Living Off Leftovers

 I think we've eaten leftovers for four days and I'm happy to say there are no leftovers in the fridge. There are dishes in the freezer but I can get back to cooking and loving on my new little slow cooker. I had hoped to use the slow cooker today but this was a very busy morning and I never got around to getting the food in the pot.

We're supposed to have a pretty good frost tonight so I spent more than an hour this morning picking peppers, tomatoes and okra. Then I cut enough basil to fill all four trays in the freeze dryer and get those dried. There are apples in the freeze dryer and they probably won't finish til in the morning. The Purple Lady Bok Choy and the Tatsoi are not frost hardy so I covered those. For the next three weeks we may only have one more frost so I would love to keep those things alive a bit longer.

I had physical therapy at 11. At 12 I had a grocery order at Walmart to pick up. By the time I got home, about 12:30, I was starving, realized I had not even taken time to eat breakfast so I scrapped the plans for making a Chicken Cobbler and made Chicken Hot Pockets.

Not our healthiest meal this week but I was very close to saying "Let's go eat Mexican!"

I have been trying to make all of our salad dressings. This is the Caesar Dressing recipe I used for these and it was very good and very easy to make.

Vince seriously loved these "Hot Pockets". They were so easy to make us some of the rotisserie chicken and the purchased pizza crust (rolled up in a box like the pie crusts). A homemade pizza crust would work too (probably better) but in a pinch, the purchased crust was close to perfect.

Tomorrow we're having grilled tuna and I'm trying this Green Bean Casserole Tart that I may want to fix for Thanksgiving.

The New Crockpot

 Today I used the new crockpot but I will be using it more next week and will make another post once I've made a real meal. It's called a "Multi-Meal" so I start calling it that so you know I'm talking about the new one. By the way, at Sam's Club yesterday, I saw the full size pot like this one. It was $59. It wasn't the one you can cook two meals in but I had to laugh because you can buy two of those or less than I paid for the one multi-meal. In those two big ones, you could cook two BIG meals at the same time. But . . the Multi-Meal is so cute!  :)

OK . . what I cooked today:

On the right side (Side 2), I have Apple Crisp cooking. I used this recipe and only made half the recipe. It had not yet started baking when I took that photo and I meant to take a photo when it was finished and forgot.

The Apple Crisp turned out great. I will definitely use this recipe again. I cooked it on high for 2 hours, then removed the lid and left it on warm for about half an hour while we were finishing our meal.

You can't see much of the apple crisp under the ice cream. I made vanilla ice cream in the Ninja Creami and, as always, it's delicious!

Notes on Apple Crisp:

I used organic sprouted oat groats and used the flaker to roll them so they're a bit thicker than old fashioned oats.

The top of this dish doesn't get a bit toasty like it does when cooked in the oven but it was delicious and easy enough that I will definitely make it again in this cooker.

Notes on Steamed Veggies:

Someone had mentioned that if you have one side on high, the other side will get hotter than it would on low. I wanted to see how this would work so for the first hour the apple crisp was cooking, I had water in the vessel on the left side. I kept sticking my finger in it to see how hot it got. The water got warm but barely warm and the other side was on high.

The default for the steamer setting was 14 or 15 minutes. I left it at that and the broccoli and carrots were perfect.

The only complaint I have is that the grid for the steamer tray has spaces a bit larger than I would prefer. I started out cutting the carrots into rather thick "coins" but they were falling through into the water. I started cutting the carrots into "logs" about 3" long. If the carrots were bigger, I would slice those in half lengthwise and that worked fine.

Next week or maybe this weekend, I'll cook a meal in the Multi-Meal and report back. We're still working on leftovers!  If anyone is wondering, we had leftover Salisbury Steak with mushroom gravy and mashed potatoes with the steamed carrots and broccoli.

Reheating Pasta

 I'm probably not the one you want to ask for advice on reheating things because I detest the microwave and if it were up to me, there would not be one in my kitchen. Having said that, my guess is most people would heat it up in the microwave. Vince heated some leftover Million Dollar Pasta for a snack in the microwave today and he's fine with it.

I have a Ninja Combi All-in-One Multi cooker and I LOVE it! I've had it for two years and I probably use it at least five days a week. It does pretty much everything - air fries, broils, bakes, toasts.

When I'm reheating a frozen pasta dish, I defrost it in the fridge for 24 hours or more. Once it's completely defrosted, I will stir it up and see how it looks. Sometimes it looks a bit dry because I think the pasta continues to absorb liquid either as it's in the freezing process or in the defrosting process. If it looks like it's dry, I will add a little milk with a little melted butter. You could probably get by with water too. Then I cover it and put it in the Ninja Combi (you could easily use your oven) and heat it at 350 til it's warm. A small dish usually takes about 20 to 30 minutes. Also, if it looks a little sad, add some grated cheese, stir it all together and we can't even tell it was reheated.

Canning Chicken Broth

 First, a reader asked about freezing pasta. Yes, you can but it may not taste 100% as it did before it was frozen. I take pasta dishes out of the freezer and let them defrost in the fridge at least 24 hours. If there's a dish that I can stir (not things like lasagna), I will add a bit of milk or broth, stir it all up and then heat it. That seems to make it better but even if I don't do that, we've never had a problem with freezing, thawing and re-heating pasta.

Vince had plans to go to the south side of Joplin today, which is where Sam's Club is located. I had been wanting to go there so off we went. He made his stops, then we went to Sam's. I love their rotisserie chickens. Walmart has them too but sometimes the ones from Walmart are giant and the breast meat is grainy or stringy and looks weird. I just can't even look at the ones in Walmart! There are four or five dishes I want to make over the next few weeks that require chicken so we got three of the Sam's rotisserie chickens. By the time we got home, they were cool enough to handle so I stripped all the meat off the bones and got five bags with 3 cups of chicken in each bag.

