Tonkatsu Ramen soup with boiled eggs

 I told Esme I was going to write this down because it is different than 'just making the package' but unless I do it while paying close attention, it's hard to tell her what exactly is so different about it. 

Tonkatsu ramen soup : (you can make it with different meat or just vegetables, just adjust to your taste) boil four eggs, then place in cold water unpeeled while chopped up 1 cooked pork chop, and gather up frozen green onions. Set pork chop and green onions to boil in one cup more liquid than the package calls for (in this case, 3 cups when the package asks for 2 cups), add a tablespoon of soy sauce and a shake of ginger-garlic-sugar-sage-black pepper pork seasoning, bring that to a boil and let it continue to heat while peeling the eggs. 

Sometimes I would add frozen green peas, bok choy or shredded frozen cabbage at this point.  I will sometimes put in a shake of furikake flaked seaweed into this - I did tonight.   If using shredded carrot, (we didn't have any tonight) let that boil to a tender state before continuing. I don't use canned carrot in this because it becomes mush and is not tasty in the broth, but some softened shredded carrot is really nice.  

 Break up the noodles and place them into the pan and cook for the required amount of time (4 minutes in this case), add the soup packet and oil packet from the package. Break the boiled eggs in the bowls to expose the yolks - and pour one half of the pot over each bowl of eggs.

chopped up porkchop, green onions, tonkatsu pork chop flavored ramen package

 

Bring 3 cups of water (the package calls for two for the noodles and broth packet, this is one extra to be absorbed into the meat, veggies and eventually eggs) to a boil, add the pork chop, 1 tbsp of soy sauce, green onions and a few shakes of a spicy pork ginger based seasoning.  We make our own, but it has garlic, ginger, sage, black pepper and a few other things in it as well as some sugar.  Do not mix the soup packet or oil packet from the package in yet - that goes in later! 

  

Boil 4 eggs - I try to soft-boil them but the key point is to not overboil them.  I boil four for two bowls, and if one cracks and is lost, three is still enough.  Pour out the hot water after they are boiled enough, refill with cold, let sit until the soup mixture is heated up well and the pork has started to flavor the water.  

  

When the broth is just about ready - break up the noodles into four sections and place them in the broth.  Set the timer for the amount of time the package says the noodles need to cook.  Peel the eggs, but do not chop them up yet. 

 When the noodles are entirely done, open the soup packet and the oil packet and mix them into the soup and noodles.  Break up the eggs to expose the yolks.  Pour half of the soup and noodles over each bowl of eggs.  The soup will mix a bit with the egg yolk and make the broth even richer. 

 

And there is your soup - much more than just the packet, but not so much you have to spend all day making it, like REAL tonkatsu soup would be - one of those told me to boil the pork for five hours to make the broth!  

 

some hot dishes

 I've been needing to clean out some of the frozen vegetables in the freezer, and use up some other things - I do this standard sort of 'this is what fried rice could become if you just did it without frying the rice' hotdish thing, and usually I just follow what I've got on hand.  Both of these worked out really well, worth writing down and doing it again.

The past two nights I've done this :

 

Kielbasa : 

 1 cup of water and 2 tbsp of olive oil

big splash of soy sauce, brown prepared mustard (a small bit), 1 tbsp of brown sugar, splash of balsamic vinegar, dash of pork ginger spice 

red pepper, onion, green pepper, bok choy (shredded tops and chopped bottoms) and small amount of zucchini

about 1/2 cup of cooked rice and potato mixture (leftover) 

frozen kielbasa chopped up into small bits

2 eggs 

I served that beside some chicken dumplings from the freezer case that we had decided to try the other day - but the above mixture was really standout above and beyond the store bought dumplings. 

 

Pork and Bacon : 

I cooked 1 cup of fresh rice in the rice cooker, and then set it aside to cool.

