Sorry for the lack of posts… just been super busy with the latest products that we’re doing for our Hot Licks Series… Got done a mandolin product as well as a brand new fiddle one for our fiddle site. Almost done… really… and I have a bit gig tomorrow night, but after that, things will be calm for a fortnight and I’m really looking forward to it!!!
So hang in there… got some fun posts coming up.. photos and all that!
We had Bella visiting for a couple days last week and so it was really a zoo for sure here at the Moby! 3 dogs, 3 cats, a guinea pig, 2 ferrets and 2 gerbils! Of course, it was hardly Bella’s fault for pushing us over the edge, we were already hanging on the side of the pet cliff for a good long time.
At first it was chaos, because Evee thought we bought her a new wind up toy and was basically chasing Bella ALL OVER THE PLACE for an hour! A 5 month old herd dog pup is relentless with the focus and drive thing. Poor Bella! We kept snatching her up and trying to keep the two apart a bit… Evee is like a bull moose in a china shop!! She’s at the very very gangly yet powerful puppy teen stage and just doesn’t know her own strength.
So Jessy came to the rescue and she began to get everyone involved in some fun and games with homemade tuna cookies. Pretty quickly, she had the whole canine crew performing tricks and waiting patiently for their turn to wow the judges.
Of course, where tuna cookies are involved, the kitties had to get into the act and Dixie found a good spot on the back of my old wingback chair to do her little litany of tricks! Evee was very intent on learning a few more. She’s definitely the attention queen when it comes to learning new tricks and performing for the masses.
I can’t get over how much she’s grown in just 3 short months! She’s all elbows and long legs and rough and tumble all in one. We’re trying hard to teach her to be a little more graceful, but she’s just all powerhouse and clumsy pup in one! She rips around the Moby like greased lightening and can jump like a gazelle! She can clear the chair’s arm in a single bound and be sitting in it in a heart beat!
She is SOOOO hard to catch when she gets loose, she runs and darts and thinks that we’re just playing with her… silly goose. Maggie figgered out how to catch her though, today, it was so funny. We had spent about 5 minutes on a silly pup chase, trying hard not to “chase” her but get her interested in coming close enough to grab… when Maggie went back to the yard and scooped up Jack from his napping spot on my car! And she walked right over and said, Look at the Kitty! And Evee ran over instantly to get a good sniff of Jack in her arms! She and Jack are not friends and Jack was less than pleased to be used in that manner. Good thing for Maggie, he doesn’t have front claws! (We didn’t do that to him, he was abandoned that way…)
Well, just think… Evee was just a teeny pup not that long ago! Here she was in the middle of May! Awwwww……
I’ve been reading online about felting sweaters. And after seeing some of the most adorable little critters and pouches and such at the Bluegrass Festival on the island, I thought it was time to give it a try ourselves.
Well, just as luck would have it, Maggie and I were driving home from the post office run and there was a garage sale! So we stopped. I had no problem scoring two nice neutral colored men’s sweaters for my evil plans. One was cotton and the other was merino wool.
Or course, when I got home and consulted the old Web Oracle… I discovered that cotton ones don’t felt. Durn. But one site did suggest that you cut cotton ones up and sew them into things, like pouches and little bags or what have you, so I thought, cool… no problem. I’ll cut that one up and make a few things.
But the merino wool? Perfect!!!
First thing you do is cut off all the seams. Cut off the waistband, and the collar and the cuffs. And then cut up the side seams and all that. If you don’t, it might not felt as nicely as it should.
Then you pop the pieces into a hot pot of boiling water!!! Of course, you can do it in a washing machine, but well, we don’t have one, and I didn’t want to go to the laundry just for a craft. So, into the hot pot they went. After all it IS called boiled felt! I just did one clump at a time. Didn’t want to overload the pot.
Boiled about 10 minutes and then pulled it out to drip and cool in the sink. Once I could handle it, I wrung out each piece with my hands.
They did shrink up, about 30% or so. Not quite the 75% that can happen, but to be honest, the thing looked a little felted before I actually even cut it up. That happens a lot… we all have probably felted a wool sweater before without even trying!
But in the end, I got some nice pieces of felt… once they dried! I think I’ll try and make some cute little Ipod and cell phone pouches with it and maybe even a few kitty catnip mousies!
However, with the cotton sweater pieces I began sewing. And let me tell you, it was a minor disaster!!! Apparently cotton sweater is very hard to sew on until you use a binding tape!!! Which I didn’t. So they got all wobbly and stitched funny until I managed to develop a little skill at it.