Next, the bones and skin went into my biggest stockpot, with water to cover them, a bit of vinegar, salt, celery, carrots and onions. That simmered for about four hours, then I strained it and canned it.

I canned 19 pints of chicken broth! Usually I use quarts but at this time of year, my jar stash is slim because the jars are all filled. I need all of the available quarts for freeze dried apples and pears that I'm still working on. Pints are fine for the broth - sometimes a pint isn't enough and a quart is too much. I have 1-1/2 pint jars but the pints were easier to grab. That's one canner load in the photo above. I used the small canner with 8 jars and the large canner with 11 jars. It took the larger canner longer to cool down so those jars didn't get in the picture. In fact, even as I'm writing them, the large canner is just now getting down to zero pressure.

Next project was to get the elderberries out of the freeze dryer. That's three half gallons of dried elderberries. When I need to make elderberry syrup or jelly, I'll just simmer some of these, strain the juice out and be ready to go. That's a lot easier than using the steam juicer and freezing all the juice - especially since I don't have enough freezer space.

Here's a little snapshot of other things (behind the elderberries and chicken broth) I've been busy freeze drying. Lots of powdered tomatoes. some of the little Sweet 100 tomatoes that the dogs love and will get for treats during the winter, another jar of basil.

Crockpot Million Dollar Pasta

 Today's crockpot dinner was Million Dollar Pasta. I am not a fan of marinara but Vince loves it and I should make it more often than I do. He loved this recipe.

Messy bowl!  :(  By the time I'm ready to serve the food, I'm tired and I probably should do better with presentation if I'm going to share these photos but around here . . what you see is what you get!

We had garlic rolls and salad.

The only changes I made: I didn't have Ricotta so I used whole milk Greek yogurt instead and I didn't have cavatappi pasta so I used penne.

Where this recipe shines is the amount it makes and how well this will freeze. These are the 2 cup size Souper Cubes (affiliate link). I've been using these for a bit over a year. Once filled, I put the lids on and put them in the freezer. After a couple of days in the freezer, I pop them out and vacuum seal them, label them, then stack them back in the freezer. Some days, we each choose from a frozen dinner. Currently we have the following in the freezer:

• Chicken, broccoli, cheese and rice
• Scalloped potatoes with pulled pork
• Chicken jambalaya
• Meat loaf
• Shepherd's Pie

We also have the 1 cup Souper Cubes and for the things I like more than Vince likes  (Scalloped Potatoes or Chicken Jambalaya), I'll freeze those in 1 cup portions.

Most weeks, at least one day I will go over the list with Vince and he'll decide what he wants; I'll decide what I want and I'll take those out of the freezer and put them in the fridge to defrost so we can easily heat them up the next day.

The new crockpot is supposed to arrive tomorrow. We have to use up some leftovers out of the fridge so I won't be cooking a meal tomorrow. Monday we have several things going on so we'll be eating leftovers again so maybe Tuesday I'll be able to try out the new pot . . unless I come up with some kind of dessert I can make in it. We'll see.

A Divided Crock Pot

 It seems weird that I'm this excited about a new crock pot. Did I NEED a new crock pot? No. But, I was thinking I wanted a smaller crock pot. I have two and there may be a third one in the garage, but they're the bigger 7 quart or 6.5 quart. They're heavy and if I leave it on the counter, which I would do if I was using it every day, they take up a lot of room. Otherwise, it sits on the shelf in the sun room and I have to keep getting it out and putting it back. I found one at Amazon that was 2.5 quart and for most things I cook, that would be fine. I had been looking at it and tonight, I saw this one:

The blurb at Amazon says "Cook multiple recipes at one time, with dual pot temperature and cook functions, including slow cook, sear/saute, bake, rice/steam and keep warm."

Today I needed rice for the butter rice. I could have used the rice cooker function. Often - real often - I'm steaming carrots or broccoli or cauliflower for our vegetable. I could do that in this one pot.

Each side is supposed to be 3.7 quarts. It's 12.25" wide, 18" long and 9.25" high so it's bigger than it looks.

It should be here Sunday. I should not be this excited about a crock pot!!

Crockpot Butter Chicken

Today's crockpot meal was Butter Chicken. The link goes to a Facebook short. I didn't find (but it may be there somewhere) a printable link. I have his cookbook and it's in there. 

I actually forgot to take a picture. We had Basmatti Rice with it and it was so delicious. 

There's an Indian restaurant on the south side of the interstate and any time we find ourselves down there, we go eat at that restaurant. We always get Butter Chicken and this recipe was not only easy, we liked it better than what we get at the restaurant.

I only changed one thing - Last year I canned some tomatoes with hot peppers - I just added a variety of peppers to each jar - some jalapeno, some tabasco, serrano . . I don't even remember. In this recipe, I left off the can of diced tomatoes and used a quart of my home canned tomatoes. Since the tomatoes had hot peppers, I also left out the cayenne.

I also made Naan Bread with fresh milled flour. Delicious!

Crockpot Salisbury Steak

 It seems as though almost every cooking YouTube video I have seen lately has been using the crockpot and that has made me want to get mine out again. After watching several videos, each with several recipes shown, I came up with a plan to cook using the crockpot for the next 10 days. Some of those days we will have leftovers so I won't have 10 recipes to share but hopefully, I will have 5.