1 cup of water and 2 tbsp of olive oil

finely chopped pork chop, put in at this early stage and brought to sizzle 

yellow bell pepper, bit of red bell pepper, onion and a larger amount of zucchini 

1/2 to 3/4 cup of tomato sauce

1 to 2 tbsp of birria taco seasoning (guajilio and ancho chiles, claims to have 'adobo' seasoning in it and apple cider vinegar) that I picked up to try at the store the other day (Oh yes, getting more of this at a later date)

brought all the tomato and vegetable and pork combination to a high boil and the mixture began to become sauce-like, cracked and added two eggs 

very very finely cut up two slices of bacon, sprinkled in while the eggs were beginning to have the whites cooked

draw the yolks through the entire mixture after the white has cooked a bit, then let the whole mixture cook for another 30 seconds or so until the tomato sauce thickens with the egg

split the rice onto two plates and pour half the mixture over each plate

 

for my lunch the other day I had put part of a porkchop, carrots, ginger, zucchini, split peas and onion together and made a soup, which was then blended thoroughly and I've been eating at work with curry powder in it - one quart jar of that actually gets me three good bowls of soup, and helps to keep my sinuses from having issues as well

 I've been doing rice and black beans, rice and crowder peas, squash and black beans and so forth for other lunches, always with a good tablespoon of butter in it and curry powder and black pepper. (anti-inflammatory stuff, it works for me)

I'm thinking the rest of my butternut squash, some of the leftover tomato sauce and black beans for my own lunch tomorrow, with a little gouda cheese in it.   

 

 

bits with vegetables, or fruits

 

 

 

 

We spent three hours at the DMV this morning, but now we have a permit holder and a renewed driver's license in the house.  We'd been trying to get those done for months.  We stopped and did the shopping on the way home and I got fruits/vegetables to prepare.  Ate half the avocado with lots of spice and bread, and then cut up the others to use in soups.

 

It is now 5:30 pm and it feels like night.  It is full dark out, as goes November.  I have already been giving in and going to sleep about 7:30 pm lately because of the temperature - and because I need the sleep.  The healing situation with my oral surgery has done quite well, except in that one place where I think the tooth shard might be.  My next check-up is next week.   Yesterday was the first day in all that time I hadn't taken any pain medication (ibuprofen) at all, although I still hissed like a cat when I took the teeth out at night.  That part still feels like pulling off skin each time - but it isn't, because when I rinse it out there isn't any blood or etc.  It's just that sensitive.  And I note that I'm still 'grinding my teeth' some in my sleep, but since there aren't teeth on the top, I woke myself up biting hard with a bottom tooth into the top gum in one place.

 

I dug a frozen chopped apple out of the fridge, and put it with some split peas, kielbasa, some of the yellow squash and onions in a pot to make soup this afternoon.  I still have some pumpkin, onion and chili-bean soup in the fridge from yesterday.  I can eat softened bread and cookies soaked in coffee with the dentures in, but nothing really hard, because of that spot with the potential tooth bit hurts a lot, then the plate slips.  I haven't lost a lot of weight, even though I've been eating less quantity - probably eating a bit more condensed calories in the soups?  Considering it's winter, that is good, as I really need what I've got to stay warm.  It's all doing fairly well, considering these little bits and my tendency towards inflammation with hEDS.  I didn't know how it was going to be at all in specific, which is why I am writing it down now as I go.

 

dental surgery soup recipes continue: 

 

1 small red delicious apple (I had cut up and put in a freezer container three months ago)

2 cups of water or more 

a half cup of green split peas, washed

a handful of onions

a few pieces of kielbasa

a bit of butter 

a handful of chopped yellow squash

spices 

 cooked until everything was soft and then pureed with a stick mixer.

 

 1/2 can of pumpkin puree

1/2 can of chili beans

handful or more of onions

bit of shredded pork (Mark was heating it up for him and Esme)

lots of spice

lots of hot madras curry powder (specifically)

some butter

2 cups of water

cooked until everything was soft and then pureed with a stick mixer.

 

Last night I dreamt that I had to leave my old mail truck on a long road by a little town - after working a full shift at the hardware store (where the computer system in the dream was absolutely not realistic and I found it eyebrow-raising) and driving out in a little dark blue car I don't have at all trying to go find my truck - and I knew where it was but it didn't make any sense, because it was a right-hand drive and it was parked on the right side of the road right up against a guardrail. I could see it in my mind's eye in the dream - and was driving along waiting to see it, knowing I'd have to turn around and come back and get it.  

 

I was supposed to go back and get in it and drive off, to avoid someone following me from the store.  But then when I got there - the plan was jacked and it was a trap - there were five trucks there and none of them were mine, all on the same basic model plan - red, gold or white, but all left- hand drives and none of them were even the same make - which I told the person in the dream that tried to catch my arm and ask which one was mine.  None of them, mine was a 'X'.  And I pulled away and ran further down the road towards the town, looking behind me all the way, although no one seemed to be following.  Then I walked a bit further into town and went to their post office, and asked them if they had seen a truck parked there.  The two ladies there told me my truck was out back, that the postmaster had had it reported to them and towed it there waiting for the owner to show up, but I didn't get that far to actually see it, as I couldn't find the actual door into the post office the door to the left said 'city hall' and the window said 'post office' and I was wondering if I would have to walk all the way around the building.  At that point, my alarm was going off.

