Works for Me!

Thought I'd share a few tips that work for me:

1. Water down shower gel by about a third. It will be just enough more liquid in consistency that it won't slide off your hands or washcloth. Can't tell how annoying it is to watch that little green blob of gel swirl down the drain!


2. If you have just a few pomegranates, you can juice them using an old-fashined citrus hand press or squeezer. Not the type with the little dome in the center or the tall ones with the slot-machine handle. You still need to do a moderately good job of separating the fruit from the bitter rind. Fill the hopper and squeeze, stir and squeeze again. The clean out the seeds and start again. It is much faster and less tedious than using a sieve or food mill.




3. When I have small amounts of fruit, whether leftovers from the store or late-comers to the garden, I make a version of freezer jam with it so they won't go to waste. It may only be enough for one or two small jars, but it takes little time and usually tastes great. I throw the clean fruit, chopped if larger fruit like peaches or pears, into a saucepan, add some sugar (usually about half of what you'd use in a true canning recipe) and let it simmer. Once things are soft and fragrant, if the fruit has not brokendown some, I'll hit it with the stick blender-- not enough to make a puree, just to make it more spreadable later. Then turn the heat up a little, add the liquid pectin (even if it is only a pint of fruit) and let it come to a boil and simmer for a few minutes more. The pectin is good for you anyway, so why not add it all? When the mixture looks and smells 'jammy,' pour into sterilized jam jars. I use sterilized white Ball lids, not standard canning lids for this, because they will be going into the freezer shortly, not sitting on a shelf. I put the lid on loosely and let them cool on the counter. Be sure to leave a little extra headspace as the jam will expand in the freezer. I let it cool to room temp, then put in the fridge for a few hours, then into the freezer. The gradual cooling helps keep the jar from splitting inthe freezer. After about a day in the freezer, I tighten the lids. Use within a few months and keep in the fridge when thawing and until used up. Use within 2 to 3 weeks of thawing, as it does not have enough sugar to completely retard mold growth over the long term. Because this has less sugar, you can also use as cake filling, on top of a cheesecake, or thin it down for pancake syrup. When blueberries are inexpensive at the grocery store, I put up a few pints this way and it makes great BB preserves.

4. The same Bell lids fit the Classico pasta sauce jars. I clean the Classico jars and use them, with the Bell lids, to store my daily-use amounts of sugar, flour, pasta (we use half a box of dried rotini for a meal) and other dry goods.

Next, bread baking tips!

Feeling Remiss

It's been a week since my last post (sounds like a classic Catholic confession...) and I am actually experiencing guilt for not posting. The week has been so unremarkable that I considered just writing about my jerkey recipe. As I sat writing, my mind went to last Saturday's bizarre events not far away.

I shy away from organized politics, though try to keep informed and vote at each opportunity, but I am horrified about the crazy guy who shot my district's Congresswoman, a child,and four other citizens exercising their first amendment rights. I am even more horrified by both sides of the national political debate using this as an occasion to push their agendas for censorship and causes du jour, some of them climbing their soapboxes less than 24 hours after the smoke cleared.

The evidence is increasing that the assailant was mentally ill, possibly an undiagnosed schizophrenic. His actions seem to have little to do with the ongoing political debate. They possibly had more to do with his reading of some books now considered political classics in some circles. Let us not ban free-speech, change the Bill of Right, nor burn the books he read (or may have thought about reading) as a result of a tragedy caused by one mad man.

It seems we must tolerate the small fraction of foreign religious or other fanatics without concern or be branded with many broad unflattering adjectives, but not so with our home-grown crazies. I'm certainly not advocating any departure from allowing our justice system to handle the matter and determine the young man's fate. I do advocate that cooler heads should prevail when it comes to twisting the event to cast unwarranted blame on any political ideology (left or right) or justify unrelated infringements upon the Bill of Rights for the rest of us.

Winter Wonderland

There was a storm brewing! It started with the wild clouds as the front moved toward us.

Wet, nearly horizontal pellets flew for a while before the big fluffy snow started to fall.



It fell long enough to stick on the dog!



and to make fairy landscapes before it melted away.

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you all a simple and cozy Merry Christmas. We will be taking time to enjoy friends and family, and just relaxing at or near home.

New Honeyville Grain Blog Button!

From time to time I will add buttons for businesses that I use. Today's addition is on the upper left of this blog. I've added it for two reasons.

First, on their blog, they are having a great give-away for three different assortments of their long-term food storage items (#10 cans of freeze dried fruit, vegies, potatoes). Not that I want the competition, but you may want to check it out. I'm a great believer in their products -- I use their grain to make bread (see my previous blogs about grinding grain to make bread). I've used some of their other products as well and find them to be a really good value. I expect their blog to continue to offer the same quality as their products -- and they give good stuff away!