Today I made Salisbury Steak with Gravy. I've always loved what I've called Hamburger Steak with Gravy. It's basically the same thing but this crockpot recipe was fantastic. I told Vince he was going to have to rate each recipe on a scale of 1 - 10 so I could post his thoughts. He gave this one an 11. I told him that isn't possible but I figured that would give you an idea how much he liked it.

Obviously I served it with corn, mashed potatoes and biscuits.

Changes I Made: Not many and wouldn't change anything else when I make it again.

1. Instead of using 8 oz. of mushrooms, I used 16 oz. of mushrooms.

2. Because I wanted more gravy than I knew I would get following the recipe, I added a bit more water, cornstarch and cream. Maybe the only reason I needed to add more is because I had this cooking on high for about 4 hours; then turned it to low for about 4 hours because I was waiting for Vince to get home from having been out of town. You may not need to add more cornstarch, water and cream.

This recipe seriously is a 10 - something I will put on my rotation list.

Technology - Friend or Foe?

Vince has been gone for a few days. We have *several* security cameras. It started when we first moved here and had an unwanted visitor a couple of times. Then we put some up in the back because they also have a motion light and I'm out with the dogs in the dark often; then there's the doorbell camera and I wanted cameras to see what kind of wildlife we're getting - deer, skunks, cats.

Anyway . . Vince will call me and ask what I was doing. "Where did you go?" I saw the car leave. I went to eat Mexican for lunch! Then . . "Who was that man you were talking to in the driveway?" The tree cutter. "Why were you out before daylight?" Oscar had to go out! Then . . "What did we get in the mail? I saw you walk to the mailbox!" I told him I was going to turn the cameras off. He said he could turn them back on from his phone! Ughh  . . good thing I'm not doing anything I'm not supposed to be doing . . except maybe trying to sneak in a few packages from Colorado Cross Stitcher!  :)

Then he asked . . "What did you get from Walmart? I got an email that the Walmart order had been delivered." Hmm . . I got chicken breasts, chicken thighs, sour cream, cottage cheese, mushrooms, cream cheese, sun dried tomatoes, lemons, ginger!

That's the bad side of technology. We're always being watched by someone.

The good side . . I locked myself out of the house today. None of our doors will open from the inside if they're locked so how did I lock myself out? The downstairs door from the house to the garage - I locked it earlier and kinda shoved it shut but it didn't shut all the way. I knew that and meant to give it another shove but didn't. Later, I went outside and because that door wasn't shut all the way, even though it was locked and I didn't notice that - I pulled it open without having to turn the doorknob, went out and pulled it shut behind me. So very lucky for me, I was talking to Vince so I had my phone with me. I was still talking to him when I tried to get back in. Oh, no - I'm locked out of the house! Every window is closed and locked because I'm such a chicken when he's gone. Of course, he could not figure out how I could do that because with the locks we have, it's impossible to get locked out. Nope. I'm living proof it is NOT impossible to do. He suggested just breaking a window. They're going to be replaced within the next month. But . . I'm not sleeping in a house with a busted out window. Then I remembered . . there's an app on my phone to open or close the garage door so I went to the front of the house, opened the garage door, prayed I hadn't locked the door from the laundry room into the garage. I had not. Very thankful for that app that allowed me to open the garage door with the phone. The good side of technology! We have that app because I'm always leaving and not remembering if I've closed the garage door. I can check it from my phone and if I haven't closed it, I can do it from the app.

It has been at least 30 years since I got locked out of the house.  

Two Grumpy Dogs

 Last night we had a full, all out dog fight! Most days I'm in the kitchen for a couple of hours and in the garden for a couple of hours and if I'm not in the basement with the dogs, they're in the crates. Yesterday, things were a bit different. I didn't have to cook. I think the garden is officially done except for the greens so I didn't really have anything to do that meant the dogs had to be in their crates so they were pretty active all day.

About 7 p.m., way before they would normally be tired, I could tell they were exhausted. Oscar gets grumpy. They were both sitting in the chair with me. Cooper did something and Oscar jumped all over him - really . . like a fight. Growling and showing his teeth. I grabbed him and put him farther back in the chair, closer to me and farther from Cooper.

I felt bad for both of them because Cooper can get on Oscar's last nerve but Oscar doesn't need to get so angry. I was watching them closely to make sure they didn't pick up where they left off.

Cooper sat on the ottoman and stared at Oscar. Cooper would look away, like he was planning something. The whites in his eyes are so white. His eyes are black and his face is black so when he cuts his eyes back and forth, it cracks me up. He is so funny and you can always tell when he's planning something.

It had probably been 5 minutes since their little interaction and, all of a sudden, Cooper attacked Oscar! Just lunged at him and was growling and showing his teeth. I think it shocked Oscar . . it definitely shocked me because Cooper is usually a sweet little guy but I guess he planned it all out and decided it was time to teach Oscar not to mess with him.

I just had to laugh . . They are both sitting in the chair with me. Cooper has his head and one leg across Oscar - they are really snuggled up close. I thought . . I guess you guys forgot that you wanted to kill each other last night!  

Harriet Holtby 1836

 Last Wednesday Debbie and I were stitching together. Do you kinda feel like Debbie is your best friend too since I talk about her so much here? You all would love her and I'm so, so lucky to have met her.

I grabbed my phone to look up something and there in my email was another from Sheri at Colorado Cross Stitcher letting the stitching world know that there was a new exclusive at Colorado Cross Stitcher - Harriet Holtby 1836.

Instantly, I knew this was a chart I had to have. I ordered it and it arrived today. I ordered it and it arrived today. As soon as it arrived, I stopped what I was doing,  made the PDF, got it all set up in Markup, got the linen loaded on a frame and I'm going to start this tonight.

