What a lovely quiet day it is here today!
The sun is shining, the windows are open, the breeze is sauntering through the house like it owns the place.
Ginger has settled down beside me on the couch, I am in my easy chair. I have had a lovely breakfast consisting of toasted tomato and onion on whole wheat toast, ½ cup home canned applesauce, a small peeled and sliced cucumber, a small bunch of concord grapes, about a dozen ground cherries from the garden, and two diced peaches. Now I am enjoying a glass of Kombucha mixed with a bit of cranberry juice (sweetened with pure liquid stevia).
I am relaxing here with the cat, while Attila is busy in the kitchen. We take turns these days. His current project is to peel, dice, blanch, and freeze kohlrabi, harvested from the garden.
Early this morning Attila harvested 1 lb. of jalapeño peppers, which he washed and diced, then slivered some onions, while I prepared the brine for Cowboy Candy. We follow a tested recipe (Bernardin or Ball I think), but have taken it upon ourselves to double the brine called for, increasing the amount of brine in the jar, and decreasing the number of diced peppers and onion. This is because I use the brine to make my salad dressing, and we are ending up with too many peppers and onions, which we don’t use up as fast as the brine. This is not tested or approved, try it at your own risk. I am not concerned about the safety of doing this, although I will say it would be unsafe to reverse the method and reduce the brine called for, that would be unsafe.
We canned four 500-ml jars of Cowboy Candy, which makes 15 jars so far this year, using our garden jalapeño peppers.
Another project this morning was to pour my two gallons of Kombucha from the fermenting jars, into mason jars, and to store in mason jars in the refrigerator. One batch had fermented a little to long, a bit acidic, the other was perfect. I have two pots of water on the boil on the range, to make the tea starter for two more batches of Kombucha.
Every day I look forward to my glass of Kombucha and cranberry juice, a little treat. It is great that it is good for me!
Also this morning, I discovered that one of the jars of Chili Sauce, that I canned yesterday, did not seal. I processed it again this morning in the steam canner, with two canning jars of water, with used lids, to meet the minimum required for a batch. The water sealed, the Chili Sauce did not. Rats!! I will have to put the Chili Sauce in the refrigerator to be used, it cannot be stored on the shelf.
I had no plans for the day when I awoke this morning, the day created itself, all I had to do was follow.
Worldly
Weather
23°C
Date: 6:00 PM EDT Friday 23 August 2024
Condition: Mostly Cloudy
Pressure: 102.3 kPa
Tendency: Falling
Temperature: 23.3°C
Dew point: 14.8°C
Humidity: 59%
Wind: SW 19 gusts 31 km/h
Humidex: 27
Visibility: 24 km
Quote
“The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool.”
Jane Wagner
1935 –
You have be cognizant of when and where and how you use it, it can be dangerous otherwise.
I love this: “the day created itself, all I had to do was follow.’ What a great thought. Enjoy! P.S. Milo sends purrs to Ginger. 🙂
Thanks Sandy, I love the days that create themselves! Ginger sends purrs to Milo, and a slow blink! 🙂
The last two days have been too warm here for open windows, plus the heat usually leads to poor air quality. And sure enough ozone has shot up to a Poor reading of 63, today. I was out for a few minutes earlier and could tell. I start noticing when the numbers get above 40.
For dinner tonight we had some tasty sausage. It had chopped peaches and red chili peppers in it. Very tasty! I mention it because I thought you might find the combination interesting. It wasn’t really spiced except for salt. The peach and chili flavors were definitely the stars.
But speaking of peaches, I made a peach crisp today. We double the topping and put crisp on both the bottom and the top. So good!
Teri, that is interesting! I’ve been feeling a little bit off for a few days, can’t put my finger on it, but your observation about ozone inspires me to look at that environmental element.
Thanks for the info on the sausage Teri, the combination of peaches and red chili peppers sounds very interesting, something to try!
Great idea, crisp on the bottom and top, double delicious! I love peach season. We grew peaches on our farm, just a few trees, and my Grandfather had a whole orchard where we loved to pick them from the tree and eat them where we stood. My Mom got mad at us because they were so juicy and we got it on our clothes, which stained.
Hi Maggie. Milo thanks Ginger for the purrs! Have you left Facebook? I see your profile, but not any posts. A couple of my friends have also left facebook.
Hi Sandy, Milo and Ginger are very polite felines, and friendly too!
I still login to Facebook from time to time, but less and less all the time. I find that the algorithms have so many “young creators” and AI cluttering up my feed, that I don’t enjoy it much. The “young creators” that pop up and dominate my feed are clueless, and what they present is not their own content, and what they write may or may not have some resemblance to reality, lots of them are just making it up – sort of “if I think it it is true”. There are also a lot of philosophical posts that pop up that I don’t trust and do not want to see. The lack of authenticity in what I now have to wade through to see interesting posts is overwhelming, and quite disturbing. I also do not want to see all the political bashing that precedes US elections, so much bitter mockery is unhealthy and I don’t want to see it. So I haven’t been on facebook much. My feed page is hazardous to my health.
I still do go to groups I belong to, and offer info and feedback to genuine individuals, that is still viable.
Thanks for asking after me Sandy!
Hi Maggie. I agress that Ginger and Milo are both friendly and polite 🙂 I completely understand about Facebook. It can be very toxic. Because of my work schedule I can’t comment on the good information any more. But what threw me was that I couldn’t see any of your past posts. Did you pause your account? That would explain it. I’m thankful for your blog entries here! Thanks!