On Being Choosy:

Busy, busy! So much to do, so little time.

The plants in the garden seem to want to give us all their goodness at the same time. Or close to it.

It is a lifestyle choice made long ago and we still love it, even when we are so tired we fall in bed late at night, for days in a row.

Gotta’ get the food put up or go hungry come winter/spring of the following year. Some people work and pay for what they eat, We work to make the food for our table for ourselves. The hard way. Our choice.

There are days when I’m so tired and sore from the work of it, that I curse the choices I’ve made. But they are far and few. I plant a smile across my face and forge onward. I know how good it will taste to have home grown soup on a cold winter day.

I don’t know how long it will take before I can’t do this anymore? But for now I choose this. Hard work and home grown.

On Hungry for Something Creative:

I was munching on almonds this afternoon and thinking about marzipan.

One of these days I’m going to make this…














Vegan Yum Yum’s Knit Night Cup Cakes.

You have to see the whole blog about them. Loren was even on Martha Stewart showing how to make the marzipan sweaters. And that YouTube piece is on the blog too.

The link is here.

PS: My daughter used to live next door to her. And I’m told that her food is really delicious.

On Sitting Back and Enjoying the Day:

It is the first of May. Today, I’m taking the easy way out. I’m making Green Bean Soup.

What is Green Bean Soup, you ask?

At my house it is cooking up some green (wax) beans (or both), adding water to more then cover them, and adding cream cheese, 2 oz. per quart, stir until melted and salt to taste. Easy-peasy, kid friendly recipe!

It’s amazing what kids will eat when they make it themselves.

This can also be put through a blender and liquefied if you like. An alterative to Tomato Soup. We serve it up with sandwiches or a salad.

On Silly Holiday the Thirteenth, May, 09:

Backward Eating Day.

Children all over delight in the Backward Eating Holiday. Started by a child asking the age old question of, “Why don’t we ever start a meal with desert?”

One mother didn’t have an answer so that was how Backward Eating Day was born.

Meals like spaghetti were served in sundae dishes with tomato sauce and meat balls on top, Pizza’s of cookie dough topped with fruit and whipped cream, and salad’s made in banana split fashion with tuna or chicken salad on a bed of lettuce replacing the ice cream and carrots substituted for bananas started showing up in dinning rooms and kitchens all over the world.

Pita bread made to look like over large sandwich cookies with peanut butter and jelly filling for lunch. (Some mother’s even went so far as to use a cookie cutter to make her sandwiches look more cookie like.) Meals finished off by brownies made to look like meat loaf with ice cream like mashed potatoes and chocolate sauce for gravy and cubed peaches instead of carrots.

Mother’s got very inventive, and dessert made from main course ingredients started each of these meals, followed by the main course made from the ingredients usually found in desserts.

The children, thou not exactly getting what they had expected, ate their meals with gusto, because as every child knows, it is fun to mix things up every once in a while.

So, start with dessert today, but leave room for the main course.

On I Caught Him and the Horror of it All:

Although I am quite normal in a lot of things, and the scariest thing about me is my black lip stick and finger nail polish. I am in fact a fairly nice person. I try to spread kindness and share the love wherever I go. I smile and remember my manners. But I am not immune to troubles.

I am a carboholic. Once refined flour or sugar passes my lips all bets are off as to just how much food I can consume in a day. A switch is thrown in my head and I can’t stop eating. It’s not a good thing and a horror to look at.

I fell off the wagon yesterday and right into a binge of sugary sweetness. There is the added downside of uncontrolled hot flashes added to the mix. And it was all the Gingerbread Man’s fault.

‘Run, run as fast as you can. You can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man.’ He sat there taunting me. He knew my weakness and sang his little song over and over again in my head. He did this for days. How much can a woman take? I just had to bite his little head off to stop him from smiling up at me.

In the end I was reduced to, after raiding the refrigerator and eating a whole box of cookies, sitting on the floor in the pantry wrapped around a box of chocolate cake mix, eating it dry and adding sips of juice from the bottle to get it down. Horror! Undeniable, out of control horror.