In the past when I've used NPI floss, I've kept it in the plastic floss bags. I'm tempted to put it on floss drops this time. Any advice about that?

Another thing I always do is print a color working copy. I keep that - all of it if it will fit - in one page protector. The cover photo is always on the front and whatever page I'm currently working on is on the back so I can have it easily visible.

I work from Mark-up, which I love but sometimes it's easier to have a bigger "shot" of what I'm working on. Example: On this chart, I'm going to start with the border at the middle top. As I'm working towards the right or left, on what I'm seeing on Mark-up, I won't even have a whole repeat. I could but then that makes the squares small enough that even touching them with a stylus, I'm making mistakes and sometimes, it's hard to see the floss symbol if the squares are too small so I can be glancing at the paper chart as I'm working off Mark-up to kinda get the big picture. I guess it's kinda like driving with GPS. I like having the very closeup street map when I'm making turns but if I'm just hauling it down the interstate, I want to see all the way from Louisiana to Missouri on that screen!  :)

Also, there's a bin behind my stitching chair that is labeled "Original Charts". The original chart goes in there. When I was working on a rather large chart a couple of years ago, I wasn't using Mark-up but I had a working copy and the original. Both were in my project bag and I lost that project bag. I spent weeks looking for that bag. Just before I ordered a new chart, I found it and said to myself - never again will I have the working copy and the original chart in the same bag!

So . . I'm fixing to take my first few stitches in Harriet!

My First Smalls SAL Finish

 This evening I finished Summer Cabin by Pinker & Punkin.

I still love my samplers but I do love these smalls that can be finished in a few days. I worked on this one 4 days but, as you probably know, my stitching goal for every day is 400 stitches. On this one, I did 196 the first day, 401 the second day, 92 the third day and finished it today with 344 stitches. This is one I should have finished in two days.

I made a couple of changes. The roof was only 3 rows wide and to me it looked short so I added a row. Then I stitched the 1776 xx 2026 so by the time I added what I needed for the extra couple of rows, it was too long by the time the border matched up so I stitched my initials and the year 2025, which I don't always stitch.

Loved this little chart!

Another Load in the Freeze Dryer

 Did I tell you about the last load of apples in the freezer dryer? I don't think I did. They turned out great. That was the first time I'd ever left the peelings on them. We tried them and both were happy so that saves a lot of time not having to peel the apples. I had slice them very thin and ended up with 9 quarts once they were dried.

Yesterday I got the freeze dryer going again.

Three trays of okra and one tray of tomatoes with an experiment on one end of the tomato tray.

The experiment is corn nuts. I've always loved corn nuts but am a bit afraid to eat them now because of recent dental issues. I saw someone mention they had freeze dried some. I took a jar of hominy I had made from dried corn, rinsed the hominy, drained it on towels for a bit, pushed all the tomatoes together to make room for the corn and we'll see how they turn out. My guess is they're going to be crunchy but easy to crunch and it won't feel like they'll damage my teeth. I did put a bit of Cajun seasoning on them. If this works and we like them, I'll need to get more hominy made so we can have corn nuts. 

Sourcing Local Foods

 Once again, I feel the need to say "this is not virtual signaling!"

While I'm not opposed to buying most of our groceries from the grocery store, my preference is to buy as much as we can locally. While I'm thankful for the groceries stores we have here, I wish we had something like HEB (we'll never have that in MO) or Kroger or one of the big stores like they have in Kansas City . . but we don't.

Vince and I were talking the other day and I can't even remember the last time I was in Walmart. It's probably been two or three months. I was in Aldi a couple of weeks ago because I wanted the Dachshund slippers. I don't go to the store often. Sunday I did place a Walmart order to be delivered but there was no food on the list. It was jars and cleaning supplies.

As far as groceries, I do buy most everything except fresh produce and fruit from Azure Standard and we get that delivery once a month. I think Tuesday is our last day to add to our Azure list for this month. I don't order from them November - February because we never know what day our delivery will be and since we have to drive to the other side of Carthage to meet the truck, based on our October delivery date being the week of October 26, I'm betting the delivery will be a day or so before Thanksgiving and closer to Christmas than I'll want to deal with. Then, the weather can be a problem in January and February so I feel like I need to have more on my Azure order this month but I can't think of anything else we're close to needed to refill. Here's the total of my order as of this morning.

Baking soda, cornstarch, cream of tartar (I make my own baking powder) are pretty normal things. I love, LOVE the Sierra Nevada Jalapeno Jack Raw cheese. I get 5 pounds of that almost every time I order. I may end up changing that to 10 pounds because 5 pounds is NOT going to last until I order again. OK . . I went back and changed it.  I use palm fruit shortening for baking - especially pie crusts and biscuits. The 4 pound container is $4.08 per pound where they have a 33 pound container that is $2.09 per pound but that one comes in a bag where the smaller one comes in a tub. The contents of the bat would have to be transferred to a 5 gallon bucket and something else because it's too much to fit in one 5 gallon bucket. The price per pound keeps making me want to get the 33 pounds but we only use two of the 4 pound containers per year so really, I need to stick with the 4 pound container. Vince likes sunflower seed butter and I've been buying the 5 pounds container of roasted seeds but you can see that's $21.40 where the raw ones are $14.37. I'm going to try roasting them at home and see if he's ok with that.

Yesterday morning I started to cook breakfast and realized everything we were having had come from someone local.