Actually the wobbly seams were kind of attractive on the edge of a flap or something, but dreadful to try and make nice neat seams. But, hey, they actually turned out kind of cute. I think I’ll add a few little embellishments and maybe some little shoulder straps to a few and see how they fare. I have a little stash of bits and ribbons and such, that might really dress it up a bit.
I made Jessy a nice laptop sleeve! It’s so nice and soft. Of course, it won’t protect it from much, but it’s kind of cute anyway! Not bad for $2 worth of garage sale sweaters! Can’t wait to play with the felted dark gray sweater! Maybe next weekend!
Oh the sweet corn in our local farm stands has been so wonderful. I could eat it every day! And I got the idea of getting some of it ready for the freezer… so we could have it through the fall and winter, maybe… if it lasts long enough!!! (haha)
So we got an extra dozen and are giving it a try!
I cut our corn into chunks, like small nibblet corn. We don’t always want a bunch of corn at a meal, so this way we can have a little or have a lot. I like the idea of being able to pop a few in the crockpot too, if we’re having a roast or into a grill packet for BBQ time.
A quick 4 minute blanch into some boiling water and then straight into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. I suppose that you could skip the blanching step, but everything I’ve read seems to point to the corn getting kind of mushy and loosing some of that sweetness. It seemed easy enough to do, and it was.
Here’s a little trick though, if your corn water stops boiling when you put the corn in, you’re probably cooling the water too much. If it’s not boiling again by less than 1 minute, you need to use either a bigger pot or less corn at a time. Basically, you’re bringing the temperature of the water down toooo cold by adding the corn. Just a little trick.
It took Maggie and I less than an hour and we had enough corn bagged for 6 meals. It only cost us $2 for the corn, and 6 ziploc bags. Not too bad. And we’ve already dug into our store to give it a try and it was just as good as if we had just husked and boiled it! Granted, we only gave it two days in the freezer, but I suspect if it was going to be mushy, it would be mushy right away, pretty much.
I think that we’re going to try a much larger batch of corn and cut it from the cob. I think folks are right, the cobs do take up a lot of space in the freezer. And the idea of adding a little butter to the bag sounds easy to make quick corn in the microwave! Or just pop into a saucepan of boiling water and you’re ready to go!
Oh, our corn on the cobs only took about 5 minutes in boiling water to be perfect! Just add a little butter and some salt and you’ve got fresh picked local sweet corn goodness ready for your table in no time flat!
I can’t wait to see if our corn makes it to the harvest finish line! It tassled and we do have some ears… should be interesting!
Well, when you have another basket of lovely local cukes, then it’s time to try a new recipe or two. I’ve been meaning to try making real pickles, not just frig pickles. So, my plan was to try bread and butter pickles and then to try making homemade sweet relish.
First the relish. After washing them up, and we sliced them up. Then Maggie fed them through the food processor to make a fine chopped relish. And then we chopped up the onion and sweet pepper.
Once it was all chopped, I sprinkled some pickling salt per the recipe in with water and the chopped relish was let to sit for several hours. The cucumber puts off a lot of liquid and I guess that the salt helps to draw it out.
Once the relish sat for several hours, you drain it out, to get rid all the excess water. I used a very fine sieve and pressed a bowl into the mix to really press out the liquid. Once I was done, it went into a pot with the cider vinegar and sugar. The mix will boil and you added the spices, which were mustard seed and celery seed. It was really very simple actually. Once it boiled, you just fill your waiting pint jars and water bath process for 10 minutes. When I filled the jars, I did let it drain a bit. Once the jar was filled, I did fill it with a spoon or two of juice.
Let me tell you, these were some of the best tasting dogs around… our own onions, our own relish and decent hot dogs from the local butcher… very good. Can’t wait to give it a try in some tuna or with Maggie’s awesome potato salad!
Now, after the relish, we made the bread and butter pickles. After they soaked in the salt water bath, they were drained and blended into a very similar mixture of vinegar, sugar and spices.
It was a little tricky to do, I did have more pickle slices than I probably needed as I did end up shy of the liquid and had to make a half batch to finish filling up the jars. My bad. Hey, this is all new to me. I have noticed, though, with canning and such, you do need to measure pretty close and make sure you do as the recipe requires. Just a little heads up. In the end, my pickles looked a little, well, wilty a bit. I probably over did the boil part. But they tasted good, before the water bath and time to stew. I think they will be just fine after a week or so of pickling.