 

 I've had a few of the 'remember this number/ address' type dreams, as well - but the info doesn't really mean anything when I wake up.  They told me it was my phone number, no it wasn't and I wouldn't actually say my number in the dream, although I wrote down the one they told me.  Addresses, same thing.  I run through routes and mail cases (in the post offices) in my dream that I haven't seen before - I can remember it when I wake up but can't remember the exact names and numbers, although they were all there when I was running them and trying to match up packages.  /sigh - like my brain thinks it doesn't have enough to do when I'm getting some sleep *ha

 

Studying Czech, French and Spanish.  Have laid the Japanese aside for a little bit, and haven't studied the Lithuanian vocabulary while I've been awake (although I played it in my sleep, too). 

vegetable recipes

 

Recipe for a vegetable dish Esme ate tonight with me and said it was 'nice' - olive oil and 1/4 cup water bring to boil in a saucepan, add about two handfuls of frozen finely-chopped kale that I bought yesterday, a handful of yellow pepper, and a handful of onion, bring back to boil and saute, add a big dash of biryani masala spice, added about a tablespoon of butter on top of that to activate the spice, then about a half can of rinsed and drained canned cannellini beans (will use the other half tomorrow) and some seasoning salt and bring to a higher temp, stirring until the water reduces to a sauce consistency. Mark had made pork chops and potatoes already and I made this on the side.

 

I had bought these vegetables yesterday while out grocery shopping and said 'it was perhaps a pipe dream' to think about cooking something like this because Esme wouldn't eat it.  Mark said, make it anyway - and put some on her plate.  And then I would have made it, and not let the ingredients sit.  Lately it feels like anything I want to make beyond the norm is just too much work, always on the run, getting propane, getting gas, getting necessity stuff and looking at the vegetables is sort of like 'yea, right.. dreaming'.   But it was good.  And I'm glad she at least said it was nice- didn't see her eat it but she said she did.

other veggie thing I made earlier in the week for us - that I know she did eat:

onion, orange pepper and frozen green peas, with kielbasa sausage and butter, served beside a packet of parmesan sauce noodles that also, I consider usually something she won't eat.  But she looked at the pack and said 'I've had something like this before, maybe'.. so I made those together, while Mark made himself a hamburger.

 

It's been a week, off to bed, post office tomorrow

Neurodivergent Cooking (at Patreon, link)

I started another thing today - and well, because I'm ADHD I start a lot of things but I'm not always very consistent.  BUT - this is about ADHD, and not being consistent, but learning skills and tips and going forward anyway, to make good healthy food, and to make it everyday.

Neurodivergent Cooking : Rhelynn at Patreon

I will be collecting certain articles and recipes, with lots of pictures and tips for making it 'click', to this site.  This does not aim to be America's Test Kitchen or Martha Stewart - but closer to the: oh right, I'm the buyer, cook and the cleanup crew, and I've got to keep this up, sort of thing. 

I aim to tackle 

    the 'Where Ingredients go to Die' problem, 

    the Make Ahead, I barely have time to Exist problem, 

    Oh Look, a Squirrel issue (not solve, but manage)

    Multitasking is our Friend and Superpower

    and the I'd Rather be Sleeping type issues... 

because really, being neurodivergent or low-energy of any kind brings with it certain issues most other people don't even think about.

 

1.) We love to experiment, but hate to follow instructions

    --wait, so you're going to give instructions for people who don't like instructions?  They're more like guidelines, really.  And most times you don't even need them.. but when you're in a slump or doing the same bad habits (frozen pizza I'm looking at you) it can be nice to have some 'look over there' inspiration.  

    -- we tend to skip over or avoid a lot of things, and miss key information

    -- we're not good at keeping our recipes or even looking them up again

           -- and keep a notebook isn't going to help, where's my notebook?

            -- out of sight often means out of mind, keep things visible! 

            -- I haven't even put hands on that in weeks, where is it?

            -- Ew, I found it.  How long was that in the cupboard? 