The greens (Tatsoi and purple leaf bok choy) came from our garden. The sausage came from a young man who has all kinds of pork for sale. He lives north of Carthage but his mom lives near me so when I'm getting low, I will place an order with him, he will get it to her and she and I will get together so I can get my order. The pears came from the orchard about 40 miles from here in Kansas and the eggs came from maybe 2 miles down the road. I wish they had come from my own chickens . . but I don't have chickens and Vince says NO!! Of course, I made the bread.

It was supposed to be a spinach frittata but I had the other greens in the garden so that's what we used. And, we had strawberry jam made by a neighbor who grows her own strawberries!

I wish every meal we ate came from local sources but, that's pretty unlikely.

Iowa Chowder Recipe

As we move into soup season, I remembered the Iowa Chowder that we've loved for so many years and wanted to retrieve the recipe from the old blog. We will have this later this week or maybe next week.

Ingredients:

1 cup onions, diced
1 cup celery, diced
1/4 cup butter
2 T. flour
2 cups water
3 cups potatoes, diced and cooked
1 – 17 oz. can whole kernel corn, drained
1/8 tsp. ginger
salt & pepper to taste
2 bay leaves
2 cups ham, diced
1-1/2 cups evaporated milk
8 oz. cream cheese

Directions:

Saute onions and celery in butter.  Sprinkle the flour over the onions and celery and stir til the flour barely begins to turn beige.  Add the water (which can be water from the potatoes, or liquid from the corn).  Stir until the water/flour is blended. Add corn, bay leaves, ginger, salt, pepper and ham.  Stir in milk and cream cheese.  Heat until cream cheese is melted.  Add the potatoes and cook til they’re warm.  Sometimes if it’s a little thick, I’ll add a bit of milk – 2%, whole milk . . whatever is in the fridge.

Darlene’s hints:

I dice the potato before cooking and cook until just tender – do not overcook.
Sometimes I add more corn than is called for.
Do not over salt as the ham adds saltiness.
Keeps well for several days in the fridge or can be frozen.

Serves 6 – 10 depending on serving size. (This only serves 6 – 10 if they aren’t very hungry!  When Chad was home, he would eat half of this in one sitting!)

Peanuts

 I often wonder how many of the things I love and the things I do are because of the amount of time I spent with my grandparents or maybe these things are just in my genes. No idea but I love the memories that come with some of these things.

Probably my grandparents' best friends were Mr. and Mrs. Ross. I actually don't remember their real names but everyone called him Tink and everyone, even us kids, which sounds kinda disrespectful now, called her Tomcat. I need to ask my uncle what her real name was. Well, nevermind. I just looked up Tink's obituary because I thought it had a story about his mule that lived to be really old - maybe older than 50 years. I'll have to ask my uncle about that mule too. From his obituary, I was reminded that Mrs. Ross' name was Willie Mae and his name was Allen. Reading the obituary made me cry. Tink passed away in 2018, at the age of 103 years. My dad and my uncle were pall bearers and now my dad is gone too!  :(

Anyway . . a blog post about nuts should NOT cause me to cry, right?

I love home roasted peanuts. We roast what we will eat over a few days, let them cool, eat what we want and put the others away. I never like to order them until it has gotten cooler because I don't think sitting on hot delivery trucks is good for them. Tonight our low is 44. Except for a couple of days here and there, our highs are now going to be in the 60's. Vince is watching football with the windows open and a fan going. I still had on my nightgown and was cold so I went and put on sweatpants and a sweatshirt! That means it's officially time to order peanuts.

I get the 25 pound box from nuts.com. Sometimes, in February or March, we have to order a second box! It all depends on how much peanut butter we end up making. But, by May, we're not wanting roasted peanuts much. I rarely make peanut butter & jelly sandwiches but I do love those and I love peanut butter on a banana.

I almost forgot the reason I wrote about Tink Ross. They didn't live close to my grandparents. No one had neighbors back then. We had to take the car to go visit them. Tink and his old mule . . which was an old mule when I was a kid, would plow up an area on the side of their driveway and they would plant peanuts. When he harvested them, he would hang them in his barn to dry. He had a big pole he could reach up into the rafters and cut down a bundle of peanuts. When we would go over there, he would always send us home with a bundle of peanuts. My grandma would roast them for us and I thought those were the best snack ever. So, every year when I order our peanuts, I think of Tink and Tomcat. I really think of them other times too. He also grew the best watermelons and cantaloupe. Were they really the BEST or was it because he gave us as many as we wanted? My parents didn't usually buy cantaloupe and would buy 2 or 3 watermelons every summer but Tink would give us 5 or 6 of each, then a week or so later, if we didn't go visit them, they'd come visit us and bring more.

Those were truly the best days!

32 Count Linen Experiment

 A week or so ago Debbie and I were talking and she told me about someone - a well known stitcher but I can't remember who she said - who uses 32 count linen and stitches with one thread. Then she showed me a picture of some of her work. It looked great. I sometimes wonder if I should use two strands on 36 count but what I saw stitched on 32 count looked great.

While I love stitching on 40 count, there are times when it isn't really feasible because of being able to see it well enough. When I'm away from home stitching, most every Wednesday, I was stitching on 36 count, without my trusty magnifying lamp but with stronger than I really need reading glasses. If we go somewhere for a night or two, or if I'd like to work on cross stitching while waiting for an appointment, even 36 count with the glasses is slow going. I've never worried much about it because I have my knitting to take for most "away from home" projects.

With the Pinker & Punkin smalls, I thought I would try one on 32 count using one strand. I started with Summer Cabin and I think it looks fine and goes much faster with 32 count. I think the coverage is great. It surprises me how good the coverage looks.

