[chocomouse]

BakerAunt, when I made zucchini relish a month ago or so, I shredded the zukes and let them sit in a colander to drain excess liquid before simmering them in the brine. One batch I even sprinkled with salt to help shed excess fluid, but then it was a chore to rinse off all that extra salt, so I didn't salt the second batch. However, that batch didn't have extra fluid so I'll not salt the zucchini in the future. Funny -- I bought a gigantic package of hot dogs, 2 dozen I think, a couple weeks ago because I was craving a hot dog! But I only like them when they're cooked on the grill or over a fire.

[chocomouse]

I made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for my husband to take to a potluck but with plenty left for him to eat, as I leave tomorrow to spend the weekend with our friend Lee on the coast of Maine.

[chocomouse]

I made mac and cheese for dinner.

[chocomouse]

We went out for seafood dinners.

[chocomouse]

I made coconut-lime scones.

[chocomouse]

Dinner tonight was venison backstrap (steak), corn on the cob, yellow, green, and purple string beans, sliced tomatoes and onions marinated in Italian dressing. This was the last of a 2nd planting of beans, but I have another planting coming along so we should have more in 3-4 weeks, depending on the weather. We're on our 4th day of high humidity and temps in the 90s, and I have no idea how that will affect the garden produce. We have more storms and cooling predicted for tonight, but that was also the prediction for last night - we got the storms but no cooling.

[chocomouse]

I made English muffins today.

[chocomouse]

Leftovers here, too! My husband had seafood and cauliflower salads, and I had a chicken thigh and steam pea pods. Then he had a huge bowl of raspberry ice cream, it looked just like the huge bowl he had after lunch earlier today. So the ice cream I made yesterday is almost gone!! I licked out the freezer bowl right after I made it; that's probably all I will get.

[chocomouse]

I made a quart of raspberry ice cream today. I made the custard yesterday, as I use eggs which need to be cooked, and then I chill the custard overnight. So today I got the ice cream maker going and when I guessed that the ice cream was about 10 minutes from being finished, I added a cup plus of berries that I had individually frozen on a cookie tray. I also added about 2 tablespoons of rum to the custard, to keep it from freezing too hard.

[chocomouse]

Happy Birthday, Mike!!

[chocomouse]

Dinner tonight was grilled chicken thighs with a Greek marinade, roasted potato chunks, and Cowboy corn and bean salad.

I'm so glad to hear you are OK, Joan. Valdosta was hit pretty bad.

[chocomouse]

I made 2 loaves of the KAF recipe for Vermont Whole Wheat Oatmeal Honey Bread, which I have made many times and we really like it. I skip the cinnamon and use oil instead of the butter. But it rises soooo high, like 6 inches above the sides of two 8 x 4 pans, and makes huge slices. Now I've made a note on my recipe to make it into 3 pans or 2 pans and a dozen buns.

[chocomouse]

I made dried fruit muffins, with the addition of lime flavoring. I used apricots, mangos, pineapple, cherries, and coconut. And topped them with lime streusel.

[chocomouse]

I use dill zucchini relish on my turkey burgers, hot dogs, all kinds of sausage links, etc.

I have found my Ball blue book, 1995 edition, but can't find my newest one; I guess I gave it away when I was downsizing my cookbook collection. I will make the basic zucchini relish recipe, and add dill seed to it; that seems to be my best option now. But first I need to use up my Amish tomatoes to make salsa. I can manage only one preserving project a day!

[chocomouse]

I used to grow Big Boys, and really liked them, but since I no longer plant 24-36 tomato plants, I stopped growing any beefsteaks and grow only Celebrity and Amish/Roma. We are finally harvesting some tomatoes! The Amish are huge, perfectly formed, and getting very red. The Celebrities are all cracked and splitting before they are ripe. Folks in my gardening groups are picking their tomatoes at first blush and letting them ripen inside. This is not my idea of a home-grown tomato, BUT this morning I picked a basket of large, perfectly formed, not-quite-red Celebrities.

In my 38 years of gardening here, this one has been absolutely awful. Too much rain and hardly any sun, interspersed with a few days of 90+ temperatures. Some seeds didn't germinate; some grew, all green, no fruit; some produced fruit, small, never ripened; most didn't produce anything until last week. I can't wait for next June and a fresh start.

[Author]

Posts