    -- be your own best friend - good habits and good results make good memories

            -- making something well means we're more likely to keep it up 

            -- make something often, with variations

           -- learn to grow into your tastes and skills

           -- learn to reflect and say : HEY, that was a good idea 

ALSO : mental exercises are just as important as physical ones for making routines.  Take time in the moment to reflect.  Remind yourself : I'm learning this.   Or:  I've done this before.  I'm doing this.  This is getting done.  And : I've done this, that needed to be done.   It's much more important than you might think.

         

2.) We get excited about things, buy gadgets and ingredients, and then when it comes to the actual doing, wander off and/or eat junk food

We'd mostly rather be eating real food, but Time is a fractured multiverse of other things we'd rather be doing.  Sometimes we forget to eat at all!  Or we inhale the potato chips and leave the fruit we bought on the counter.  Do I really need to eat?  Can I put it off?  Where did the last four hours go? 

    -- I think recipes need to be a little better engineered to 

    ----- contain relatable and sustainable ingredients and substitutes

    ---- understand that purchasing the food is also an important step

    ---- encourage good sustainable habits for prep and cleanup

    ---- understand that we want to start and finish in a reasonable time

    --- have some things we can make ahead when we do have time, but otherwise would fall into the 'I have nothing useful to do' trap and scroll, watch tv or bounce off the walls.   

    --- bring a book, computer app or project with you if you absolutely must bounce, bounce usefully, and in clear view of what you are 'actually doing'  Out of Sight out of Mind is a thing.  Keep things visible.

    ---- use a stable, easy to keep pantry instead of 'Where do I even get that?'

    ---- learn a basic set of skills that we don't have to look up every single time

    ---- adapt, use things multiple ways, learn to size recipes for your needs

    ----- not have so much of the 'wait 10 minutes' and 'in a separate bowl...'

    ---- but also understand how multitasking is our superpower

    ----- not have three paragraphs of history that distract from actually cooking

 

 

Buy the Food

Prep the Food

 

Know what you have (and where it is)

Know what is possible with it

Understand the basic qualities of ingredients

Know the basic skills about how to do it

Actually form good habits to use it

 

Chop, Cook, Eat, Clean

Repeat

 

Pat yourself on the back you made food

Learn more when you're excited

Have goto easy but healthy recipes for when you're tired

 

 Learn to use time when you have it

to help out when you don't

 

and think ahead - be your own best friend

know and observe your own habits

connect your past self and your future self 

to adapt to how things work for you

 

Encouragements: 

I Made That!  That was good.  

I should make that again.

I bought that and USED it.  

That had so many good ingredients in it.

I bought that from the local farmer and it was tasty. 

I will buy this food over the other because there are four ways I can use it.

Yes, talk to yourself, you're listening:

That was easy.

That was easier than last time.

I learned how to make that easier for me. 

I'm reminding myself right now how much easier this is now.

Next time : I will think, hey, let's do that, it was easy! 

Use the Now while you have it

I have five minutes while the coffee runs - that is enough to make a salad.

I have twenty minutes while the washing machine runs, that is enough to make rice.

I can make these two recipes in tandem during the same time and enjoy a really good dinner.

 

ADHD hacks:

I will buy that ingredient when I'm off work because:

 I left a bungee cord across my steering wheel

I can set that to simmering while I'm in the shower and remember it:

because I left my shoes right there 

I'm awake at four o'clock in the morning :

Why don't I prep the rice for fried rice tomorrow? 

 

PURCHASING takes time and effort, too, not to mention $. 

This is me investing time and the three dollars in the me that wants this later.

 

I'm standing at the grocery store - this has taken so LONG

I finally got all the things on this LIST

I want to just go HOME... let's skip the 'X',....

but if I buy the lettuce now,

I'll have it for that five minute salad.

I liked that five minute salad, and so did (other person).

So I'm taking two minutes now to go get the lettuce. 

and Future Me will thank this past me for doing this

by using the lettuce that this me is taking the time to buy.

(the road goes both ways)

 

I have some time and energy : what can I do to help Future Me?

I'm so glad I did that yesterday when I had time.

I'm so glad I did that while I had the energy.

I'm glad I did that between switching the laundry.

I'm so glad I've been growing that in the garden / on the porch.

I took all this time to grow and care for this - now I'm using it.

I remembered that without having to look it up!

I know this doesn't take as long as it feels like sometimes

Having to look everything up every time actually took more time than cooking it!