Just a little thought or two… I use my Presto-Pot to waterbath my canning. Works great. It’s super quick to heat up, and can hold a decent temperature for a long time without guessing. I can do 4 pints in it, and like 5 or 6 of the littler jelly jars. Works pretty good. Only thing, I can’t do larger quart jars.
I am planning on getting a larger water canner in a week or two, when my tomatoes start coming in. I want to be able to do stewed tomatoes and sauces, that kind of thing. My only worry is that it might not work with my induction stove top burner. Guess I’ll be testing that out sooner than later. (I carry a little magnet in my purse… a pot has to have a high level or steel in it, to work with an induction stove top. It’s one of the drawbacks to the induction system, but I’ve done a little research and most of the big black canners are steel. Should be okay.
Another thing… nobody says that you have to can 47 pints of something to can. I find it very relaxing to make 6 pints of something, whether it’s jam or jelly, a chutney or even pickles or relish. It’s easy if you take it step by step and doesn’t have to be huge production that some people would like it to be. Sure if you have a large garden or family and you need to put up hundreds of jars of food, then, it’s a production. But if you’re a smaller family, or just love the idea of a fresh jar of homemade jelly, then try it in smaller batches. It’s delightfully fun and rewarding. They make great gifts.
One of the things I love about making canned goodies is sharing them. Every time I have passed on a jar of something homemade, everyone talks of a friend or relative that used to can and how good it was. A lot of folks even return the jar when it’s done and tell you it was delightful! Or so and so loved this and that. Maybe they’re being nice, but none seem to decline another jar or two through the season. I’ve even had a few people ask to buy the stuff! Oh my!
No thanks… I think if I tried to do it all the time or as a cottage industry, some of the fun and delight would go away. No, I like canning because I can make and store goodies from our local harvest, and I love knowing exactly what goes in each jar. And I love looking at them, all beautiful and colorful. It’s so redeeming, it just is so neat. You don’t have to have a whole farm and all just have a little bit of self sufficiency in your daily life. Even in an old mobile home in the city.
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The Recipes
Sweet Pickle Relish
4 cups chopped cucumbers
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped green pepper
1 cup chopped red pepper
1/4 cup canning/pickling salt
3 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups cider vinegar
1 tbsp. celery seed
1 tbsp. mustard seed
Combine chopped veggies in a big bowl, sprinkle with salt and fill with cold water. Let stand 2-3 hours. Prepare all your canning jars and lids (sterilize and warm jars)
Drain veggies completely, press out liquid. Set aside. Combine vinegar, sugar and spices in a LARGE pot and bring to a boil, stirring often. Add the veggies and stir, simmering for 10 minutes. Pack the hot relish into the hot jars, leaving headspace of 1/4 inch. Ladle in a bit of the juice it it seems dry to you. Add lids and bands, and process the jars for 10 minutes in boiling water bath canner. Makes about 6 pint jars.
Bread and Butter Pickles
2 quarts sliced medium cucumbers
1 big onion
1 green or red pepper
1-2 cloves of garlic
1/6 cup canning salt
Slice your cukes, and peppers and onions into your choice of slices, rings or fine chopped bits. Sprinkle with salt, cover with cold water and ice cubes. Let set 3 hours and then drain in a colander.
2 1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup cidar vinegar
3/4 tsp tumeric
3/4 tsp. celery seed
1 tbsp mustard seed
In a large pot, heat to a boil, then add cuke and veggie mixture. Simmer for 5 minutes, then pack into hot jars. Lid and process in a boiling water hot bath for 10 minutes. Let jars sit for a week or two before eating for best results. Makes 4-6 pints of pickles.
Over one Billion eggs recalled after being tainted and over 1,000 people have become sick.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38741401/ns/health-food_safety/
Hmm. You would think that chickens would be safe and healthy, all jammed in cages tight like they do at egg farms. I mean, it’s not like they have any room to move around and get hurt, or eat anything they shouldn’t, they don’t even get a chance to turn around or anything. Gee. I’m sure it’s nice and sanitary in those places, with the chicken droppings all over everything like a thick layer of nasty evil.
I will never buy another carton of eggs from a factory farm EVER again in my life. I will go without. You should too. There are lots of people selling farm fresh, home grown eggs in your neighborhood, not matter where you live. Find them. Looks on Craigslist. Check with the local farmers markets. FIND OUT. BUY LOCAL EGGS from honest folk.
