July 18, 2026 - Another Day in the Kitchen

 That's what happens this time of year - too much time in the kitchen but so worth it to have all the goodies on the shelf for winter. 

If you've ever grown a garden, you know it can be feast or famine. Some years, I get very few tomatoes. Some years, I get so many I can barely get them all canned. Last year I had six eggplant plants and canned about 50 pints of the eggplant salsa that we love. We don't eat it so much as salsa but I like to cut up chicken, sear it, then pour the salsa over it, add a bit of white wine and serve it over rice or pasta. I knew that 50 pints would be enough for two years so this year I only planted three eggplant plants - just enough for us to have eggplant during the summer. NO! Those things have gone crazy. We've been eating them as fast as we can. We had an eggplant and ham casserole earlier this week and today we had Cheesy Eggplant Casserole with pasta. I picked 12 eggplants this morning so tomorrow or Monday, I'll make more eggplant salsa to can. I will also make the Cheesy Eggplant Casserole again while we still have plenty of eggplants and put it into smaller dishes and freeze it.

But, for today's canning . . 

I've now pulled all the Candy Roaster squash off the vines so I needed to get those canned. The biggest one I had today was 9 pounds, 12 oz. but one I pulled last week was right at 15 pounds and I had another that was 13 pounds. Today I processed the 9 pounds, 12 oz. one and one that was probably about 5 pounds and got 13 pints of cubed squash.

I will probably can the rest of it on Monday and should get at least 15 more pints because there are two fairly large and one small squash left to be canned. I've kept a few that I will store in the basement and we can use those over the next couple of months before we start using the jars.

The Candy Roaster squash is so good because it can be used different ways. I will drain the cubes, kinda dry them on a paper towel, spritz with olive oil then sprinkle savory spices (any variety!) over them and air fry them til crispy on the outside but still very tender . . almost like mashed potato consistency on the inside. Or, I can add a little brown sugar, cream and pumpkin pie type spices and make it like a sweet potato casserole. They also work great as pumpkin pie filling!

Just as an experiment, here it is a bit past mid-July and I planted a few more candy roaster seeds just to see what happens. I planted the seeds the second week in May and it took two months for them to grow and mature so there's a chance I could get more of these. We'll see. Hopefully the vine borers have all done what they have to do for this year and I won't have to deal with those this time of year but we'll see.

Today I also got started on the first batch of chicken broth. I'm using my two big roasters so I've had three packages of the "bones" defrosting the fridge since Wednesday evening. Today was the first day I could separate them so I seasoned them, roasted them and  they're in the roaster. Tomorrow I'll strain off the broth, can it; then pick the meat off the bones and can it.

Look at how much meat is on those bones! There are six "frames" in the roaster. Each package contained four frames so that's 1-1/2 packages. I think I have three or four packages left, plus some chicken feet to get processed. I'm probably going to take this same amount of the freezer Wednesday and let it defrost again until Saturday and do that same thing until all the chicken bones are gone.

It's 7:20 p.m. so hopefully I can get a bit of stitching done tonight.

July 17, 2026 - Mostly a Day in the Kitchen

 Today was the day I had planned to make salsa. But a bigger priority was making Ezekiel bread and rye bread for Vince. I feel like I have a mental block or something against those breads. I know I say this every time but I really dislike making both of them. I don't like the way the taste. I don't like the way they smell. I don't like the stickiness of the dough! I sound like a complainer, don't I? But really, I have to just stop and do it because my preference is to keep putting it off so before I started the salsas, I got the Ezekiel bread made.

When I remembered to take a picture, the bread was already cool and bagged to go into the freezer. So mature of me to make the bread before he runs out!

Next I made the rye bread. I only have three cast iron pans (I know I say that every time too) so once they cooled, I got the rye dough in the pans to rise.

With the bread made, I could turn my attention to the salsa.

There were enough tomatoes to make a triple recipe, which gave me 10 pints and 1 half pint of salsa. I had everything from the garden except cilantro. It bolted months ago. Vince was going to town and I asked him to get cilantro. 

I doubt I get enough tomatoes to make another triple batch but, based  on what I picked this evening and how many are getting ripe, I should be able to make a double batch and get at least 5 more pints. That will give us enough salsa for the year - until tomatoes are ripe again.

No cross stitching today. I'm going to sit and read for a while and probably go to bed early.