I cooked and cleaned up and it's all ready again for tomorrow. 

I didn't have to look all over for that pot, or it's lid before I started.

I'm not hung up on using that specific thing because I know lots of ways to do this.

Cooking is a 'chore' but you can work to dread it less.

I can look forward to making that dish tonight,

because I know all the things are there

Isn't it nice everything is all ready to go?

Garden day

 The bleeding heart root has taken very well

 Mikey's canataloupe grown from seed is doing well

 Chickens in the playpen 6 foot by 6 foot we made from PVC and wire

 Little Dark Galaxy tomato seedlings have made it through the adjustment period.

 This is Gwen's cabbage, planted here by Mikey.  It is getting big enough to eat birds!

 The lambs ear has tiny purple flowers.  We didn't even know it had flowers!  We were all a little urprised.

 

Esme proud of her lambs ear plant, standing in front of the shade garden

 Liatris coming up

 Asparagus

 Onions

 Out in the heat talking about weeds and chickens

 Purlsane and petunias

 Miss Irene in her sun hat

 The double tiger lilies are starting to bud to make blooms

 A tomato budding out

 

The tomatoes and peppers and two new places I planted pole beans

Esme and Grandma looking at the things in the raised bed

Red Cabbage

I made this today, three pint jars worth from one medium red cabbage head.  I've been avoiding the cabbage for a while because I didn't know what to do with so much.  But, today Mark pointed out how pretty it was in the store and I decided to do SOMETHING.  I had a Granny Smith apple at home, too.  So, this was almost perfect.

 I got the recipe here:
German Red Cabbage
The only thing I changed was I threw in a handful of frozen chopped onion I had in the freezer, and a dash of cinnamon with the cloves.  I also added more water.

Then I made my favorite packet chicken flavored rice to bring to work this week.  I think a little of this and a  bit of rice would pair nicely this week.  I've still got some other greens and a head of broccoli to make it a little different each day.

I tried the TAZO Vanilla Caramel Chai and found that I really like the Classic flavor much better.  I mixed the other a bag at a time with a scoop of coffee and that made it drinkable.  It has licorice in it, which gives it an unexpected taste.

Bits:  Esme is still doing very well in school - getting good marks on all of her papers she is bringing home.  She says she gets interrupted too much by other kids to eat lunch, but she eats her snack and drinks her drink.  She has always been a very slow eater.. no matter what we've done to try to fix that.  Since we can't do a lot about that I just make sure she HAS food in her lunch that she can eat if she has time and non-distractions.  And we have set up for her to be able to get some decent (not entirely junk food) but quick food as soon as she gets home from school.

We're in the middle of Araminta Spookie 'My Haunted House.'  I'm in the middle of the fifth Outlander book - Marsali has just had her fourth child, who is a dwarf.  I've also started planning for what to get Esme for her birthday... will probably use my next Turk gift card towards that.  One thing she asked for is already on the way in the mail, but probably will take a few weeks to come.  We also told her we would hang her TV on the wall in her room (instead of in the kitchen) after she had been in school for two months at the very least.... she's been counting those days!

PROJECTS: (stuff  I've done...mentioned to keep myself rolling)
Still working on the purple shawl, bit by bit.
Patched a pair of Esme's pants that had been sitting on my sewing table for three days.
Cleaned out some magazines.
General upkeep... it still feels good to grab the broom, sponge etc as needed.

 TO DO :
Go through the blog and get some important pictures ready to be printed to put in our little album and one for the school days page of her Through the Years book.  I remember just the right picture I want to put on the front of the album :)

Spinach pineapple banana greek yogurt smoothie

I'm trying to eat more of my vegetables, and I've bought a new personal blender.  So, there will be some recipes on KnitOwl lately as I get to trying things with it.  I saw a recipe for this when I was looking for what to do with my spinach.  And, I happened to have a can of pineapple open in the fridge.  BUT - I don't have any almond milk and I don't like the stuff enough to buy it just for this.

I wanted a smoothie recipe with no almond milk.  So, I looked around a bit and combined two recipes.