I checked the ingredients and this man cookie was made without eggs. He was not made in a place that also processes nuts. He was said to be, at least for me, allergy free. But he did have those dreaded refined carbs not only made into his spicy soft form but he was dressed in refined sugary sweetness too.

Now I can have gingerbread if I make it from scratch myself and replace the ingredients that give me trouble. Honey for the sugar, substitute the eggs, whole wheat flour for refined, if I dress him in dried fruit like raisins. It is do-able if I only take the time to do it. But I didn’t. Instead I ate the store bought Gingerbread Man and I’m paying the price.

There will be weeks of exercise and calorie shaving in my future. And all because I took up the challenge of a gingerbread man.

Next time I’m running the other way.

On Vegetable Soup:

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. I have allergies to foods. This makes life interesting at times but mostly it’s made me a canner of soups. I have to make my own vegetable soup because I haven’t found one brand that doesn’t have something I’m allergic to in it. I am also a vegetarian.















I like vegetable soup enough to eat it almost every day. Yesterday we made vegetable soup. Not a pot of soup, No. A vat of soup. We take a large plastic container, wash it out and start pealing and cutting up the vegetables that we had collected the day before.

I always try to get at least 14 vegetables into my veggie soup but it always starts with carrots. 12 pounds of carrots in fact. Cabbage and sweet potatoes, lima beans and corn, Green and yellow beans and even beets and spinach are all added along with other things from the garden or in the frig.















We spend hours cutting up the fruits of our garden and adding them to the bin of water. Yes, that is a 66 quart container more then half full. No, we didn’t fill it you need a lot of stirring room. I did take the picture before we were done adding things though. After we mix it all up it gets ladled into large, four gallon pots to cook and be canned.















We got enough soup to last me for the next few months. This batch of soup has 18 different veggies in it. I love autumn soup time. It just makes me warm inside. Or is that just a belly full of soup?

On Pumpkins to Eat:

I woke up feeling a lot better this morning. Thank you to those that wished me get well messages. Being Autumn I also have had some emails about my Pumpkin butter instructions and recipe from friends and family so I decided to put it here for everyone to enjoy. I’ve been told it’s a fun read even if you never make it. I followed it with a Quick method for those that don’t have much time in the kitchen.

Pumpkin Butter - Careful the flavor can be addictive.

To start with I will warn you that this is a big job. If you don’t have the time to do it all in one or two days feel free to freeze what you have done until you can get to the rest of the job. It’s a lot of time and work.

Cooking pumpkins have less strings, more meat to them and are sweeter. But jack-o-lantern pumpkins will do in a pinch just remember to add extra sugar if you use them.

There are a couple of ways to skin a pumpkin. 1 - 3 pumpkins are still a lot of work. I do 6 - 8 at a time with my husbands help and it’s still a huge job with more than enough work to go around. It’s up to you if you go for the large job once or smaller job more often. I have used all of these methods at one time or another, or in combination over the years. They have their ups and downs. (You know, like not enough room in the freezer…?)

Freezer method
Quarter and core (Clean out the pulp.) the pumpkin. Put them on a cookie sheet and freeze then thaw it to soften them enough to peal them.

Oven method
Quarter and core pumpkin . Put them in large baking dishes with 1 inch of water in it. Bake at a low temp 200/250 until just starting to dry or brown around the edges, an hour or so and it is softened enough to peal them.

Muscle method (A favorite to expel frustration, or make it, along with blisters. Lots of blisters.)
Quarter and core pumpkin. Using a large heavy knife (or cleaver if you can control it really well) slice pumpkin into 2 inch slices. Lay the slices on their sides on a cutting board and slice the skin off. (I’m not kidding here. Now go and take care of your blisters.)

Easy puree method
Cut in chunks and puree in a blender or food processor with the least amount of water to get the job done.

Longer puree method
Cut in chunks and put in a large pot add water just enough to stir and cook chunks down until puree. Strain out what won’t cook down and any strings that are left. This takes time and you must stir it regularly to keep it from burning.