Tomorrow my main project will be getting some of the chicken broth finished and canned. I need to can the candy roaster squash. I've probably picked all there's going to be for this year, but that's a pressure canning project, as is the chicken broth and unless I want two canners going upstairs and two canners going downstairs, that's too much to try to do in one day so . . chicken broth tomorrow and maybe the squash on Sunday.

July 16, 2026 - Overall, A Good Day

 We had an Azure Standard pickup this morning and we needed to be there by 7:30 a.m. and it's about 40 minutes from here so I was up very early to get the dogs walked, the garden watered, the hair combed . . 

Even though I said I was NOT buying more jars, I got to the town a bit early and stopped by the Walmart there, grabbed 5 cases of quart jar (more chicken bone broth). I still got to the drop location on time but the truck was early. It had already been unloaded and some people were leaving. 

I was pretty excited to be getting 24 pounds of fresh Bing cherries. My plan was to spend today pitting and canning cherries. I even washed all the jars before I left home. BUT . . almost every one of the cherries was moldy and gross. Thank goodness there was a cooler in the car or I would have had a real mess on my hands. I contacted Azure and they gave me a refund. I knew they would. The trash man had not come by yet so after getting photos in case Azure needed to see them, all the cherries went in the trash. 

Sad about the cherries but . . I had more time for cross stitching than I had expected. And . . Hobby Lobby had called yesterday and told me that two frames I had ordered were in so I had time to go by there and get them. And, Hobby Lobby always had a little area near the framing desk where they had custom frames that for one reason or another were for sale. People didn't like them or never picked them up. The last few times I'd been in Hobby Lobby, something else was in that area. Debbie mentioned to me that they had moved those frames clear across the store so when I first got to Hobby Lobby, I headed over in that direction. I grabbed 6 or 7 frames and most of them were $8. They're fairly small - several are about 9 x 10; one is 10.5 x 15. I already have one project started that I think will fit in one of the frames.

Our Hobby Lobby doesn't have a lot of frames and there are several that I already have and two that I got today that are repeats for me.

Look at this -- I paid almost $48 for this one.

This one below is a bit smaller but it's the one I almost picked instead of the one above and this one was only $8.50.

The one below is one I already have. I had ordered it for a piece but haven't framed it yet.

I think for the next frames I need, I'm going to order from Art to Frames. They seem to have more choices, the shipping is free (I think) and they may be a bit less expensive.

On the cross stitching front, I have almost finished stitching the "frame" of the top border and right side border and I'm pretty sure the linen is going to be big enough. If you see any mistakes, please tell me. Fingers crossed there are none but nothing would surprise me.

The last of today's good news is that my finger is almost back to normal. I had a little help (a LOT of help!) from a friend in Florida who intervened. I'm still not exactly sure how all the "advice" I got came together to fix this finger but there's very little I do now that hurts. The redness and swelling is almost all gone. There's still a bit of a knot (arthritis bump type thing) on the side but the finger is so, so much better and I am so grateful for the help that got this finger on the road to recovery. Next week it will have been two months of dealing with it.

I'm sure y'all are happy too so you can stop hearing about it.

I feel like there was something else good that happened today but it's late and I can't remember.

July 14, 2026

 Let's talk about cross stitching first today! It's almost 8 p.m. and I haven't taken a single stitch. I thought I'd be back in the house by 7 a.m. and be stitching by 8 a.m. Didn't happen.

The best thing was . . I found a chart I'd been looking for and thought it was one of those charts I would never get. A while back, Tanya from The Scarlett House had shown a piece she had stitched for her sister and the name of it was "She Feeds Them Well". Her sister loved feeding the birds! I have a friend here who has dozens of bird feeders out and she has the prettiest birds that come to her feeders. She's always doing something nice for me and I thought she would love having She Feeds Them Well hanging in her home but I couldn't find the chart anywhere. I missed a couple of them on eBay so I asked Tanya and she told me The Attic should have them. I wrote them, they do have it. I called, gave them all my info and it's on its way to me. 

I can't wait to stitch it and give it to her.

The first thing I did this morning was go through four or five boxes of "stuff" that had been piling up downstairs. Took two bags of trash out, found a few things I had wondered where they were and cleaned up that whole area. That felt good!

Then I made pdfs from three charts I'd like to stitch soon. Liberty and Freedom, His Grace and Freedom and new charts from Teresa Kogut so I think those are going to be my Wednesday projects for a while. I chose a piece of linen and got it loaded on a scroll frame, got all the floss pulled and my bag packed for stitching with Debbie tomorrow.

I seem to have a bad case of startitis.

