Marinara Mayhem

Yesterday started with a 25 pound box of roma tomatoes. I figured I would make two batches of marinara sauce, and then experiment and try to can the rest of them whole. First came the skinning. Few things can ruin a mouthful of sauce more than a beastly little roll-up of tough tomato skin that gets caught in your teeth. Luckily, all it takes is a huge pot of boiling water, a knife, and a willingness to have every cut on your hands sting like crazy.

naked, vulnerable tomatoes

Then I used my old recipe for sauce. It's simple....just tomatoes, carrots, onions, red wine, garlic, oregano, and basil. The carrots make the final product look a bit orange, but they do wonders for sweetening things up. I let that simmer for a few hours to thicken and then filled six quart jars. Two of them have a generous dose of red pepper flakes, so we'll see how that turns out over the long term. Hopefully it will be nice and spicy and not bitter.

a jar waiting for some whole tomatoes

The rest of the tomatoes got stewed briefly to soften them up a bit, and then they went straight into jars with a few fresh basil leaves. Then came the scary part. For the marinara, I just processed it in a hot water bath for a long time. Extra cooking wasn't going to hurt that sauce. But with the fresh tomatoes I wanted to try to preserve their flavor and not have them taste too stewed. Commercial canners can flash-boil them and the total processing time is super hot but very brief.

I'd been putting this off for years. I bought my pressure canner specifically for this sort of thing and have been assiduously avoiding it every since. There are only a few things you can safely process in a hot water bath, but these are also what I make the most of. We're talking high sugar things like jam and high acid tomatoes. If I were to make canned pumpkin pie filling, for instance, it would have to be pressure canned. It makes things insanely hot and crazy in there, but also shortens the cooking time exponentially. For instance, I could have boiled the tomatoes in there for an hour and a half, or I could do a mere 20 minutes at 11 pounds pressure.

11 pounds of terror

The pressure terrifies me. I can't stop looking at the pot like a big bomb sitting on the stove. And I have to be there the whole time to make sure the pressure is constant, so I can't get it going and hide. But I did it. I did the tomatoes, and everything worked out fine. Now we just have to see if they taste good. We go through a lot of big cans of tomatoes in this house when Charlie makes sauce.

marinara on the left, whole tomatoes on the right

Next up: blueberries. I am sporting a sunburn as I type, but that story will have to wait till tomorrow. My kitchen is beginning to look like an episode of Little House on the Prairie, and I'm exhausted.

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 3
Eggs laid this year: 80

When the cat's away

those leaves are grape leaves, put one in the bottom of each jar to help keep the dills crispy

Charlie is out of town for work, so last night I decided to have a little party. A pickle party, to be precise. Earlier in the day I'd bought 12 pounds of pickling cucumbers at the Yakima produce stand, a big bunch of dill, and a new box of pickling salt.

dills ready to go in the pot to process for 10 minutes...they start out so vividly green

I uncorked a particularly fine bottle of wine and got to work. I made two kinds of pickles. One straight recipe of kosher dills (kosher means that they have garlic in them), and one of slightly spicy bread-and-butter chips. These particular cucumbers were really bumpy and they looked great when cut into thin slices. While the chips were sitting in their salt bath for the recommended three hours, I made the dills. I originally had planned on making whole dills, but found that it was really difficult to cram them into the jars that way. Cut in half lengthwise it was much easier to fit and I could put more in. They're not exactly whole, not exactly spears, but they look good.

Once the chips were done soaking I rinsed them well (I don't like salty pickles) and simmered them in a delicious smelling brine for a bit. It had vinegar and brown sugar, hot sauce, some miscellaneous pickling spices, and tumeric to give the chips that distinctive golden-yellow color.

pickles this morning, ready to go in the cabinet

By the time everything was processed it was 12.30am, I had drunk almost an entire bottle of wine over the course of the evening, and I retired to bed with slightly sore feet. Now comes the worst part of pickles: the waiting. They have to sit for at least three months or so to develop their true flavor. Once these jars are labeled I'll put them in the cabinet and try to forget about them for a bit. In fact, I'll probably find some pickled asparagus in there that I tried to forget about three months ago, so it should work out fine!

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 2
Eggs laid in the coop Wednesday: 5
Eggs laid this year: 77

Miscellaney

I am patiently waiting for my mouth to un-numb. I spent the morning at the dentist getting some old fillings replaced, and he had to shoot me up a few extra times with anesthetic. Thankfully no one can see me drooling.

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how to tell we're having a party: mountain of shoes

On Saturday we hosted a baby shower for friends. I didn't manage to get any pictures of the actual festivities, but it was a rollicking afternoon of kids playing in the chicken coop, adults drinking "punch", and everyone eating lots of good pot-lucked food. Elisa planned the whole thing....I just provided the house. Easiest party I've ever thrown!

Ido and Elisa fully explore some toys

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I solved my smocking problem. I knew that my bobbin case had a tension you could fiddle with, but I'd been told to never ever mess with it from the factory settings if they are working. Having a spare bobbin case let me play around with the adjustment without fear and it worked! The outfit is going in the mail tomorrow, and if it fits and is comfortable a whole new world of smocking awaits me.

smocking success!

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 5
Eggs laid in the coop Monday: 4
Eggs laid in the coop Sunday: 3
Eggs laid in the coop Saturday: 4
Eggs laid in the coop Friday: 4
Eggs laid this year: 70

blackberry bread Harold

Yesterday I busied myself using some berries picked by Mona's lovely mom. There was an enormous bowl of them, enough to make a batch of seedless blackberry jam from my favorite french jam book. Delicious!