Pumpkin Butter
The size of the pumpkin(s) determines the amount of puree you’ll get. On the side, in a bowl have the sugar and spice measured out (or a least a written calculation of how much you’ll need). Per quart of puree you’ll need ½ to 1 cup of sugar, honey, or maple syrup. Depending on how sweet you like it. And 1 to 2 Tablespoons of pumpkin pie spice. More if you like things spicy.

Pumpkin pie spice recipe
2 Tablespoons cinnamon, 1 Tablespoon each of cloves, ginger, allspice, and nutmeg.

Cook the pumpkin puree down to get the extra water out. It takes hours. In the beginning you only have to stir it occasionally but as it thickens you need to watch that it doesn’t scorch. (The taste goes right through it.) If you put the sugar and spice in at this stage it scorches even easier so wait until later.

(Some people put the puree in baking dishes in the oven on low over night to thicken it.)
To help reduce the time on the stove top you can spread the puree around in as many large surface pans as you can. The more surface area the more steam escapes and the faster it thickens. The more pots the more stirring. (I can get away with this easily because I do it on a wood cook stove and I know that not everyone has this modern convenience.) Then as it reduces you can move it all down to one pot. You want to cook it down to a spreading consistency. After It thickly coats the back of the spoon add sugar and spice.
I test the consistency by putting about 3 tablespoons in a small glass dish that can take the heat and lower it into cool, not cold, water to cool it off quicker. It will get a little thicker when cooled so check it so you don’t have to cook it any longer than you have to. You’ve been cooking long enough by now. When it is thick enough to spread your finally done with this part and ready to can all your hard work!!!

Do to the fact that pumpkin is an edible gourd or squash and not a fruit it needs to be processed in the canner a lot longer. I do mine in ½ pints and pints. The same canning directions apply for both.

Pressure canner
One hour at 10 pounds pressure. Or check with your canners directions.

Steam or water bath canners
Remember to add more boiling water as needed and stream for 180 min or 3 hours.

Enjoy! You deserve it. You did the work.

If you don’t have the pumpkins or just don’t have the time to do all that work I have added a quick recipe using the canned pumpkin from the store.

Pumpkin Butter - Quick Recipe

1 can plain processed Pumpkin 15oz. (Not the pumpkin with all the ingredients in it ready for pie, you need to cook that.)
1/ 2 to 1 cup of Sugar (or Honey or Maple syrup) to taste.
2 or more Tablespoons of Pumpkin Pie Spice (If you don’t have the premixed stuff the recipe for spice to follow.)
1/ 4 cup water

In sauce pan heat water, sugar and spices until sugar is dissolved, remove from heat.
Add can of plain Pumpkin and mix well (Add more water only to make it a spreadable consistence, careful you don’t want it runny.) If you do add too much water you can cook it on low heat stirring it constantly to keep it from scorching until the excess water is gone.
Store in covered container in frig.

Pumpkin Pie Spice - 2 Tablespoons cinnamon
1 Tablespoon each of cloves, ginger, allspice and nutmeg.
Mix well and store in air tight container.

Pumpkin pie spice can be added to cookies, cakes, puddings, and other dishes like sweet potatoes.

Eat Pumpkin Butter like you would Apple Butter and I also have it on pound cake, on oatmeal and over ice cream. I’ve even added it to my favorite oatmeal cookie recipe and made pumpkin cookies with it.

On Cucumber Salad:

Yesterday the first cucumbers came in from the garden. Of course I had to pig out on them.















I make an apple vinaigrette and let it marinade in the fridge if I can leave it alone long enough.

1 cup apple juice
1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 Tablespoon maple syrup
1 teaspoon onion juice or onion powder
Salt and pepper to taste.















For a large bowl or three or more cucumbers I double the vinaigrette. I also use it for salad dressing some times too.

I wash, peel and thinly slice the cucumbers. Toss them in the vinaigrette.

For the next couple of days I’ll add fresh cucumber slices to the vinaigrette in the bowl as I use up the cucumbers in the fridge. I don’t waste a drop.

Enjoy!