• Come to the Garden - A friend asked me if I wanted to stitch that with her. I love it and it's funny because the name of the chart is about a garden and I find myself wishing my garden wasn't taking so much time so I could stitch more!
• GH 1857 - I started that a couple of days ago. It's one of those I can't put down when I start so there have been a couple of nights with very late stitching.
• Grateful, Thankful, Blessed - I have only made a few (less than 100) stitches on this one but I would love to have it finished for Fall.
• Toile Flag - This one is so pretty . . elegant looking. My goal is to have it finished for next summer (Independence Day).

There are plenty of WIPs I'm trying to work on too. It's weird to me how I can work on WIPs for weeks and then all of a sudden, I want to start everything and create more WIPs. 

For dinner, I made the eggplant/ham casserole and added zucchini. I also made the Caponata. Both were delicious but we love eggplant. Vince was out scouting in the garden and he said we have five more eggplants almost ready to pick. 

There were maybe 10 peaches left so I used 5 of those and made a peach cobbler. It was so good. Glad I don't make that often!! We didn't have vanilla ice cream to go on top so I made a warm "caramel" sauce - same recipe that goes on the fresh apple cake. Oh, my, it was so good and I don't even want to think how unhealthy it was.

I'll get 2 or 3 hours of stitching done now. I have to go to bed fairly early - tomorrow is my day to make a road trip to Debbie's.

July 13, 2026

 It's Monday. Life is funny. I don't pay much attention to the days of the week any more. I check my calendar on my phone each evening to see what I HAVE to do the next day. Do I have to do something with my hair and put on makeup? No! Good! I saw a funny thing on FB today. It had a dachshund getting his nest built in the big bed and the caption said "Mom is dressed in her homeless clothes today so I know she isn't leaving me alone." That's kinda how I feel most days . . 

Most every night I'll say to Vince . . are we going anywhere tomorrow? He almost always says no but then he almost always ends up wanting me to go somewhere. I can usually talk him out of it but some days . . I end up having to get dressed in going out in public attire and go with him.

This morning he had PT at 9, then he went to Walmart (because he thinks he has to go EVERY day!). He got home about 11 and came downstairs. I was bracing . . I knew he was wanting to go somewhere or he wouldn't have come straight downstairs when he got home. He wanted to go to Woody's Pizza. Oh . . my defenses are not strong enough to say no to Woody's. That was where I had wanted to go for my birthday 1-1/2 months ago and we didn't go so yes, I'm happy to go to Woody's. When we were done eating, he said "Do you mind if we go to the pallet store for 20 minutes?" NO!! Oh, my goodness. We don't need anything! We both go in there and find things we MIGHT need some day and buy stuff we'll never use. 20 minutes turns into 2 hours and I'm having a hard time being nice and most times I end up going and sitting in the car but it was almost 100 degrees outside today. I said "20 minutes . . NOT one minute longer.!" He agreed. We got there and it was closed!! I can only hope it's permanently closed but I'm thinking they're just closed on Mondays. Who wants to dig through huge bins of stuff that someone ordered, went through it and sent it back? Not me.

As much as I love Woody's Pizza, I had a recipe for lunch that involved leftover ham and eggplant and basil and parmesan cheese (and a few other things) but I was looking forward to that. We'll have it tomorrow for lunch.

I did pull out all my zucchini today. The vine borers did what they do and it was all dying. I did take the time to cut the stalks open and kill every vine borer I could find. Those things kill the plants, then bury themselves in the ground and come back out next year to kill all my squash again. I know I'll never get rid of all them but it makes me feel good to get rid of some of them.

On the cross stitching front, I signed up for Hands On Designs' ornament Patreon. I did before and wasn't stitching them and dropped out but then I wished I had stitched them so I'm trying again.

I'm still stitching on GH 1857. I'll keep doing it til I get to the end of one side border and one top or bottom border  to make sure there's enough linen, and I'm not going to run off the edge. Then I'll put it away and go back to Christmas Roads.

The best thing that happened, besides getting to eat at Woody's - I ordered an "electric" sprayer a while back and it arrived today. Actually, it gets charged like a cell phone, but it's to mist the sprouts because, with my sore finger, pulling the little trigger thing on a spray bottle is painful and trying to use my left hand would make a huge mess. I ordered the sprayer from Walmart weeks ago and had planned to cancel the order today but I forgot and then it showed up. I'm so happy. I also got some new containers for the sprouts so I need to get those all set up but right now, we have so many sprouts . . I'll probably wait til at least Wednesday before I start more in the new containers.