And what would jam be without fresh bread to eat it on? Usually my loaves are hearty and dense, and I've been looking for a more casual loaf. You know, the sort that you could use for a sandwich without feeling like you're eating a bread bomb. Usually I end up with open-faced sandwiches because two slices at a time are too heavy. There is a great shared blog written by several excellent bread bakers called A Year in Bread, and I tried out their farmhouse white loaf.

the autolyse period, where I discovered that my biggest bowl was way too small

It's a big recipe and makes three loaves. Big enough that I couldn't use my kitchenaid to knead for me. Luckily I was having a good-hands-day and was able to enjoy getting sticky and kneading the huge lump of dough until it was smooth. Though I typically prefer multi grained bread, a straight-up white recipe seemed like just the thing to make a tender fluffy loaf. The milk in the recipe ensured tenderness. The verdict from Charlie: tastes very much like an english muffin and is good. I had a piece of toast last night and it toasted up very crispy and was lovely with a little butter and cinnamon. A success!

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I missed today's Summer Fun Time excursion because I went to Bellevue to see if I could solve my thorny smocking problem. After consulting with a woman at the sewing & vacuum store, the answer seems to be using a new bobbin casing and adjusting it. The experiment will happen tonight.


At least Mona went to the farm and was kind enough to take a picture of Harold for me. He seems to be quite happy there, still hanging out with Buzz the duck and Tom the other (much more impressive looking) turkey. I really have to go out there and visit him...

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 4
Eggs laid this year: 50

Septic Excitement

To cap off our Plumbing 2008 Extravaganza, I decided to have our septic tank pumped. Every three years or so you need to have people with an enormous tanker truck come and suck all of the, well, all of the crap out of there: all of the solids that have settled to the bottom to the tank over time and have not decomposed. It's mostly toilet paper. You can use the most eco friendly stuff in the world and it still just sits in there, because there is no motion in the tank to help break it up. It's grease and oils too. Just unpleasant all the way around.


It was fun having the guy come because while I'd had a peek inside the tank when the plumber was here getting rid of the clog of grease (ours) and baby wipes (all visitors are hereby put on notice! No baby wipes in the toilet!) I hadn't seen how the whole production works. It's complicated and simple at the same time. Stuff flows into the main tank from a pipe connected to all of the drains in the house. Solids settle to the bottom. Water and pure liquid trickles into a second tank which has a rudimentary filter on the pipe. It would let, say, a sesame seed through but not anything bigger. That pure liquid goes through an even smaller filter into a third tank with a pump in it. There is a float in there, and when the level rises high enough a pump kicks on and pushes the liquid out through a long pipe to our drainfield. There the water percolates out through the soil and re-enters the universe at large.


It's simple until something goes wrong. If your pipe clogs, or solids get somewhere they aren't supposed to be then the liquid has nowhere to go. And if you put too much liquid in your drainfield it doesn't have time to ease into the environment and things can go horribly horribly awry. So forgive me if I'm a bit paranoid about the whole operation. Even though we're only at the 2.5 year mark, I decided to have the tank pumped just to see how things were going.

Turns out, we're pretty good. There was plenty of crap (hehe) in there, but it wasn't super full or anything. And the pumper guy was happy to show me how everything worked, and even how to clean the filter myself. This lets me troubleshoot some of the more simple problems, instead of calling a professional each time. All in all, an interesting experience!

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As a palette cleanser, behold an apple! Our mini-orchard of 5 trees planted last year are going to bear a miniature crop, but they are our own apples and they will be delicious.

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 4
Eggs laid this year: 46

Ivy experiment

Ivy supply station, otherwise known as the front yard.

I spend a ridiculous amount of time weeding our land. There are many legitimate plants and trees and bushes, but there are also huge tracts of wood-chip-mulched ground. It's pretty, it's landscaping and it helps to define the yard, but it is a pain in the rear to keep weeded. Invasive morning glories and buttercups and horsetails and lots and lots of blackberry spikes provide me with a solid two weeks of nonstop weeding per year, usually done in two or three-day bursts. It is tiring. Once I finish the circuit, it is time to start over again.

ready for transplant

One of my least favorite areas is the side slope next to the propane tank and path to the back grass area. It's a steep slope, and the mulch makes for very spongy footing. You can sink in to your ankles in some places, depending on how hard you put your feet down. Plants love this fluffy loam. When Mom was here a few years ago, she suggested taking some of the (invasive) ivy from the front yard and just shoving it in the dirt to see if it would grow. We did it in a few places, and darned if the stuff hasn't taken hold. It hasn't spread like wildfire, but it's there and it's holding the slope in place and making less room for weeds to grow.

the bottom half of the hill is buttercups, which I have given up on and am just mowing along with the lawn, since the slope is more gradual at the bottom. The older experimental ivy is towards the tree in the back.

Today I decided to do a weeding run and then put in some more ivy. It's still the tail end of the summer, and it has been raining pretty frequently. I'm probably breaking some sort of landscaping law by transplanting an invasive plant and encouraging it, but it's just the right thing for the job. Most of what I put in today I yanked off of a tree that it was climbing. I'll cross my fingers that it takes hold and spreads. Perhaps next year I will have a few less days of weeding!

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 4
Eggs laid this year: 42

Cherries, bowl of

Verdict: the pea soup turned out quite tasty, actually. There will be no photos because no matter how you light it pea soup just doesn't look appetizing. It only tastes good.

Sneak peek at a work in progress:

And a project from earlier this month: matching pants for Calliope and Sappho:

Sappho appears indifferent to her sister's sweet kiss

Now I'm heading back down to the basement to sew. I've been re-finishing the kitchen cabinets and that stain sure is smelly!

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Eggs laid in the coop today: 4
Eggs laid in the coop Sunday: 2
Eggs laid in the coop Saturday: 3
Eggs laid in the coop Friday: 5!
Eggs laid this year: 38