's not that I really wanted the title... I earned it!
     Once upon a time, there were three women who all happened to enter nursing school at the same time.  They met in the back row of nusring 101, which was held in the auditorium.  Much of the early lectures was so basic as to nearly bring tears of boredom...one dark comment led to another, and the three of us became sisters.  Sisters in womanhood. Sisters in the fight to stay sane going to college in our thirties while surrounded by giggling girls just out of highschool.  Sisters in the  high form of humor known as sarcasm.  Not the HURTING kind, mind you... the intelligent kind of sarcastic humor... the kind that requires a knowledge of grammar, syntax, even spelling.  To be a sister of sarcasm, you also had to be a pro at puns.  And, like the stand-up comics, timing was everything.
     For example,  we took Anatomy and Physiology over the Summer;  this was the full course, usually lasting  three months,  crammed into six weeks.  To pass this class, you had to live, breathe, and eat Anatomy and Physiology for those six weeks.  There were four hours of lecture five days a week, plus lab time, which was when the REAL learning went on!   Being a cat lover all my life, I was absolutely mortified to open the drawer in the "morgue" and find that the subject of our dissection was feline!  Our threesome, the sisters of sarcasm, drew straws to see who would have "the honors" of doing the initial removal of fur, skin and fascia. Ugh.  Needless to say, I drew the short straw...
     Let me tell you, removing any sort of fur or skin which has been soaking in formaldehyde for a year or so is difficult!  Yucky. Smelly.  Even though we wore gloves, I had that formaldehyde odor stuck in my nostrils and in my hands the entire six weeks! I lost thirty pounds!!!  Maybe I should try it again sometime soon... (See, that was a bit of sarcasm, yes?)
     But, I digress. The three of us were lab "partners".  Yes, I know, partners implies two, but, there were three nontheless.  As I mentioned above, I was the one who removed all the outer stuff. revealing muscles, tendons, nerves, organs, and veins and arteries which had been injected with blue and red latex dyes so that they would show up. All the body systems were displayed before us.  Then, our instructor walked over, saw that the poor ol' cat had a big tumor on its bladder and declared that we would have to start over... the cat cadaver wasn't "safe" for us to work on, and would have to be incinerated.

I'll bet these cat owners wanted to incinerate them!

    
Oh, man!  Now, we had to do all the preliminary work over again!  And, this setback put us behind the other students.  Once again, we drew straws to see who would have to do the dirty work.  And, once again, I drew the short straw.  Disgusted, I dove into the project. Quickly this time.  No "Poor Kitty... I wonder if it was somebody's pet."  Just cut, tear, rip, cut, pull... well, you get the idea.  I got our second cat stripped in about one-tenth the time it took to do the first one.  The instructor came over for inspection, and said, " Well, Twyla, what have you learned so far?"  Deadpan, I replied, "There's more than one way to skin a cat."

       Okay, so I'm actually the Queen of Sarcasm.  I can't seem to help myself.  Puns, jokes, song lyrics, nicknames, rhymes, and odd little plays on words run through my movie screen all the time.  It's not that I WANT to be a smart***;  it just seems to be who I am!

You didn't really think I'd show a picture of me in the shower...

       Some people provide more fodder for this type of humor than others.  Enter Moshe... He walks into it on an almost constant basis.  For example, this morning  I was in the bathroom taking a shower.  Moshe walks in, and says, "Hey,  are you taking a shower?"  My reply, "No, I'm just in here checking to see if the water's working."  One day a couple months ago, I was in the kitchen.  I had the big pressure cooker going, two or three big pots cooking on the stove, canning jars everywhere... It's 90+ degrees in the kitchen, and I'm soaking wet from work, heat, and humidity.  Moshe walks in the back door and says, "Are you hot?"
Reply, "No. I LIKE looking like this. Oh, and feeling like this, too."


The Queen, wearing her crown...
                    


      Fortunately, Moshe always laughs. Well, almost always...  One time we were having a loud discussion - y'know what I mean?  Okay, we were arguing!  I don't remember at all what about.   I had gone to bed on the sofa.  Uh-oh!  In the middle of the night a naked Moshe came out to the living room to try to make ammends.I said something not-nice, and Moshe said,  "Well, I guess you think you wear the pants in this house."   My reply, "Well, I'm the only one wearing any."  He didn't laugh that time.


Shalom Y'all - Twyla

Busy, but Blessed

One of my watercolors...

     Wow.  I can hardly believe it's Thursday already.  Where did the time go?
     Okay; Tuesday was my birthday, and I was gone almost all day.  Among other things, Moshe and I went out for a late lunch.  We went to a wonderful local restaurant.  Even though we live up in the mountains, "ten miles from nowhere", there is a REAL restaurant in our little town, with a REAL chef, and REAL food - everything made on location.  Wonderful. We savored every bite and every moment. We even brought home a doggie bag for Moxie and salad greens for the chickens.
     Wednesday was a trip to the Farmer's Market.  It's about a thirty-minute drive one way.  We purchased more apples, sorghum syrup, and Jerusalem artichokes.  On the way home we stopped at a roadside stand "to get an onion", and came home with a fifty pound bag of them.  I also have a big basket of local pears that a neighbor gave us over the weekend...
     Soooo... today is definitely a food prep/canning/drying/freezing kind of day. I'm going to plug in the portable CD player and sing along as I work.  Moshe has a big list of chores, too. Lots of projects for building more storage shelves, fixing a leaky toilet valve, finishing the shelves for our dehydrator.  Life is always busy and interesting around here.
     I have the best husband in the world. Are we perfect? No. Absolutley not. But, we are a great team. When we have a problem, we talk it out, work it out. We are committed to each other. As Moshe said yesterday, "We have our problems just like everyone else, but, I took my wedding vows seriously."
     Busy but blessed.  That's me.
                                                         Shalom y'all - Twyla

Moshe & Me... dressed up silly for a birthday party

Rapunzel Nightshade

   This is one of our last bell peppers for the season. Wow, have we been blessed with a prolific garden.  Every item we planted has provided us with far more than we dreamt.  God is like that - giving us more than we can imagine, if only we allow Him to...  (Take the seed, plant it in good soil, water it with The Word, keep it away from rocky areas, weeds, and varmints....)
     Moshe and I will miss the fresh vegetables. But, once cool weather sets in,  we'll crave soups and stews and hot casseroles.  Then  we will be reminded of our wonderful harvest and rewarded for the many hours of canning, freezing, and drying fruits and vegetables.  We are looking forward to homemade spaghetti sauce, using our own marinara sauce, canned tomatoes, frozen zuchinni, dried onions and garlic - even our own dried hot pepper, basil, and oregano.
     We are blessed, blessed, blessed!
     As you can see from this picture  this little bell pepper didn't form exactly right. Somehow it "folded itself upon itself". It also was much smaller than all the other peppers.  If I were a little runt of a deformed pepper,  someone might not want me, might discard me as useless, imperfect,  not good enough.  I might feel really bad about myself...  But, wait...
   
                                                                          Flip me over...
                                                                     

   

Add a couple of cloves for eyes...

And some shredded carrot for hair... and, I become Rapunzel Nightshade - the happiest bell pepper in town. 

I know... sometimes I'm just goofy... Bet it made you smile, though!

Shalom y'all,     Twyla