The problem, as Vince will see it, is that I have very little 32 count linen so I may need to do a little linen shopping!  :)

Brother 2340CV Cover Stitch Machine

 In March, 2017, I bought a Brother 2340CV coverstitch machine. Do not ask me why I thought I needed to do that but I did. I made maybe 8 or 10 tops for myself. Here's one.

I really like that top. I made this cute cardigan for Addie.

Then I stopped using it. Then we moved and I probably haven't touched it since about 2018. 

Vince bought some jersey like stretch lounging pants and they needed to be cut and hemmed. He asked me if I could do that. Of course! That's exactly what the coverstitch machine is for - hemming stretchy fabric. ONLY thing it does - hems stretchy fabric.

The machine has been sitting right next to my serger for five years now. I use the serger on linen so I use it often enough. I got ready to use the machine - no idea how to thread it. I messed with it for over an hour, then decided to find a video. Watched that . . wait . . it has three needles. Mine only has two. You can use it with two needles. Did I only have two needles since the beginning? Doubtful because there were four spools of thread on the machine - three for needles and one for the bottom (looper I think it's called). More searching and yes, it can be used with two needles. 

Cut Vince's pants off, measured, pinned, stitched one leg. How do you get the leg out of the machine? Another video. Got that done. Three hours after I had started, I had two pairs of pants hemmed. That is why I do not do alterations. Buy it to fit or don't buy it!

But, I do not like buying tops for me. I don't like tops that are cut too low or loose around the neck so if I bend over, you can seed own to my waist. Not much to see but still . . 

I don't like tops that are too short. I don't like tops that have to be ironed. I don't like slinky knit or knit that pills easily. So, I wear the same few tops over and over and over. You know how I am. When I started making tops in 2017, I bought a TON of knit for making the tops. I kept it because I did want to make more tops. Now is the time to get that done. I know how to work my machine so I need to do it before I forget again.

Isn't it funny how my hobbies cycle? Sewing, knitting, quilting, cross stitching . . they all seem to get put on the back burner, then at some point come back into favor.

Figs

 If you've read my blog for any amount of time, especially when we were in Texas, you know how much I love figs. We always had fig trees when I was growing up in Louisiana. My dad planted them; my grandparents had huge ones. I never dreamed there would a life without figs . . til I moved to Kentucky and people acted like I was looking for beachfront property when I asked about figs. 

Then . . years later we moved to Texas and planted fig trees. One turned out to be a giant. 

You can imagine how many figs that tree produced. We gave away figs, I made jam, preserves, freeze dried figs and the first freeze would come and that tree was still covered in figs.

Then . . we moved back to Missouri where figs seem to be hard to find. In late summer, 2023 I was wandering around the garden center in Lowe's and found fig trees for sale. I googled the type and the info convinced me they would grow here. Vince came to retrieve me from the garden center (he had been shopping inside the store) and I told him what I had found. We bought three of these trees.

Not as big as the Texas fig tree but they have grown quite a bit. See the okra encroaching on the fig tree's space?  :)  I'm surprised that within a couple of miles of us, I've seen okra growing in three other gardens.

There's a second tree and there's a third one out there too.

Last spring or early summer, the tree by the okra had three figs on it. I waited and watched and squeezed to see if they were getting soft. Nope, hard as a rock. They never got big. They never got ripe. They never did anything. I wasn't too upset because they had barely been in the ground a year and we had several nights with temps into the -20's so I was happy they were alive.

This year, same tree . . three figs. They sat there and did nothing but about July, there were more figs. Then a second tree had figs but none of them showed any signs of getting larger or getting ripe.

About a month ago, I told Vince . . if those three fig trees don't produce something this year, I want to cut them down because seeing them and watering them frustrates me! We wouldn't have done it but I was pretty frustrated that they would grow figs and never get ripe.

I've been busy with putting up okra and basil and tomatoes for Cooper for the winter, and apples and pears and hadn't paid any attention to the fig trees. Today I walked past the one that had the three figs last year and there were three ripe figs!

I went back into the house to get Vince to come out and see them. I grabbed my camera. There were two small figs and one really big fig. I told Vince to get the big fig and I would take the two small ones. We each ate one and then I remembered I wanted to take a picture so . . here's one of the small ones.

You can tell it's been ripe for a while. I'm glad the birds didn't find it before I did. I need to pay closer attention. There may be others that will get ripe before we have a freeze. We should have at least two weeks before a freeze . . maybe three.

At least they produced and I'm betting next year they will produce a lot more!

They made me very, very happy!

The Smalls SAL

 I'm going to call the stitch along "The Smalls SAL". Y'all can stitch anything you want to stitch but for me, it's going to be some of those quicker to finish type projects and maybe this SAL will go on and on and we'll all get LOTS of small finishes!

I set up two of the saltboxes in Markup: Summer House and Summer Cabin.

Summer House is a bit stitch heavy and one I probably will not finish in a couple of weeks. It's 96 stitches wide x 87 stitches high. On 32 count linen, it will be 6" x 5-1/2". On 40 count, it would be 4-3/4" x 4-3/8".  Sweater Weather that I just finished was 159 stitches wide x 71 stitches high. Markup said Sweater Weather had 4,606 stitches, while Markup says Summer House has 8,057 stitches but there were so many color changes on Sweater Weather where Summer House has way less color/thread changes.

I'm going to start Summer House and work towards getting big areas outlined . . the roof, the house with the windows/doors also outlined, the flag. Then I'll stitch the flours, sheep, bee hives fence so that I can stitch that massive grassy area and fill in the other parts if I'm not in a position of being able to give it my full attention.

