Sideways stress
If you've been reading here for a few years, then you might remember the summer of compulsive canning as we waited for news that we would be allowed to bring R. and Y. home. I learned something about myself that summer. When stressed to a significant degree, I tend to combat it by letting loose my inner prepper (whom I usually keep well under wraps), and store up food for the coming disaster. It's like I move into hunter-gatherer-early homesteader mode, and my mind perceives the cause of significant stress as a threat to our food supply. I don't know why, it's not as though I have a history of hunger in my background. It's probably some genetic wiring coupled with a vastly over-active imagination. Whatever the cause, I deal with stress by stocking up on food.
With that in mind, hear what I did the past two days. Yesterday, I went on a bit of a grocery shopping binge, stocking up on lots of different food and paper supplies. It was all things we could use and needed, it was just a bit much doing it in one huge afternoon of shopping. I visited five different stores, and I won't share the total amount because it is far too depressing. And even with all that, I discovered today that we are out of raisins. Figures. There always seems to be something that falls through the cracks. I also got all the honey that B. took from his hive last weekend bottled up in quart jars.
Today, I made over a gallon (16+ cups) of granola, filled three gallon sized ziplocks bags with instant oatmeal, and brought in all the salvageable produce from the garden. The tomatoes we had on our salad tonight and the tomatillos were in the pork dish. I picked several cups of crab apples because I found a recipe for crab apple jelly which looks intriguing. Our crab apple is loaded with fruit, so if we like it, I will be able to get quite a bit of jelly from it. I wanted to freeze another set of duck eggs, but ran out of time before I had to go volunteer at the equine therapy program I'm involved with. I'll get to the eggs tomorrow, and start the crab apples processing.
Once my wheat grinder motor returns (I am really missing it, and am tired of buying inadequate bread), I want to grind a bunch of flour and make a giant batch of English muffins. Oh, and I remembered that people would like some more of those miniature quiches I made from duck eggs a couple of months ago, so I want to get some of those in the freezer.
Gingerbread cake... it sounds really good. I think I need to bake some gingerbread cake. Also, it's been a while since we've made homemade soft pretzels... I wonder how well they freeze. It would be fun to have a bunch of soft pretzels in the freezer that we could take out every now and then.
Yes, I'm feeling more than a little stressed. My mom is not doing well, and I'm not quite sure what to do. She has surgery scheduled for the 22nd, and in theory, this should be the start of her road to recovery. But, in the meantime, they are having great difficulty managing her potassium levels, which in turn are causing her to act in a way very unlike my mother. We don't have the resources for me to keep flying out there, and need to be careful about saving those trips for when it is most important. It is difficult to know when that is, though. Plus, there are a couple of my children at home who don't do well when I'm not here, and I have to weigh that into the equation as well. It is all very complicated, confusing, and stressful.
And so I put up food. TM suggested that I take the rest of the beets and try making beet chips in the dehydrator. I think this would be a better choice as they wouldn't burn in the dehydrator as they did in the oven. I still have a bunch of kohlrabi in the garden that I need to figure out ways to use. They are kind of giant mutant kohlrabi at this point, so I hope they are still edible. We'll find out. I wonder if you can freeze kohlrabi... ?
With that in mind, hear what I did the past two days. Yesterday, I went on a bit of a grocery shopping binge, stocking up on lots of different food and paper supplies. It was all things we could use and needed, it was just a bit much doing it in one huge afternoon of shopping. I visited five different stores, and I won't share the total amount because it is far too depressing. And even with all that, I discovered today that we are out of raisins. Figures. There always seems to be something that falls through the cracks. I also got all the honey that B. took from his hive last weekend bottled up in quart jars.
Today, I made over a gallon (16+ cups) of granola, filled three gallon sized ziplocks bags with instant oatmeal, and brought in all the salvageable produce from the garden. The tomatoes we had on our salad tonight and the tomatillos were in the pork dish. I picked several cups of crab apples because I found a recipe for crab apple jelly which looks intriguing. Our crab apple is loaded with fruit, so if we like it, I will be able to get quite a bit of jelly from it. I wanted to freeze another set of duck eggs, but ran out of time before I had to go volunteer at the equine therapy program I'm involved with. I'll get to the eggs tomorrow, and start the crab apples processing.
Once my wheat grinder motor returns (I am really missing it, and am tired of buying inadequate bread), I want to grind a bunch of flour and make a giant batch of English muffins. Oh, and I remembered that people would like some more of those miniature quiches I made from duck eggs a couple of months ago, so I want to get some of those in the freezer.
Gingerbread cake... it sounds really good. I think I need to bake some gingerbread cake. Also, it's been a while since we've made homemade soft pretzels... I wonder how well they freeze. It would be fun to have a bunch of soft pretzels in the freezer that we could take out every now and then.
Yes, I'm feeling more than a little stressed. My mom is not doing well, and I'm not quite sure what to do. She has surgery scheduled for the 22nd, and in theory, this should be the start of her road to recovery. But, in the meantime, they are having great difficulty managing her potassium levels, which in turn are causing her to act in a way very unlike my mother. We don't have the resources for me to keep flying out there, and need to be careful about saving those trips for when it is most important. It is difficult to know when that is, though. Plus, there are a couple of my children at home who don't do well when I'm not here, and I have to weigh that into the equation as well. It is all very complicated, confusing, and stressful.
And so I put up food. TM suggested that I take the rest of the beets and try making beet chips in the dehydrator. I think this would be a better choice as they wouldn't burn in the dehydrator as they did in the oven. I still have a bunch of kohlrabi in the garden that I need to figure out ways to use. They are kind of giant mutant kohlrabi at this point, so I hope they are still edible. We'll find out. I wonder if you can freeze kohlrabi... ?
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