Mid-Winter Check of Supplies Put By

It's hard to believe our winter is halfway over already.  I know it's strange behavior, but each year after the garden harvest and all the preserving and canning is done, I'm hesitant to actually use the bounty stored for fear it will all be gone by mid-winter!

Happily, that's not the case this year, nor is it any other year despite my (unfounded) apprehension.

I just made an inventory of pantry shelves and freezers and found we're not close to running out of anything at this point.

Onions, both yellow and red, are holding out well even though I use A LOT of them in everyday cooking.

The bulbs of garlic are still plentiful, too.  They may not be purdy, but they are firm, keeping well and full of flavor.  Plus, they do their job of keeping vampires away.

Not only do we still a few eating apples left, but also plenty of the less flavorful varieties for cooking and baking.  This corner of the root cellar shows just some of the boxes.  Jars of applesauce will last until a new batch is made at the end of this coming season.

In recent years, the only jams I've been making are blueberry, my fave, and strawberry which is Papa Pea's choice.  I thought I might have to make another canner load of blueberry jam from berries in the freezer, but at this point I think not.

There are probably more containers of smooshed strawberries in the freezer than we need.  We use them primarily in fruit smoothies, but in the cold weather fruit smoothies aren't appreciated as much as other times of the year.

All veggies, both in the root cellar and freezer are still in good supply.  Who knew I'd get such a good harvest of cauliflower when I struggled so much with the plants last season.  The green shell peas will probably disappear first as they always do.  We love 'em, but I'd never be able to grow enough for a family larger than the two of us.

I didn't grow any squash this past season because of lack of space and because dear husband isn't crazy about it.  However, I do have an ample supply of pureed pumpkin (which is technically a squash) available which Papa Pea will gladly eat when made into a pie or baked goodie.

After making my mid-winter check, I feel confident I can delve into the supply of all things yummy (eat with abandon, we will!) and we'll not starve in any way shape or form before another gardening season starts presenting us with more good food.

How're your pantry shelves looking?  Anything you wish you had more of?  An over-abundance of anything the poultry or other animals are going to be happy to see come their way?

Good Smells in the Kitchen Today

One day last week I felt a twinge of panic when I realized I was down to my last quart of chicken broth, and had NO beef broth.

I wanted some beef broth stock to use in a couple double batches of soup I planned to make (Winter Barley Soup with Beef and Vegetable Soup with Beef) so I cooked four beef soup bones until the meat was tender, cut it off the bones (actually most of it fell off), and then simmered the bones for another day.  The broth was unbelievably gelatinous (holy nutrition!) and so flavorful. 

We get these economical beef soup bones from friends who are (not certified organic but as close as could be) beef farmers several miles west of the Big City.  The cuts are about 5" in diameter and I value the bones nearly as much as the meat as they make such good bone broth.  I call these soup bones miniature beef roasts.  And I gotta admit the meat from them tastes as good as any roast I've ever made.

I'm rectifying the paltry back-up of chicken broth by stewing three of our old hens I pulled from the freezer last night.  Into two big stewing pots they've gone this morning.  I add chunks of celery, carrot and onion along with salt, pepper and some herbs.  Today I sprinkled in sage, rosemary, parsley and thyme.  Both pots are currently simmering away sending the lovely aroma wafting through the house.  (Waft, waft, waft.)

As with the beef soup bones, I'll strip the chicken meat from the bones, then put everything but the meat back into the broth in the pots and simmer that for another day or two to get the nutritional value from the bones. 

Do you make your own bone broth?  It's really quite easy and the nutrition and flavor your broths will have is like nothing you can purchase.  Plus, there will be a night-and-day difference you can taste.

Written on Wednesday, December 13th, 2017

Since not much has been happening around here lately, I'm posting another piece I wrote during my December break from blogging.

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We had our first real snow of the season which started sometime during the night and continued on until nearly noon today.  I think the total was only around 4" but the coverage was sufficient to make the landscape finally look like winter.

The snow formation on our front deck was something like I've never seen before.  You would think the space between the deck boards was about two inches.  Not so.

The raised garden beds aren't totally under cover, but at least they have a good blanket on them now.

Papa Pea even fired up the Gravely garden tractor with the snowblower attachment to do some clearing.

My head and hands have been happy and busy turning out some projects.

I finished the crocheted rugs using colors I don't think I'd ever have used for myself.  They are a smidge smaller than the ones I usually make being only 30" x 20" and they've already been delivered to our second-hand resale shop.  I'm hoping they end up in some little girl's bedroom.

The rag rug in front of the kitchen sink is one I just finished.  Green and red in honor of the season.  It doesn't really match the other kitchen colors, but it does add a little Christmas cheer.

I haven't done any X-stitch work in an age, but had an urge to make some X-stitched ornaments for the tree.  Got this far and had to think for a day or two as how to finish them.

Decided to back them with red bough fabric with a thin batting inside.  I used the same fabric for the trim.  Two of them above still need to have hangers attached.  I have just enough matching Aida cloth to make one more ornament . . . which I think I will do.

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Back to the present day, Papa Pea's recuperation is going slowly.  Some days his ouchiness and achiness is more pronounced than others.  Neither of us has been sleeping well lately and he's trying to nap on the couch in the living room as I type this.  (You never realize how much noise you make doing simple tasks around the house until you're trying not to make any noise.)

Both of us are so ready for all of his aches and pains to disappear.  He's doing such a good job of remaining optimistic and cheerful which I know has to be hard when all his energy is going into the healing process . . . which seems to be taking so long.  We're considering removing all the mirrors in the house as both of us look about 102 years old.  And that's on good days.