The second reason I've added their blog button is related to the Honeyville Grain PRODUCTS. They are always high quality. There is NO weight minimum on bulk grain. Their shipping is always $4.49 per order. For those who regularly buy grain that must be shipped to you, you may say "Website X has lower prices for their grain" and you'd be right. I ran the numbers on websites X AND Y and found Honeyville to be the best for my needs. Website X sold grain for half the cost, but by the time you included their SHIPPING cost the grain was TWICE the Honeyville cost pound for pound. Website Y was a little less expensive and their shipping was almost as reasonable as Honeyville -- BUT they had a 250 pound minimum for grain that is packed for long term storage. Not sure about you, but I just don't have the extra money and space to buy 250 lbs when I only need 50 pounds for current use.

I suggest you check them out, bookmark their site and, when thinking about your daily and long term food strage needs, order from them. They ship fed-ex to me, so the goods arrive within a few days (less than a week)and even the 50 lb boxes (with a big bag of wheat inside) arrive in perfect condition. As you can tell, I'm a fan!

A Morning with a Mission

Both literally and figuratively!

A friend and I drove up to the San Xavier mission, south of Tucson. The weather was stunning and topped off at around 70 degrees. There were few people there when we arrived.


The mission was founded in the early 1600's, burned down in the early 1700's and was rebuilt. The second mission still stands. The restorations have been ongoing for years, both inside and out. Here is one of my favorite views inside -- bright vibrant colors to brighten your prayers!



The dome above the nave is partially restored, and reflects the roses of Our Lady of Guadelupe.

From there, we bid farewell to the Mission and headed toward the Mission School.



We had some business there. Our service organization, which has purpose that includes education and historic preservation, donated reading books, dictionaries and a small amount of cash to the school.

It is a beautiful little school, with probably 150 students. In giving out the dictionaries, we encouraged students to learn the right words to learn and pass along their tribal culture and legends, as well as prepare themselves for their future.

I detoured for a moment to take care of personal business, and found a wonderful place to learn.



We ended our visit with a stop at the brush arbor for a fried bread sandwich. My friend had cheese, I had bean and cheese. Wish I'd skipped the beans, but it was a delicious ending to a lovely morning with a mission.

The Art of the Porch

We are blessed to live in a place with three comfortable seasons and very few nuisance insects, in part due to the low humidity. Our garden, which incorporates integrated pest management practices also helps on the bad-bug reduction. We are in a part of the country where porches never really went out of style. I remember my mother referring to the 'sleeping porch' in her childhood home. On hot evenings, they would break out the cots and enjoy the cool night air while the adobe walls gave back the day's heat. By 3 am the house would have cooled down, but they were fast asleep on the porch by then.



Our porch is about 10 feet wide and 30 feet long. It provides three seasons of entertaining and resting space. It offers a small 'summer kitchen' for making preserves without heating up the entire, unairconditioned house. We have no dining room inside, so winter meals are on a collapsable table if it is too cold to use the porch.




The porch is a window on our world. We see when the crowd at the cafe has let up, so we can grab a salad or talk to the neighbors. We can see my sister's house and whether the lights are on, signifying that she made it back from town. We can break bread with neighbors or rest in its shade between chores. Most of the houses in our town have porches, and we tend to sit a spell on each a few time each year.



I have come to believe that porches are the ultimate sign of a civil community. They tell people that you are part of the community, that you value the concept of community as more than a geographic space on a map, but as the communion of neighbors with common purpose. They invite the borrowing of a cup of sugar or a conversation about how little Jimmy is doing in school. They may not be the glue that holds a community together, but they sure provide the opportunity to start making the glue. Or at least that's my opinion.

Lazy Woman's Garden

For years I have watched people who buy and plant annuals (plants that germinate, bloom, set seed and die in one growing season) and scratched my head. I'm not talking about the annuals like larkspur, where you cast the seed on the ground and they become self-seeding for many years after. This is the act of buying, preparing soil, digging with trowel and planting petunias, marigolds, heck -- I don't even know the names of most because they don't interest me. Why go to all that trouble, just to do it again next year? Some do it each season, for multiple iterations per 3-season cycle. Maybe I'm stupid, but I don't get it. Do they not have other things to do, like bake bread or make beds?

Here's my idea of gardening: select the perennials you want, plant them, put them on the drip system, prune them occasionally and let them fend for themselves. We have a polinator garden 'room' full of native blooming plants to attract beneficial bugs , a medicinal and herb garden of only perennial herbs, a cutting area with peonies and daiseys, fruit and nut trees, currants and berries, asparagus, rhubarb and soon jerusalem artichokes. It's survival of the fittest.

It has paid off fairly well in the last few years, although this year my dear husband convinced me to put bone meal on some of the fruit to get better yeild, which we did. We have had apples all but one year (late frost), a bumper crop of currants and raspberries (enough to can a few quarts of preserves) and will probably harvest enough asparagus next spring to have a meal (it's only been in the ground for 2 years).

More and more my thoughts go to not spending the time or water on something that doesn't 'contribute' to the system. I have a few of those, but most of my plants have a specific purpose in addition to just bringing a smile, though that's not a bad purpose for any living thing!