August 13, 2026 - Slow Cooker Chicken with Feta and Basil

 You know how I'm always seeing little hidden meanings or messages in things - some things. There are things I can't seem to find any meaning or reasoning to sometimes. Today I was re-arranging (actually - cleaning!) a spot and there was the cutest Dachshund bag that Denise had sent me a couple of years ago. More tears! More questioning WHY!!

The other day I had stuck my favorite canning book over on top of the cookbooks on my bookshelf. I had two packages of chicken breasts - 8 breasts per package. I had hoped to can 8 chicken breasts today (which usually fills 10 quart jars with a chicken meal) and 8 tomorrow and be done with chicken canning for a while. I just wasn't in the mood to can today but . . duty calls and I have to get it done.

I went to grab the canning book this morning, turned around to say something to Vince, thought I was grabbing the canning book, got upstairs and realized I had grabbed this book.

I figured that meant I should make something in the slow cooker today. 

For years, I followed Stephanie O'Dea's blog and she has the best slow cooker recipes. You might be able to see all the little slivers of paper towels in this book where I marked recipes I wanted to make. It's probably been 6 or 8 years since I opened this book so I had no idea what recipes were marked.

The first one I flipped to was Basil Chicken with Feta. I had breasts and the recipe called for thighs so I just split the breasts lengthwise so they wouldn't be so thick. I had everything else. I got the olives out to slice and thought . . no, I have Boscoli in the fridge . . I can use that so I scooped out 1/2 cup of the olive salad. Done! No slicing olives today. I'm actually out of home canned garbanzo beans so I had to use a can of storebought garbanzo beans from the pantry. That means I need to can at least 24 pints of the beans before winter. Told you - a canner's work is never done! :)

Vince walked by the slow cooker after I had taken the lid off and he said "That looks like something from a restaurant!" Yay!! I served it over linguine with a bit of grated parmesan cheese. 

It was delicious!

There was enough left to make two more meals. One went into the freezer and one went into the fridge and we'll have that Saturday.

Here's my system where I'm trying to keep track of the "ready to eat" foods that are in the fridge and freezer.

This is the fridge where the leftovers go. Obviously I didn't know today's date! I'm starting with a clean slate. Today was trash pickup day so anything that had been in there longer than I feel is ok . . that was discarded. There is some leftover pizza in there but it doesn't usually go on the list because we never forget there's pizza in the fridge.

This is the dry erase sheet that's on the freezer. For this one . . obviously I can't write straight!  :)

I try to end every month with at least six meals in the freezer. That gives us about a week of eating out of the freezer. The first week of each month is "eat out of the freezer week". The third week of the month is "eat out of jars week" so really, I only have to cook complete meals for two weeks each month.

Maybe I can get more stitching done next week than I've done this week!

August 10, 2026 - A Sad Post!

 Many of you have read on my blog the antics through the years between myself and Denise (just quiltin). I don't even know what year I met Denise but it was through my friend, Sheryl.  Sheryl hosted an online quilt group called The Quilting Post. I don't remember when it all started but I think I found them in the early to mid 90's. There were quite a few quilters in there but you know how you will gravitate to one or several. I think most of us have made some lifelong friends through the online groups. Somehow, Denise became one of my lifelong friends. Sheryl and I became almost instant friends and we're still friends to this day. The other in our little group was Susan. She and her husband lived maybe 40 miles from where we lived in Texas and often on Friday night, we would meet halfway at a restaurant we all liked, have dinner, good conversation and an enjoyable evening. Before we left Texas, back in 2014 I think it was, Susan also passed away so of that rather tight knit little group, it's Sheryl and me who are left.

Denise and I met and attended a quilting retreat together probably in about 2008. I know we were living in Nevada, MO at the time but that's about as much as I can remember as to the timeline. Sheryl had put the whole shindig together and we all had so, so much fun. We've stayed in touch through the years and the funny thing is that so often, one of us would start a chart and a week or so later, we would post it on our blog and the other one had started the same chart, sometimes on the same day. There were times when we would change the same floss color or both order the same chart on the same day. It was really funny.

I got word today that Denise has passed away.  She was quite a bit younger than I am and it was a complete shock. From the post her sister posted on Denise's blog, it was a very brief illness. So unexpected and so sad for her family!

I have a box sitting here I was going to send her and I was waiting to see if she wanted me to send it to her home or her office. I will miss her!

If you're one who prays, please pray for her family. They are close and I'm sure this was such a shock for them.

Denise was a talented quilter, cross stitcher and blogger and she will be missed by many of us.

August 9, 2026 - A Canner's Work is Never Done!

 You cannot tell it from the temperature outside but it isn't going to be long until fall is here . . and then winter. Those are my two favorite seasons. There's so much work to be done in the summer and spring is beautiful but, in my mind, spring means months of heat and bugs will be here soon.

In Texas, my sewing/craft area was in a separate building. Here, it's in the basement so I don't spend a lot of time near the kitchen. It isn't like I can go check on dinner every few minutes without having to put away the stitching; herd the dogs into their crates, go up the stairs, do what I have to do and come back down. It's much easier for me to have meals in jars. I can run upstairs about 15 to 30 minutes before dinner, depending on what else we're having, open jars, heat up the food and dinner is on the table, then kitchen is easily cleaned and I'm back downstairs stitching quickly.