The other one, Summer Cabin. It will be super quick - 2,157 stitches total. It's 47 x 51 so on 32 count, it would be 3" x 3-1/4". On 40 count, it would be 2-3/8" x 2-1/2". So tiny!!

NOTE:  On Summer Cabin, beneath the cabin there's a row of patch looking motifs. They cover three rows. I'm going to leave those out and put in "1776 - 2026". I will probably need 4 or 5 rows for the numbers so I'm going to make a couple of changes:  First, from the top of the left chimney to the flag, there are four spaces. I'm going to move that up and have only three. Second, the flower to the right of the house, I will make the stem one stitch shorter so there will still be three stitches between the top of the flour and the bottom of the flag. That should make it all work.

I'm pretty excited about this!

If anyone needs a PDF of the Pinker & Punkin charts, here's how I make them. There are probably many ways to do it but here's how I do it. And, I'm using a Chromebook so this may not work with other operating systems.

1. Go to the page that has the chart (if it's a larger chart and it's on more than one page, copy each page as a separate document. I will use a snipping tool (kinda like a cropping tool), copy the part of the page I want to include. 

2. Hit "print" or "control+P" and choose "Save as PDF". Be sure to remember how you're saving it so you can make your PDF in the right order. If it's a one page chart, I will save one as (name)chart.pdf; then I'll save key as (name)key.pdf, then the photo as (name)photo.pdf.

3. Then I go to a PDF program that allows me to edit PDFs. I use a free one online - SimplePDF.com. Always check because some will say they're free and it may only be for a couple of uses or you have to register or even sometimes one that's free today may not be free in two weeks. You will download or import the chart, key and picture into the PDF maker and then do whatever it tells you. Some will say "create PDF" some will say "save PDF". 

4. Then I can import those into Mark-Up XP, which I highly recommend.

OK . . no more info from me. Let's get started stitching!

Sweater Weather is FINISHED!

 This evening I finally finished Sweater Weather. I actually started this one on October 1 and finished on October 16. There were at least three days that I didn't stitch at all so it really was a two week project.

This was one of my favorite projects but I probably say that about all of them. I think the fact that I did all those little doo-dads is a testament to how much I love this project.

As always, if you see something I missed, please let me know.

Every stitch is marked but, as you can see, the app says I've stitched 94.88% and still have 236 stitches to make. Not sure why it sometimes does that. Doesn't matter so I haven't spent any time trying to figure it out.

On to another project. I'll probably work on one of my patriotic projects the rest of tonight and tomorrow I'll decide what my next focus project will be. Could be a saltbox house, a WIP or a totally new project. Should probably be a WIP!

Salt Box Houses SAL

 There seems to be enough interest in doing a smalls SAL that I say "let's do it!". There was lots of interest in Pinker & Punkin's salt box homes so let's start there.

On the Parade of Homes post, I counted 54 salt box houses. I don't know if there are others (didn't read the whole post) so there should be something for everyone there.

I haven't made any decisions on what I will stitch, nor have I made a plan. I'll probably just choose something each month and go with it.

I may start with Summer House. It's a larger one with LOTS of green grass. That probably isn't one I would plan on finishing in a month but if I stitched it and framed it and hung it on the wall behind a small table I have in the foyer, then put a dough bowl on the table with little house pillows, that might be kinda cute. I'm a long ways from deciding where to put finished houses!  :)

What I'll do it a week or so before the end of the month, ask for anyone who wants to share finished projects or WIPS for the house SAL send me pictures and let me know what name (or none at all) you would like for me to use, I'll share those in a blog post.

Sound good?

In My Defense . . .

 Believe me, I do need a defense!  :) Debbie and I get together on Wednesdays and stitch. Some weeks, it seems like 20 days between the two Wednesdays. Some days, it seems like yesterday! The "yesterday" weeks are usually when I've had a super busy week. This past week was super busy and a bit more stressful than most of our weeks.

Do the above tablets look anything alike? Right . . they do not! I bought the left (green) one specifically for using on Wednesday stitching days. It stays in my stitching bag, along with whatever project I'm working on, floss, scissors, etc. I never take it out of the bag unless I need to add a new project. This past week, there was no reason to have taken it out.

This morning I got ready to go. The green tablet wasn't in the bag. I was able to use "find my phone" on the internet and it rang . . upstairs. Why?  No idea. I grabbed it, checked the battery and put it on the charger for about an hour.

Before I left, I grabbed what I thought was the green tablet, stuck it in the stitching bag and off I went. You know where this is going, right?

Debbie and I had a LOT to talk about this morning. We get to the restaurant where we meet, talk a few minutes, get breakfast, talk and stitch til lunch time. We eat lunch and keep stitching. We're there for about 8 hours!

This morning we talked and laughed so much that by the time we said "let's get breakfast", it was too late. They were no longer serving breakfast!  :) How did we not realize how long we were talking?

Anyway, I pulled out my tablet. Oh, no! The purple tablet! It has Mark Up on it but no charts! I had brought the 4th of July Rules project and tried to stitch using the paper chart. Nope. Brain can no longer do that. I had made maybe 7 stitches in 45 minutes. Then I remembered that I had made the PDF with my phone so surely I could find it there. Yes, imported it and finally got to start stitching.

I started on the white house on and got a little bit done on it. I managed to get 306 stitches done. I'm going to stitch some on Sweater Weather til I go to bed and I should be able to hit my goal for the day - 400 stitches.

