I Found This At A Used Bookstore Yesterday

Don't worry--I'll be sharing LOTS of great tips when I get a bit more time, but did you notice the author's name?  Do you think they thought saying it was by someone named "Poppa Cannov" was just too obvious?????

Worth Sharing

I thought this article was especially timely.  I've generally been a Harvey Mackay fan, and thought this week's article was especially well done.

Signs It Was Time To Take A Break

* This week is the first time in months that I haven't worried about getting bugs, twigs, or leaves out of my hair while showering.

* I seem to have injured my foot somehow & hadn't noticed doing it.

*  If I'm not surrounded by jars, I wonder what to do with myself.

*  I made a "to-do" list for my days off.

*  Last night I dreamed of making squash soup, and it wasn't even that good.

I'm On Vacation!

Today through Saturday, I am completely ignoring the green tomatoes, the yard work, the house cleaning, the kitchen, we're not having any company, no one is coming for dinner, and I don't care how nice the weather gets this week--I am not going anywhere NEAR the garden.

Of course, in order for me to feel comfortable embarking on my week of being a complete lounge-about, yesterday I got up bright and early to run to the grocery store.  Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't be too difficult to not cook for a week.  With our little experiment, however, it's a bit challenging.  I had some hope of finding something allowable in the organic soup aisle, but even organic soups had unknown polysyllabic ingredients, so no soup for us.  I was quite delighted to find

possibly the first commercial bread we've had all year.  The other breads I have looked at have all had additives, which probably explains why theirs lasts so much longer than ours but makes it illegal all the same.  This one, however, didn't even have the "dough stabilizers" that so many of the others had.  The term "dough stabilizers" has always amused me as it always makes dough sound like an explosive substance.  Now I've had some whoppers of kitchen disasters, but even I have not had exploding bread dough.  I did a bit of research on stabilizers, and I found an article which says: 

Emulsifiers and oils/shortenings are fatbased ingredients that function both as dough stabilizers when the emulsifier interacts with the gluten protein in the dough and as crumb softeners when the emulsifier complexes with the gelatinizing starch during baking. The emulsifiers with the best dough stabilizing effect (DATEM, EMG) are usually the worst crumb softeners, while the emulsifiers with the best crumb softening effect(monoglycerides) are usually inferior dough stabilizers. SSL is the most commonly used emulsifier in white pan bread, having both fair dough stabilizing and crumb softening action. Monoglycerides can be added to further improve crumb softness, while DATEM can be added in case dough stability is lacking. DATEM is therefore mainly used in frozen dough applications, in high-fiber bread where the fiber interferes with the glutendevelopment, in hearth bread where the dough is baked without the support from a pan, or in bread produced from weak flours. 

So that clears that right up.  I have no idea what crumb softness actually is, but obviously commercial bread is altered to have a longer shelf life than home-baked bread.  And, after 9 months of eating only homemade bread, I'd say it tastes like it.  It was pretty disappointing, so 

I dug out the sourdough starter and got a batch of biscuits going for dinner.  Then it was time to tackle

I had 18 pounds of tomatoes which were ripe & ready to work with and which many hours later became

23 cups of seasoned tomato sauce.  And since I was really going to take a whole 5 days off, I converted another 6 pounds of green tomatoes into

9 pints of green tomato curry sauce.  (And those little black dots are raisins, just in case you were beginning to wonder).  We will be trying it out tonight over rice as one jar refused to seal. 

And after all of that (and the biscuits turned out quite well & the leftovers are well on their way to becoming rock-hard like bread actually should), I was actually in bed asleep by 8:00 PM.  We've noticed that since my surgery, I have developed the lifestyle of the Energizer Bunny--go at full speed all day and then crash hard at night and sleep like the dead.  I think I have my old energy level back (though some friends have suggested that I got mine and 2 other people's energy level as well), but I had been having some health problems for several months prior to surgery, so it's hard to say exactly.  The greater need for sleep thing is a bit odd, but I think I am going pretty hard most days.  I may just be wearing myself out every day--which, let's face it, is perfectly possible--or I might still be dragging just a bit from surgery.


Don't you just shudder to think I might NOT be back to full steam yet?????

Monday

Some people have a date with destiny.

I have a date with our tomato harvest.....

Things I Learned From This Year's Garden

*  I like to think of myself as a tough "I-can-take-it" sort of farm girl.  This did not, however, keep me from running through the yard screaming like a complete idiot when I discovered aphids crawling on me.

*  If you show mercy on the vermin the cats bring in, next season the vermin will decide to move in and bring friends.

*  Once you make the third type of zucchini cake, it's time to kill the plant.  Or join Weight Watchers.

*  Just when you start to think growing a garden is easy, it will be time to learn about powdery mildew.  Or aphids.  Or moles.  

*  No matter what the package says, there is no such thing as a "bush-type" squash plant in my yard.  We got the "crawling-all-over-and-taking-hostages" kind.

*  Some days my biggest goal will be to remain clean until at least 9:00 AM.

*  Ask a few questions before ordering a garlic sampler pack for planting.  When it says it includes elephant garlic, it really might mean one lousy clove.

*  As a resident of a desert state, I would never have believed it, but sometimes less rain really is better.

*  Gardens are a veritable mole smorgasbord, and they are probably going to like the same things we like.  The eggplant will be untouched.

*  In gardening as in as knitting, "heirloom" is a nice term for "fussy."

*  The garden hasn't read the same gardening books that I have, and is going to do whatever it darn well pleases anyway. 

*  My favorite flowers will be the ones that take the least amount of effort.  Zinnias are my current favorites, though I will keep an open mind if the mum ever flowers.

*  The only place tomatoes will have trouble growing is where you planted them.  Everywhere else they grow like gangbusters.

*  I am a "leg-ist."  I am not proud of it, but I have to admit that while I generally like things with two legs, or 4, things with 6 or 8 legs really freak me out.  I will be attending leg-sensitivity classes this fall....

*  Sometimes the garden knows best.  One eggplant probably really was enough.

*  They are called "slicing" cucumbers because they probably taste better raw than the "pickling" varieties.  That would have been good information to have in May. 

*  Sometimes a relationship needs to end....and a good hard frost will generally do it.

It's Green Tomato Season

Known as "October" in other parts of the world.

We knew it was likely to freeze last night (which it did), so two nights ago Andy and I did the Great Tomato HarvestWe didn't grow the bananas. Turns out, banana peels emit something that will turn green tomatoes red. So all future red tomatoes here will taste like the ones from the store, as this is a natural way of doing what large producers do. Still, they will be fine for a few batches of seasoned tomato sauce, as well as some fresh tomato soup. In the meantime, we have 14 pints of dilled green tomatoes. Today will be green tomato salsa, and I found a recipe for a curried green tomato sauce that I'll be trying next week. Now knowing how long green tomatoes can last, I don't feel as rushed to take care of these as I did last year. Of course, we also now know that we really like the green tomato salsa, so that's a perk. No idea yet about the dilled green tomatoes. The recipe says to use them anyplace you would use regular tomatoes, but they have got to taste like dill pickles, and while I am quite the dill pickle fiend, who wants pickles on pizza?