1 small to medium banana, cut up (some places say to freeze the chunks)
about 1/2 cup of spinach or mixed greens.
1/3 cup of greek yogurt
1/3 cup of pineapple chunks
1/3 cup of pineapple juice from the can.
1 tsp of chia seed

Directions:
Pour the pineapple juice into the blender.  Add the greek yogurt.  Blend this up together with half of the spinach or greens.  I would reccommend taking the stems off of the leaves, they tend to leave fibers in the smoothie.  Peel and de-string the banana.  Put half of this in the blender and blend.  Put the pineapple chunks in the blender and blend.  Add the second half of the mixed greens.  Add the last half of the banana.  The smoothie will be getting thick.   Add the chia seed and blend it until it is really well mixed.  Pour it up and use right away.

I saw some sites discussing the liquid or whey that forms on the top of the Greek Yogurt.  Some places say to mix it in and others say to drain it off.  I have been noticing that my yogurt does not 'keep' as well when I drain it off.  I haven't really been mixing it in, either.  I've just been grabbing the yogurt with the spoon around the well and it has stayed good for much longer than my previous large container.

The chia seed was 98 cents for a decent size package.  I thought it wouldn't hurt to buy some and try adding it.  It claims to have Omega 3 in it.  Mark said I should try a raw egg... but even though we have our own chickens I'm not sure I want to do a raw egg.

Eggs and spinach say spinach quiche to me ;)

It's that time again - garden plan 2013

 

Sweet corn in upper left corner, tomatoes on fences in the middle, limas, pintos and bush beans in the bottom left corner, cabbage and carrots in the bottom right corner.  Flowers and coleus in pink on the right bottom and yellow square.  Indian corn, pumpkins and cowpeas in the upper right corner.   Gourds in brown.  Sunflowers along the top and back.  'Gray' color for pole beans.  Eggplants, okra and pepper, zucchini and radishes and cucumbers.  

The entire garden is 47 feet wide at the top, and 33 feet at the bottom.  31 feet from front to back.  I thought I was a little obsessive in planning, but Mark said we should go all the way with measurements and be 'realistic' if we were going to plan... hmm.....  The corn is spaced 24 inches apart and thinned to one plant every foot...That is realistic according to University standards, but I doubt our garden will be that measured!

The broccoli I planted the other day is already sprouting in the little yogurt cup it was planted in.  I think that is a little under three days... wow.  I need to put the new tomato seeds and coleus in starter flats - but need to rearrange so I have somewhere to put them.

In other news:  Esme wrote a love letter today for one of her classmates.  I'm not sure she realizes exactly what that means.. but she put it in a bag and wants to bring it to him at school.  It has daisies and a puppy on it and says 'LOVE Esme (Name)'   

A day after the equinox, the first day of spring.  It is 24 degrees out and they think it will snow.  We will likely not plant outside for at least another week...

garden harvest

Ichiban eggplants, pimento peppers, yellow Amish pear tomatoes and some dwindling Romas that had ripened in the windowsill.

I planted Mountain Climbers pole beans yesterday. The Kentucky Wonder brown seeded beans are starting to germinate. The sweet corn and Sisco beans are just barely starting to germinate. The first field corn experiment in the fenced garden is about knee-high, and the second experiment is about four inches tall. Esme's kidney beans are vigorous... looks like they'll do something. The sorghum that was white seeded the other day is turning to a pretty raw sienna.. which is heartening.


dinner tonight

Techie girl, garden pictures and a little garden friend

Our little tech girl using the trackball and listening on her headphones as she plays the Sims game. She is reading a few more of the commands correctly to me off the screen - she has known 'what they do' for a while, but now is reading the actual words for 'call' and 'taxi' and a few others. She is understanding more how not to make her people 'all red unhappy', how to get them around 'downtown' and why it isn't such a good idea to use all your money to buy balloons and teddy bears and paint your person into a corner so they can't get out. She puts the headphones in and guides herself into the game, pauses, saves and shuts down when she is done... it's pretty cool!

We have also been playing 'soccer' in the mornings the past few days - but it was interrupted by red shirts, blue shirts, referees and dragons and octopi this morning. She surprised me by turning our kicking practice into a 'run down the court and score a goal' practice.


Strawberry blonde sunflowers


tomatoes, black krim and lemon boy
they went into spaghetti!


Bees pollinating in our corn early this morning



I was pulling up grass and weeds in the garden and this little guy popped up! I ran inside to get the camera and took some pics of him before setting him off into our corn so he wouldn't be stepped on until I was finished weeding.

Garden bounty

bounty

Red cabbage, summer squash (zephyr hybrid), a green bell pepper, green and wax beans, some carrots and herbs (basil, lemon basil, oregano, mint) from the garden today. There are still no ripe tomatoes yet.

