Ordinary Time

We had been wanting to ride on the boat that L. works on all summer. Finally today we were free, L. was working, and the weather cooperative. It was more than cooperative, it was pretty much the perfect day to take a boat ride.  That's L. at the end of the gang plank. I didn't take any pictures while we were on the boat, but we spent some time walking around the park the boat leaves from, so you can still enjoy views of the Fox River.

It sounds so good to find some good deals on produce to can and freeze, the trouble is it's only a good deal if you actually do the canning and freezing. Which is what I did today. All day. All day standing in the kitchen chopping vegetables. It is worth it in the end, but I'm beat.  The totals for today?  7 pints of sweet pickle relish (canned) 6 cups of frozen green pepper strips 20 cups of frozen mixed color bell pepper strips 4 dehydrator trays of bell peppers (they're still dehydrating so I don't know how many cups) Two dinner's worth of frozen sliced okra (to be fried) 5 pounds of ground cornmeal - we had run out and I needed it for the okra so needed to grind more I still need to prep and freeze the extra lemongrass that I bought yesterday. Plus there are still cucumbers which I need to turn into bread and butter pickles. I'm also guessing there will be enough cucumbers to make a couple jars of dill pickles. I'm hoping I'll be done with it all by ...

Do these give you some clues? That's a half bushel of sweet peppers. Pickling cucumbers  If you guessed making and canning sweet pickle relish you'd be correct. I will probably also make bread and butter pickles because we go through them quickly and they're not something you can dobuy in the store. If I still have cucumbers left over, I'll probably make some dill pickles as well. They're actually the quickest of the pickles I make. And maybe I'll decide we need a lot more dill pickles, in which case I'll have to go buy more cucumbers.  The relish is not going to use up all those peppers, but the price was far too good to pass up. I'll slice/chop and freeze them in recipe sized amounts. Did you know you can do that? Freeze them as is then put them in recipes where they'll be cooked? The same goes for onions. Neither would be good to eat raw, but they're fine in things. Plus, it's super easy to just take pre-chopped peppers or onions out of yo...

Today was the day that H., R., and I headed out on a major grocery shopping expedition. The closest Asian markets near me are about half an hour away. Plus, they are not on the way to anything I regularly drive to, so require a special trip. I put this off as long as possible, but eventually I do need to restock. With the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival on Friday, I needed to go to get mooncakes. (Y. has made them before but with school and work, she doesn't have a lot of free time.) It had been a long time since I had gone, so supplies were low. I knew it was going to be painful. First stop was the Chinese market and it was as painful as I was expecting. We then drove a mile east to hit up Patel Brothers. This wasn't as bad, but was still significant. I've just now finished repackaging and putting things away.  Here is most of what we brought home. You can't see the 50# bag of rice or the things already in the refrigerator. Mooncakes packages always get put inside their own s...

And what was the little bit of panic? It was realizing that I needed to submit my application to have items in the holiday market by Oct. 2. In theory this shouldn't be a problem, but I need to submit photographs. (It's a juried sale.) I don't have the guest towels I'm going to weave finished so I don't have a photograph. Today is September 21st which is not that very far away from October. If I was going to get my application in, I needed to get a move on.  Which is why I spent quite a few hours yesterday dressing my loom. I did have my warp measured out and my project planned, so that was something, but there is still a lot that needs to happen. I managed to sley the reed, thread the loom, and get the warp wound on yesterday. Today was a bit nuts, so all I managed to get to was to tie up the treadles and begin to get the front of the project tied in. I did discover one section of crossed threads, but I decided to leave that until tomorrow. I really hope I can be w...

We did indeed have apple fritters for breakfast.  G. made them with our own apples and the glaze has cider and bits of apple in it. They were delicious. It was very nice to come in from cleaning the barn in very wet weather and be able to enjoy a freshly made apple fritter. Teaching your children to cook pays off.