We eat food from jars all year but more so during the fall and winter. We don't go out to eat much but we go out even less during the winter because it gets dark earlier and because of the weather.

Over the last few days, I've been going over what we have in jars and what we need.  I had a much longer list than I normally have so yesterday we made a run to Sam's, went Walmart to get what Sam's didn't have any came home and got started canning. I used 1-1/2 pint jars and got 10 jars.

This was one of the few times that I had zero siphoning - not a single jar and no greasy residue on any of the jars. There's chicken, carrots, potatoes, celery, onions. My favorite way to use this is to make a light roux, put the cooking liquid in there and thicken it up, add a bit of cream, mix in all the chicken and veggies and make it into a pot pie! But sometimes I'll just serve it as a soup with hot sandwiches.

Tomorrow I will make Zuppa Toscana with Italian sausage, kale, potatoes and white beans. The recipe only calls for potatoes, not white beans but I use half of the called for potatoes and add some cannellini beans. The beans are soaking overnight!

I think I will be canning four different recipes with chicken; the one with Italian sausage and six with beef. Those will help get us through the winter with hopefully lots of stitching time!

August 8, 2026 - Progress Report - Blackbird Academy

 My plan for all the Blackbird Academy projects is to complete ten projects during the ten months of Blackbird Academy. To do this, I will choose some projects that should take a couple of weeks and some projects that may take six or eight weeks. Even though I will not get the larger projects completed in one month, I'm hoping to catch up or get ahead on those in the months with shorter projects. You all know how my plans go but I do love to plan ahead.

As far as stitching each project, I've divided the number of stitches, according to Markup, which isn't always right (it may not be Markup's error - it may be in how the chart is "programmed") but I will divide the total stitches shown by the number of stitches I can reasonably make in a day, only count six days because I don't work on these projects on Wednesday when I'm stitching with Debbie.

My August project is Christmas Rose by Blackbird Designs, which has 4,502 stitches. Here's my progress as of yesterday:

Here's what I've stitched every day so far.

My goal for Christmas Rose was 400 stitches per day, not stitching on this on Wednesdays, and so far, I've stitched 3051, which is an average of averaged 435 stitches per day. I did get a few stitches done on Wednesday after stitching all day on something else with Debbie. According to Markup, I am about 67.5% complete. If I can get good stitching time the next four days, including today, I should have this finished by the end of Tuesday.

My September project is Come Into My Garden. They'll all be by Blackbird Designs. 

It has 10,208 stitches. It seems big but according to my math, if I can average 400 stitches per day, I can get it stitched in 26 days. Not counting Wednesdays, there are 25 stitching days in September. If I can get at least 400 stitches done each day and stitch a few every Wednesday evening when I get home, I should stay on track and finish by the end of September BUT I'm going to start this in August as soon as I finish Christmas Rose so that will give me a bit of wiggle room . . I hope!

I also plan to move the house down just a couple of rows, then move the flower basket down a couple few rows, leave off the little "almost cartouche" with Barb's name in it. My name is too long and I don't want it there. I may put my initials and the year or I may spread out four (instead of two) of those tulip looking flowers to fill up the space.

Both of these are projects I've wanted to stitch for several years so they're easy for me to work on and not put them aside. There are other Blackbird charts I've wanted to stitch so hopefully I can fit something that I love into the requirements each month and stick with it until it's finished.

It isn't breaking the rules to start early. We can choose new projects or WIPs.

August 8, 2026 - Who Cans Cherry Tomatoes?

 The answer to that question is probably "No one in their right mind!"

These are the tomatoes we call "Cooper tomatoes" because he loves them. He knows exactly where they are in the garden and he will run straight to them. I've read that the green parts (stems, leaves) are not good for dogs so I don't like him picking his own but he is one determined little dog - all the time but especially when tomatoes are involved.

Last year I planted one plant. This year they sprouted up everywhere in the yard. Everything I've planted is inside the fence but these tomatoes came up outside the fence, in parts of the yard where I've never planted tomatoes and my guess is that there are at least 100 of these plants growing. I haven't even watered most of them because I just don't need that many and the ones that aren't getting water are producing at the same rate as the ones that have been watered. The seeds I originally planted are called Sweet 100 and they are so sweet.

Tuesday I decided to run some through the food mill and see what I ended up with. I used about the same amount of tomatoes that are shown above and I ended up with 2 pints of the best tomato juice!

I used my small canner because I was water bathing them and the canner needed at least three jars so I added a jar of water just to take up space.

There was a little juice left over and I handed it to Vince to try. Oh . . he loved it and decided we need to get out there and pick a bunch of those tomatoes and make more juice.

Here's where it pays off to have him help with the process. I have a hand crank food mill and it was hard for my hands to crank it so I asked Vince to help.

Today he decided we needed an electric food mill. I did not say no to that idea.

This should arrive Monday so probably Monday or Tuesday we will put on our boots and long sleeve shirts (tomato plants make me break out) and go into the tomato jungle and harvest a bunch of those tomatoes and make more tomato juice.