I put most of this into a mixture on the stove with some butter and apples to boil down. A little more of it I put with some storebought tomato, rice and kielbasa to make a tasty hotdish for tonight's supper. Mark had made more fried apples for himself and Esme to eat with the wonderful pulled pork roast he did a few days ago. He is getting so good at it - ginger and other spices combine with lots of things so well.

In other news I am working on a pig sewing pattern. Esme has the first one and it is a sweet little piglet waiting for its mama. I should go work on her right now.

bit: kudos to Daddy for recognizing that little girl can and will sleep somewhere past the crack of dawn if we put a blanket over the canopy of her bed. It blocks the first rays of sunlight which otherwise have her popping out of bed somewhere around 6 am. Now, unless something else wakes her up and she realizes the sun is up, she might sleep until 8 or even 9.. sometimes close to ten. That is good, because she gets tired in the middle of the day and very cranky - and being full 'on' all day she doesn't really slow down earlier, just cranky and surly in the afternoon with possible chance of nap.

She still wants to go to school every day. Every morning her first question is: 'can I go to school?' Poor kid. Not until June 12th, again.


Last night eating an apple
we had sliced them up to put in dinner

Fresh from outside in the garden with us, muddy, sprayed with a hose, wearing plastic necklaces Grandma gave her and just happy and thoughtful in general.

We are out in the garden (2012)

We have returned from a jaunt to the co-op bearing mint, tomatoes, peppers and more... The garden was tilled the other day and we will be making more soil additions and tilling again today. Then it is off and running! I just planted some cosmos and snapdragons from seed... zinnias and others to come as well. There is a small section we have already cordoned off for flowers and herbs. There are 'volunteer' gladiolus I saw when I was tilling and that was the start of that.

The co-op had many more varieties this year, including of field peas (cowpeas). I picked up a bag of Speckled butterpeas but am also anxious to decide which ones out of my large stash of different heirloom beans would be best situated for this year, and where. We have corn, carrots and a lot of other vegetable seeds. I am trying just a small stint of okra this year as well - it has overwhelmed me in the past but the flowers are pretty enough to plant it as an ornamental. Then there are zucchini, scallop squash and pumpkins as well.



Esme put herself between these four posts and told me she was in a castle, and waiting to find 'Her Majesty' to bring the people and the flags to. Funny girl.

Planted today:
(*) seed:
7 Roma tomatoes
2 banana peppers
1 orange bell
1 pimiento pepper
2 mints, an oregano
assorted flower plants, marigold, pansies, portulaca
red and green cabbage (new for us)
carrots, color mix and regular (*)
okra (*)
radishes and rutabaga (*)
pattypan squash (*)
3 beans each of special breed pintos and golden wax beans (*)
cosmos, snapdragons, zinnias, calif. poppies (*)
giant english peas (*)

I've decided to plant the Maria Amazalitei pole beans, the Jeminez, parchman lockwood pintos, bosnian pole, florida speckled lima beans, dixie butterpea lima beans, ingot yellow summer squash, cocozelle zucchini, black beauty zucchini and waltham butternut squash. I have several breeds of pumpkin over in the freezer seeds but I have not went through them yet. I think the one that I had planned to use was Small Sugar Pie. Some of these seeds will be put here in this garden and some in the 'west field' as we have begun calling it to determine it away from the hilltop garden near Grandma's house.

of beets and rutabagas and nurses

silver beet and cannellini soup recipe. This looks good.

Lima beans originated in the Andes (think Lima Peru) and also in Mesoamerica. I happen to really like Lima beans... I think I'm the only one around here that does ;)

There is beet and cannelini soup of my own making on the stove, not quite the recipe above, but apparently great minds think alike. Mine has some chicken in it. I have a rutabaga I was planning to combine with apples and make a soup - but that one will have to wait for a little while longer. With winter coming there are all these beautiful root vegetables asking to be used - I just wish they were from my garden, but no -- those did not do well and these are all from the store. I do like that they are cheap and keep quite well, and stretch very well into soup. Esme watched me peel and cut up the beet and said it was pink like strawberry... but she definitely knew it was a Mama food... Mark says he is surrounded by rabbits! More meat for him ;) I said.