A Cross Stitching Idea

This thought has been running through my head so I thought I would throw it out here. Not sure how many cross stitchers are here but . . here's my thought:

Supposedly, Sweater Weather has 4,605 stitches. I'll know for sure when I finish it. It has been pretty easy for me to get stitched in two weeks, give or take a day or two. It wasn't hard by any means but there were a lot of stops and starts and color changes. Four stitches of this color, then 2" away, 2 stitches of that color. Something like Red Deer Sampler that a reader mentioned she's working on - that's definitely not a quick stitch (for me anyway), but it's beautiful and I do have it and would love to stitch it some day. 

I was just thinking about something that's pretty but doesn't take forever - and for all of us, that probably means something different.

Would there be any interest in a monthly themed stitch along of something that is a long the lines of being finished in two weeks?

In my opinion, having something I can start and finish in a couple of weeks kind boosts my  . . not energy, not self-confidence . . I don't know the word, but with so many WIPS, it's fun to have a finish every now and then.

I think the fun in this would be challenging ourselves to get something done in two weeks but honestly, if it's done by the end of the month, that would be great too. The Pinker & Punkin' blog has tons of small freebies and I think they're all so cute. She has a whole series on little salt box houses that should be super easy to stitch and I've been wanting to stitch some of them.

My feelings won't be hurt if no one wants to participate but if someone does, it could be fun to stitch with friends. Somehow stitching with friends makes me feel accountable. 

Did NOT Finish!

Sweater Weather did not get finished. Even though I had several hours to stitch on it, there were quite a few interruptions. Dogs (mostly). The contractor's rep is going to be here in the morning at 8 to go over several issues we've had and talk about a timeline. Not the first rep we've dealt with (3rd or 4th) . . this project is not going nearly as smoothly as we thought it would but Vince and I walked around the house and he was taking notes about the things I'm not happy with because I won't be here tomorrow when the guy shows up. I'll be on my way to meet Debbie and spend my day happily stitching and not even think about house repairs.

Here's what I got done - mostly finished the big pumpkin and just filling in one or two stitches here and there. There are many, many places that need one or two stitches and the stopping and starting takes a while.

Thursday I will get it done! I do love it.

No Stitching Yet!

 7:25 p.m. and I haven't taken one stitch yet. Where has this day gone? First, we went to Chetopa, Kansas to the orchard and got more apples and pears.

There's about 10 pounds per bag so that's about 60 pounds. I'm not even sure how many pears and how many apples. I think it's actually mostly apples. Vince loves the Sunflower variety of apple. They only had 15 pounds. He had wanted 40 pounds so he got the 15 pounds and then he got 20 pounds of seconds, which about 99% of them looked perfect. A few had a spot or two that I had to cut around. Then the bag of red apples in the front is a variety from New Zealand (I think she said it's Queena or something like that). That is not one from their breeding program but the Sunflower apple is one of theirs. You can read a bit about their apples and pears on their website. It's interesting. They have probably a dozen different apples and maybe half a dozen different pears, as well as berries, pecans and peaches when in season. We processed one bag of the Sunflower 2nds and got them in the freeze dryer.

Vince did help and we got one bag cleaned and sliced and into the freeze dryer. And, yes, those trays are a little over stacked! I'm guessing there are at least 7 bags of pears and apples left in the fridge from the last trip there. I canned 30 pints of pears already. The freeze dryer has not sat idle in months. It's getting up there in years and I have no idea how long they last. I'm not sure what I would do if it went out, especially during this busy season. I usually let it defrost manually and up until this year, probably had not run the auto defrost cycle more than 4 or 5 times but the last 15 or so runs, I've used the auto defrost cycle just to rush it a long. 

Within the last 10 - 14 days, here's some of what I've freeze dried. All of this was lined up on the floor of the room where the freeze drying room is kept so I took the photos and got it all put away. 

Above is five 1-1/2 pint jars of chopped bell peppers along with one 1-1/2 pint jar and a quart jar of jalapeno halves. All that from the garden. This was all one run in the freeze dryer.

The okra shown above was three runs in the freeze dryer. I get about three half gallon jars from each run. Every three days we get enough okra to fill the four trays of the freeze dryer. We actually cut it every day and keep it in the fridge til there's enough. That's nine half gallon jars and one pint jar. My goal for each year is 15 half gallons. So far this year, we have 21 half gallons. That will be enough to make it through the year if we're fairly conservative with it. There's 8 cups in each half gallon jar. When I cook okra, I like to cook 3 cups at a time but with these jars, I'll use a bit less than three cups so we can get three meals per jar. Our average first frost is the 2nd or 3rd week in October but it looks like it may not happen until the first week of October so that means a bit of extra time to harvest okra. I always take a Dutch oven about half full of sliced okra, stew it down, cook it with onions and peppers, then drop it by one cup portions onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet, freeze it, then put those "clumps" into zipper bags and use those for gumbo or soup. While the freeze dryer is busy, I may go ahead and get that done while the freeze dryer is so backed up with other things.

This is five half gallons and one quart of basil. That's two runs in the freeze dryer. I can pack the basil in pretty tightly in the freeze dryer and then mash it down in the jars so there's a lot of basil in there but if I were to run it through the blender, it would probably be half a cup. I should probably do that . . would taste the same and take up a lot less room. Maybe once everything is done and I have some extra time, I'll get all the basil out and do that.

I think I have a total of 11 half gallons of basil. There's a lot still out there so I may squeeze a couple of loads in between some apple and pear loads. The basil is pretty quick in the freeze dryer. With as much as I got this year, I'll probably only plant one or two plants next year for having a bit of fresh and keep using up the freeze dried.

Well, now it's almost 8 p.m. and I still haven't stitched. I can still get it done . . hopefully.