Back to my stitching . . 

July 12, 2026

 Today was kind of a lazy day but that's probably a good thing because it seems so much of what I did was wrong! Ever have one of those days? I did put an end to three squash vine borer larvae so that was a good thing. :)

Right off the bat, before the stove got hot, I took the grates off, took the top part of the burners off and scrubbed everything. The stove was a mess. I had needed to scrub the stove before I started three days of canning so you can imagine what it looked like. Done. Nice and clean . . until I mess it up again!

I did fix egg, ham and jalapeno burritos for breakfast. I made bread . . finally. It was a new recipe for me - Honey Oat Wheat Bread and it was delicious!

Recently I ordered some of the Rouge de Bordeaux wheat from Living Sky Grains and this may be my new favorite wheat.

On the cross stitching front, I was going to set up the linen on the frame and get the floss on tags. That didn't go so well. I needed a piece larger than a fat quarter. Mostly I have fat quarters of linen but I had a few fat halves. I found one, got it cut down to size, served, sewn onto the leaders of a scroll frame. There's one spot on this project where I'm not sure the floss color was going to show up on my linen so I was going to make a few stitches using several colors. That's when I realized there was a flaw in the linen. I got a tape and was measuring to make sure I could find enough space around the flaw to stitch and I found four more flaws - broken threads, a hole in the linen. So frustrating. A fat half of linen is at least $70. I stuck it aside. I will find small spaces where I can stitch smalls so all is not lost but I had to find another piece of linen, cut it to size, serge the edges, get it loaded on the scroll frame. Doing all that is my least favorite part of stitching but I now have a piece that I can get started on later tonight.

While Vince was outside yesterday he found a cecropia caterpillar. This is the third year (not in a row) that we've found these. Year before last, we found three of them. They're so pretty and so interesting. You can read about them here if you don't know about them. I had never heard of them until we found the first ones in the yard here.

July 11, 2026

 Before I start telling you about my day, I wanted to solicit advice for a reader who commented asking me for a recommendation on a dehydrator. I have an Excalibur and have been 100% happy with it. I think I bought my first one maybe 30 years ago. Then probably in about 2016, I bought a newer model. Then not long after we moved here, it was still under warranty (5 year warranty as I recall), it stopped working. Vince contacted him, they tried to troubleshoot and then replaced it so you can't ask for better service than that. No hassle at all.

It does everything I need it to do and I have no complaints but I probably don't use it as much as some people do since I also use a freeze dryer.

So, if any of you have more knowledge of dehydrators, would you please share the info in the comments so the lady wanting to know more about which models might be right for her can see your responses. Thanks!

Now to my day. I guess I will never learn my own limits. This morning I went upstairs with recipes for a chocolate cake, caponata (eggplant salad), and honey oat whole wheat bread. Also I knew I had to finish the pickles and can peaches and bake a ham! For lunch, we were going to have caponata, ham and baked sweet potatoes. 

I got ready to make the pickles and could not find my mustard seeds. I looked everywhere they might be. I even went downstairs to see if I had an extra container of them. Nope. I had black mustard seeds but I wanted yellow. I was contemplating running to Walmart . . nope! Not doing that. Then I saw them .. on the wrong shelf where I have my large containers of herbs and spices. If they would have been in a small container on the spice rack, I would have found them but I had to laugh - how could I miss a half gallon jar full of mustard seeds? I got the pickles canned.

When we went to the Amish auction the other day, Vince bought peaches. I told him I was not going to have time to can them. That was ok. He was sure he would eat them all before they went bad. He had them in a cooler with ice packs that he was changing out daily. He decided he might not be able to eat them all . . he would help if I would can them. I thought that was a good idea then I realized that was probably not a good idea. Vince and I could be the only two people in a gymnasium and we would get in each other's way. He was in his office working on ham radio stuff and I knew he was really getting into that so I did it but I was so tired when I got finished.

21 pints of peaches and 5 pints of mustard pickles. This is a new recipe for me - one recommended by a reader so I'm very anxious to try them. I'll wait at least a week before opening a jar and should still have plenty of cucumbers in the garden if I want to make more.

Nothing about lunch went as planned . . the ham was baking at 300 degrees; I waited too long to put the sweet potatoes in the oven and have them be done in time; and I ran out of energy before making the caponata so we ended up having ham sandwiches with sprouts and pickled onions and I fried some potatoes that were very thinly sliced - almost like potato chips. The cake and the bread never got made. Maybe tomorrow.