Esme went to Jackson again with Grandma and Daddy to see Grandpa. He is going to Memphis now for another surgery. Esme got to watch the change a dressing on Grandpa's chest with the trainee nurses, who had a blast talking to her, and she told me all about it when I got home from work. She said the doctors had Grandpa and he had owies and the doctors helped to FIX it and Grandpa went with the doctors to fix his owies more. That was a pretty good explanation after Daddy told me what had happened in his words ;) She has been really interested in medical questions the past week. Further from that - she is watching the original Transformers shows now, and she is talking about the robots and they are breaking and shooting and flying and fixing etc etc... She stands on a chair with her arms out in front of her and says she is flying to save the robots. She has so much to say now that it is very amusing at times!

off to do laundry and stir soup...

//notes// soup turned out quite well:
1 beet, peeled and then cut into thin pieces
greens from beet, washed, plucked off vanes and torn up
about 1/2 cup cannellini beans, from dry, soaked overnight first
red wine vinegar
several pieces of chicken from the freezer
1 small green pepper
2 small tomatoes
pepper, salt, basil, garlic, dash of chili powder
about three to four hours mostly covered (vented side on cover) on 4/10 heat boiling with water until everything was soft

I had Esme eat a bit of beet saying it was a red carrot. They were sweet, but not quite as soft as she expected. She ate it, but didn't think it was great. She ate some of the chicken pieces out of the soup and thought that was passable.

I won the first grade reader on Ebay last night. 'the new We Three' It has Dick and Jane type stories (different names) and should be a fun durable hardcover for Esme to get some reading practice in. She is bringing me books more often now, although not all of them have words she can recognize and I hope this will add to the stack that does. There is also a book 'Telling Time with Big Mama Cat' that I have ordered with my sewing rec money. It has moveable hands on a plastic clock and Mama cat has 'appointments' for things she needs to do in the house at certain times of the day while her people are gone. I think Esme will like that.

I have several closing shifts this week... which means late nights and probably earlier-than-I-want mornings.... c'est la vie. I'll be tired by the time Sunday comes around (next day off)

A surprise October harvest

I went out to the garden this afternoon not expecting to find much... and was very surprised. Pleasantly so. Remarkably so. This is the middle of October, and look at all of the RED tomatoes. Some went into soup immediately, and some will go into a pizza or more soup to freeze tomorrow. There were also quite a lot of peppers - pimento, orange (well, green.. but they would have been orange) and plain green bell. I cut those up for freezing.


Wow!
Esme approves...


Some of them are Cherokee Purple, a few Black Prince, and Mark thinks the others are Jet Star and Brandywine. One Mr.Stripey yellow tomato to the side and there was another half-bad Stripey I cut immediately to save the good parts out of for the soup.

And that is without getting nowhere near the amount of cowpeas and beans that are out there. I need to do more with them tomorrow, now that these tomatoes and peppers are taken care of.


Also, further evidence that yes.. I do need to make a few more long sleeved dresses for this winter. Compare the sleeve on this dress last February to the picture of the same dress above. The dress didn't shrink, not that much! ;)


Looking at the candy in the fridge...


Tomatoes!


Simplicity 5137, dated 1963
Size 5

I had made a dress from the pattern on the left way back nearly two years ago... long before Esme would fit that size. It has been put away in the 'future box' since then. I took it out and washed it and today, it seems to be just a bit too big on her... not swamping her as it would have then. The sleeves are the right length. The skirt is very long - but I followed the pattern instead of making it shorter, as I usually do so she could wear it with pants. It also did not have the back ties I'm used to seeing on her. With back ties and a shorter skirt, it would be gold for making her next dress out of.


Simplicity 2714 child coat pattern, 1958

I have a coat pattern also, that is pictured above and similar to this other one. I post this other one because of something in the instructions that caught me and held. "Matching pants are lined and have suspenders, side zipper, elastic waistline casing and knitted anklets." Knitted anklets? What a beautiful idea! It reminds me of something very old I had as a child, at my grandparents house. A pair of heavy cloth/denim snowpants (instead of plastic coated!) that had a white cloth lining inside and ribbed cuffs at the bottom sewn on. It was such a warm cozy feeling not to have snow coming up into your pants legs. Where did that idea go?

I also remember the little Nordic mittens they had found, too.. navy blue with a red and white jumping reindeer knitted on the backs. I don't know how old those were when they gave them to me... feel like they scraped things out of old drawers back then to keep me warm when I visited. Years later I remember going through one of the large built-in cabinet drawers in their house and finding a single mitten tucked in the back of one. Now, it is locked in my memory...