Saturday, May 19, 2018
Today I learned that it is not wise to wear crock type footwear on chilly rainy days. Puddles in parking lots, when the temperature is hovering around 10C, are just waiting for the unsuspecting Crock wearer. I will not be a Crock wearer on another such day, nor will I be unsuspecting.
Tonight supper consisted of leftover homemade pizza, and seedless grapes for dessert. I love fast food pizza, ordered and pickup up, but only on the first day. It looses its appeal when reheated. Homemade pizza is good the first night, and just as good the second or third night. The real bonus for me is is that homemade pizza crust contains no sodium, so that a few slices of pizza won’t put me into sodium overload. Although I love it, I don’t put pepperoni on pizza, it is too high sodium. I do like a bit of low-sodium bacon cooked and crumbled on my homemade pizza, with sweet onions, sweet peppers, and mushrooms. I use my homemade Red Pepper Sauce as well, no sodium in that. The cheese, well, it is the cheese I have to watch, high in sodium, and in cholesterol. The biggest drawback to homemade pizza is that I have to make it, but then, so far Attila is willing participant in pizza construction, so it isn’t so bad at all.
Sunday, May 20, 2018
Well, I started this entry yesterday and got distracted. It didn’t take much to distract me either. Attila was going to the garden centre to spend a $20 gift certificate he received, so I decided to go with him. Today he will plant the tomatoes, peppers, and rosemary. The compost toilets at the Rideau Camp use peat moss, so a good supply was purchased for the 2018 season. It was raining the during the entire visit to the garden centre, which was only partially sheltered. I wore a parka and heavy winter boots, which allowed me to remain comfortable while I wandered about. It is lovely to spend time around growing things… the labels are a big bonus, suddenly I know what I am looking at.
I have had Food Mills recommended to me numerous times. I recently found a relatively good quality one on sale, a Cuisinart Food Mill. It arrived this past week. I tried it for the first time last night. Attila had unearthed yet another bag of vintage whole tomatoes from the freezer. I removed the stem and ends, popped them frozen and whole into a large soup pot, then heated them up until they were thawed and warm. They were drained, ladled into the food mill, and in about 20 minutes a lovely tomato sauce was extracted. Two 500 ml jars of tomato sauce are labelled and in the freezer.
Who knew!! I am in love with the Food Mill. It is so easy, I wonder at the decades I’ve lived without it. How did I do that? I wish I had listened to all of you who told me about the Food Mill quite a while ago!
The skins and seeds were left in the food mill. I scraped them onto a piece of waxed paper, spread them thin, and place the waxed paper on the cooking rack. I am hoping to place the dried skin and seeds in the blender to create a powder for flavouring. The results may or may not be satisfactory.
The clean up was super easy.
Inspired by last night’s success in the kitchen, pre-dawn found me in back there, beginning preparations for my complete protein Vegetable Soup. I was happily chopping vegetables, sautéing the beef and onions, grabbing the bits of this and that that I had saved over the last week, adding them to the soup pot, when Attila rose with the sun.
Attila is planting his garden today. I watch. I occasionally offer input, but never criticism. Breakfast on the back porch consisted of a toasted bagel, and a banana smoothie. Funny how how food tastes even better when you are watching someone else work! But really, Attila is playing, not working, he enjoys gardening so much.
Well, here it is, almost noon, and I am still sitting in my pyjamas; quite comfortably I might add.
I think I’ll get dressed now, and go wander in the garden, see if Attila wants any help.
Worldly Distractions
Weather
18°C
Date: 11:00 AM EDT Sunday 20 May 2018
Condition: Mostly Cloudy
Pressure: 101.5 kPa
Tendency: Rising
Temperature: 18.4°C
Dew point: 12.6°C
Humidity: 69%
Wind: NNW 21 gust 32 km/h
Visibility: 24 km
Quote
“The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.”
Thomas Carlyle
1795 – 1881
One of my treasured–and used–possessions is my mother’s Foley food mill. It doesn’t have any of the fancy choices available on the current ones, but I’ve been using it for tomato sauce and apple sauce for years.
To make the apple sauce, I wash, core and quarter the apples, cook them down until they’re mushy and the skin is starting to separate from the pulp, and them run them through the food mill. The cooking takes 4 hours or so, depending on the size of the pot, but turning the pot contents into sauce and doing the clean-up only takes about half an hour–and that’s with the really big pots.
Wendy, I’m sure you mentioned that Foley Food Mill here before! I think it was when I was turning a bushel of apples into applesauce, when we lived at the country house. I had never used a food mill before, but my Mom did have a cone type strainer, that she used to separate grape skins and seeds, to make grape jelly. How wonderful that you have your mother’s food mill!
Thanks for the details on how to make applesauce using the food mill. I see a very busy autumn for me, making tomato sauce and applesauce!
You people are making me hungry!
We were at the cottage for the long weekend. It was quite chilly, about 9C fot the high each day. Not like the balmy 21 that we had here at the house. And we did have rain on Saturday.
My footwear of choice in warm weather is flip-flops. I found out the hard way that I can’t wear them in the rain. The upper part of the shoe becomes slippery and my feet want to slide right out of the shoes. Very dangerous!
We’ve succumbed to having our grass cared for by a lawncare service. Since we can’t use herbicide in the city and we have a school across the street that is constantly awash with dandelions we just can’t keep up with the lawn, even though we attempted to reseed the entire thing the other year. But we do still work with the flower beds, and we’ll be putting in a flower bed at the cottage.
Bex, lol, I know! I am looking forward to autumn and apple season!
Teri, I guess being that near the lake the temperature would be chillier!
Flip-flops are very handy for slipping on to go outside, and slipping off to come inside. I find I can’t walk on them though, my knees hurt if I try, not enough support for these old bones I guess. Now that you mention how slippery they are, now I remember sliding around in them on wet days.
Our “lawn” consists primarily of wild strawberries and dandelions, moved of course. The dandelions are almost spent, most have gone to seed. They sure are pretty when they bloom, but not so much when they go to seed. Then they are OK again when it is only the green leaves, very hardy, soft to walk on, never require watering… I tried planting some white clover seed in with the strawberries and dandelions, but not much of it came up, too much competition I guess.
I’m looking at planting white clover and red fescue at the cottage. Hoping for at least a bit of fill-in to compete with the dandelions there, too. I’m not a fan of dandelions as a flower.
Teri, I like white clover, it has taken over the open areas at the Rideau Camp, and some areas in ditch in front of Mist Cottage, we planted it. Dandelions are powerful, they dominate whereever they are found, but they do share space with other species. I like the dandelion flower, but it doesn’t last long, and when it goes to seed it is quite unattractive until the flower stems are mowed down. One thing I like about dandelions is that they are always soft underfoot. And popular opinion is that they are the first spring food for the bees and insects, an important role.