If I had told Vince I wanted an electric tomato strainer, he would have looked at me like I was crazy but since he had to crank some of those tomatoes through the old food mill, he was very happy to find something that was easier, which means I will probably do the entire process without his help, which is fine with me. I don't mind if he helps but the kitchen isn't where he likes to be so . . I don't mind.

August 4, 2026 - Homemade Deli Meat

When we lived in Texas, I made most of our bacon and pretty much all of our deli type meat. I don't know why I stopped making it. I've been back in Missouri almost six years and know I haven't made any since we moved here.

We had gone to Sam's Club the other day and Vince picked up several packages of deli meat. After we got home, I told him . . you remember that I can make that and it's better and probably more healthy than buying it at the store. He asked what it would take for me to start making it again. I laughed and said "Another six hours in each day!" I told him if he knew where the meat slicer was, and could get to it, and if he would take the big blade off so I could clean it all, I'd make deli meat and start making bacon again. I have always been afraid of that slicer but after the immersion blender incident, I don't even want to be in the same room with that slicer.

Vince found it and when he was at Sam's again last week, he bought an eye of round roast and I made it into deli meat.

I know what some of you are saying . . it's too rare! That's how I like it and Vince likes to heat his up so with it cooked like this, I get it cooked the way I like it, I heat his up and there's hardly any pink left. I divided into 6 oz. portions, vacuum sealed all but one bag and put it in the freezer. 

Tonight we had roast beef sandwiches and Vince was so happy to have the homemade deli meat. I told him as soon as the garden gives me a break, I'll make more deli meat and promised I would do it before all the roast is gone.

For anyone interested in trying it, I'll share a few links that should give you more info.

Remember that you can add any seasonings you want. The techniques in the links are mostly what I want to share.

For chicken, this is the method I use for making sliced breast meat. I almost always substitute rosemary for the thyme but most any spice that you like would work.

If you want to use a meat press, this is the technique I use. I don't use this recipe as far as ingredients. I cut chicken breasts into chunks and put them in the food processor to "grind" them because I'm kinda picky about chicken meat. I like to use Cajun seasoning (Cajun Redhead is my favorite), which happens to be made in my hometown but I do not know the people. I also like to cut up and saute jalapeno peppers and add that to my ground chicken.

You can really season the beef any way you want to, and season the chicken any way you want to and it will always be perfect!

As far as buckboard bacon, once I start making that again, neither of us will ever want storebought bacon again so . . do I do it or not?  :)

You know I will do it! This is the technique I will use. I like how this guy explains everything and has a calculator so you can get it all perfect for whatever size meat you have. This recipe is a little more straightforward and if you've never done this before, it's probably at least worth reading before starting a bacon project.

One thing I like about the first link is that his formula gives you a minimum number of days for curing. I usually have a pork butt that's in the 5 pound range and the minimum curing time comes out to about 10 days. I don't mind going 11 or 12 days with the cure but no more so I try to pay attention to the weather. Our smoker is outside . . I guess most of us who have smokers use them outside but ours is on a deck without a roof and I have to go out and add wood to it and check on it often enough that I'd prefer not to be doing it on a rainy day so I try to let the weather be my guide on how long to cure it.

The guy in the first link says to cook it to 145-165. The second guy says 160. 

I always cook it to the lower end of "done" (145) because (1) It's going to get cooked in the skillet and (2) If the temp gets much above 145, the fat starts to render and, not only have you lost some of the yummy bacon fat but you can end up with a greasy mess when cutting and wrapping.

That's about it for the buckboard bacon. Cure it, smoke it, refrigerate it, slice it, wrap it and freeze it.

OK . . thanks for reading another episode of "Judy Has Too Many Irons in the Fire!"

August 3, 2026 - August Blackbird Academy Progress

 Yesterday was the third day of August and I'm still on track with my Blackbird project. Yep, there's still three days less than 10 months to go so we'll see if I keep this up.

As I posted my progress tonight, I had to laugh. I think Markup's math may be as bad as my math! It's too late to think about math so maybe I'm wrong . . 

But, Saturday I stitched 445 stitches and that was 11.4%. Sunday I stitched 363 and that brought me to 22%, which means I added 10.6%. Monday (today), I stitched 542 stitches, which brought me to 32.45%, adding 10.45%. How can 445 stitches equal 11.4% progress and 542 equal 10.45%. Shouldn't 542 stitches be a larger percentage of the whole than 445 stitches? Why does it even matter? Right . . that's what I was thinking.  <G>

My goal is to get at least 10% stitched each day so, in theory, it should take 10 days to finish this project but I don't stitch on this one on Wednesdays so I'm hoping to finish it on August 11.

And . . here's where I am now. It's actually pretty small.

Well . . looking at the picture I see that the Y and "&" are totally in the wrong place. I know what happened. Using Markup, you can look at it as one page with everything on one page or you can see page 1, 2, 3, individually. It's defaulting to the 2 page (chart only has 2 pages) setup. The Y and "&" were on the end but that was really only the end of page 1. Could have been worse. I'll get that fixed and then I'm going to bed!