This sickens me so much. Stay away from processed foods that use eggs from these places. And ASK your favorite restaurant and such to BUY LOCAL and HUMANELY raised EGGS or don’t eat breakfast out. If we all start to ask and demand then the local farmers will respond.
And here’s a tip. You can buy several dozen eggs from a local hen hutch and they will keep fine in your frig. The eggs you get in the store can be up to 90 days old. Mother Earth News did a test and eggs stored in the frig were good after 7 months!!!! So, you can find a local egg layer, and buy a couple dozen at a time if they are not super close to you. Buy for your friends and neighbors too, make up a egg-buying co-op.
There is nothing like a fresh laid egg from a happy hen that is out eating bugs and greens and scratching corn and running around being a chicken. It is so cool to hear a hen cackle away when she’s laid an egg and watch all the other girls rush in to see what the big deal is about and coo and cackle away like a big hen club! It’s wonderful. They cook up good, they bake wonderfully and they just LOOK better and taste better. Do yourself a favor. Stay away from factory store eggs. You’ll thank me.
Been waiting a long time for this festival… the Harsen’s Island Bluegrass Festival, the very first one. I was contacted way back in the spring by Kate Hart, the organizer, and I knew right away that it was going to be a good one and it was.
And best part? We got to ride on a ferry to get to the island!!! How cool is that?
It rained a bit on our way there, actually got really dark and just blew over, poured for about 5 minutes and it was done. That did help a bit, to take a little of the heat off the day.
On my gosh the water was so blue… it was like the Caribbean! I wanted to just jump in and play! It was so silly and fun to ride the ferry, it’s only like a 2 minute ride, and you can’t get out, you just drive right on and this guy brusquely gets you on and paid and off in no time flat.
It was held at the old Schoolhouse Grill, and what a neat little old schoolhouse. All the vendors were set up nicely and the place had a wonderful buzz and energy to it. We were treated so well, right from the start, it was like being at some big fancy festival and we were honored guests.
We got to park back by the stage, no lugging instruments and such a million miles in the heat! Actually we were right near the edge of a marshy area… that was pretty cool too.
From the stage manager fellow that treated us so kindly, to the crowds, and the vendors, it was one of our best experiences picking this music. We are so happy to help support and spread the word about the festival and we really hope that they have this every year! What a cool thing!
I love events that are run and organized by musicians. They are usually the ones to in turn, treat the musicians at their events well and that is just so wonderful. THey think about things like having enough shade for the performers, liquids available, making sure they feel special. It’s all little stuff really, but it goes SO far in setting up a musician with a super cool energy and happy place, you just don’t understand it I suppose until you’ve stood in 110 degree heat and sun and tried to entertain for hours. Even their badges were cool, VIP ALL ACCESS, and they fed us good BBQ and wonderful sweet corn. It was a pretty cool thing.
And of course, all the music was hot! Lonesome County, Catfish Mafia, Balduck Ramblers, Skin and Bones… and of course, that awesome Ohio band…. Deepwater Bluegrass. HAHA…. It was just wonderful!
They asked us to sign posters for their sponsors! How cool! Our autographs! I want to think about that for the Opry! That would be cool…..
They had the cutest crafts and such at some of the vendors, I wish I had a couple hundred bucks! I would have gotten lots of gifts for everyone! Beautiful jewelry, crafts, foods, soaps and candles, all fun stuff!
Of course, I don’t have any photos of us playing. I really need to train some of our groupies to take pictures! We need them for our archives! Well, I saw lots of folks taking pictures, so maybe I’ll be able to find a few and add them later on!
All in all, it was a most wonderful event and I thank each and everyone of the volunteers that helped to make it so special, and to Kate Hart and her team to organize it and all the wonderful people that enjoyed our music. We had a wonderful time!!!
Jessy made tuna cookies for the livestock on Wednesday.
We got these little teeny cutters on eBay… they are little shapes, hearts, diamonds, leaves, etc. So cute. Of course, it takes about 14 hours to cut out a whole batch of dough! hahahaha…..
And Evee loves to watch the WHOLE process!!! She’s so cute!
Okay. I am officially a chutney freak. We tried the peach chutney on rice and ham and it was SO good, oh my gosh. Had a sort of Oriental, or maybe Indian taste… that savory and touch of sweet… so very good. I got a recipe for tomato chutney (though it looks a lot like salsa to me…. hahaha….) and I want to try an apple chutney too! Mmmmm…..