Miscellany

Our vegetables (and fruits) in the root cellar are staying in good shape.

We're going to run out of orange carrots (still have way more than enough of the purple ones) so I may skip planting any of the purple ones this coming gardening season and stick with the old tried and true orange ones.  The purple carrots are super-colorful and look great on a raw vegetable platter, but as I've mentioned before, I don't like to cook with them (in soups or stews) because they "bleed" and turn everything else in the near vicinity a purplish-gray.  Ugh.

This is the first year we've left the roots attached to the heads of cabbages and hung the whole works by heavy string from the ceiling of the root cellar.  (But kept the heads low, about 18-24" from the gravel covered ground.  The heads show a little shrinkage (loss of moisture, I'm sure) but have been fine and tasty for eating, even when made into coleslaw.  At any rate, they're keeping better this way than with any other method we've tried.

Chicken Mama regularly prints up return address labels for me to use on envelopes sent via snail mail.  This year for Christmas she made this one with "Mama Pea" instead of my given name over the address lines to the right.  (Cut off for this picture.)  She took a caricature of Grant Wood's "American Gothic," turned it into Papa Pea (added the beard) and me, duplicating the profile pic of me with the pot over my head.

My dear still slightly lame duck husband has been giving a good go at doing poultry chores.  Here he is going out for morning chores.  Thanks to caring friend Karen in Wisconsin (who has dealt with like injuries for too long a time) for sending us all kinds of tricks of the trade that she uses that enable her to do farm work alongside her husband and take care of her flock of sheep while suffering sciatica pain.  Today was the first day he did ALL of the poultry chores by himself.  No help from me whatsoever.  We'll be starting our fifth week of recuperation tomorrow and he's frustrated as all heck that he's not back to 100% yet.  At the same time, I have to give him daily gold stars for being very sensible and not pushing himself too fast, too far.  It's been a fine line he's had to gahlump walk between keeping all the muscles (injured and not) in workable order and yet not stress anything.  It's hard, but slow and steady wins the race.  So they say.  Sigh.

Grrrr!

Dear readers who comment on my blog posts, I am so frustrated.  When I hit the Reply button to try to reply to your comments, Blogger makes me wait, and wait, and wait an inordinate amount of time before the box in which to reply appears.  This happens each and every time!

THEN, after I do finally get the Reply box, type in my words and hit the Publish button, you can guess what happens.  It's another wait before my reply is published.

At this particular period in our one-man-down household, I've got limited time to spend on the computer so these frustrating delays are driving me bonkers.

So I'm asking for your understanding at my lack of replies to your appreciated comments on my posts.  This irritating situation has been going on for several weeks now, but I'm still hoping it will disappear soon and things will get back to normal.

I'm ready for that to happen for Gahlumpy (aka Papa Pea), too.  He'd like to get "back to normal" maybe even more than I!

Written on Saturday, December 9, 2017

Here's another one of my "posts" written during my month of December break from blogging . . . fingers clicking on the keys as my mind rambled with random thoughts.

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It's be-ginning to look a lot like Christmas!  (Feel free to hum along with me.)

As I'm writing this 'round about 5 p.m. in the afternoon, it's snowing lightly.  I'm reminded I truly love this time of year when darkness descends by 4:30.  (Ducking as I imagine some of you throwing a heavy object at me.)  Especially during the pre- (and post) holiday period when the house is full of sparkling lights and other colorful decorations.  What could create a cozier atmosphere?  Besides that, it reminds me we have a lovely, long evening of relaxing ahead of us.  And we do, most nights.  If only the jaw-cracking yawns and drooping eyelids wouldn't attack both of us by 8 o'clock!

The darkness of the winter mornings doesn't bother me either since it's the start of my most productive time of the day.  Papa Pea and I are both up and dressed quickly, then building up the fires in the kitchen and living room wood stoves.  'Tis the season so I slide a Christmas CD into the kitchen player while we make our individual morning cups of caffeine.

Sometimes I sit at the computer with my latte, but lately I've been trying to avoid that sedentary act as I don't think it enables me to get my brain in gear nor my body functioning as quickly as when I stay upright and move around physically.  Deciding what to make for breakfast and getting that started, I like to do a quick tidying up of the house, picking up and putting away whatever has been left scattered from the night before.  Wood boxes might get filled, the kitchen floor swept, notations made on the list of what I hope to accomplish during the day.

Yep, I wouldn't mind if this time of year lasted longer than it does.  (Sincere apologies to those of you who have to leave home in the dark and return again in darkness.  I remember very well how that really made the days seem unbelievably short in length and caused a permanent red crease on the forehead from wearing a head lamp so much.)

Recently I came across this reminder I made to myself a few years ago on an index card, clipped to the month of December in my yearly planner.  It reads:

Written on August 8th - 85 degrees and humid!

A THOUGHT TO REMEMBER IN DECEMBER

It's 4:30 in the afternoon, I'm tired, hot, sweaty,

bug-bitten and pooped from working

outside on a million different projects --

AND there are still a couple hours

to work before dinner

(smoothies 'cause I don't have time or energy

for anything else) and then we'll probably

be out for an hour or two after dinner to finish

a time-sensitive project -- grass seeding, this time.

So in December, savor 4:30 in the afternoon

(dark yet?), savor the day spent indoors,

savor the good dinner, savor the "long" evening

ahead spent reading, knitting, quilting, relaxing.

 HOORAY FOR WINTER!!