euphrasyne

We are getting ready for Hurricane Florence. School is out due to mandatory evac and the kids are home all week. Between them and my retired MIL who lives with us, it is very loud. I've been trying to eat down my freezer to nothing to fully rotate it before restocking it. As long as Florence is a temporary problem and not TEOTWAWKI, it is actually coming at a good time to help us eat down the freezer. We are doing the same with the pantry, but I already rotated and restocked rice, veg, and protein. We are just eating down the extras like sweets, nuts, and random tins of tea. If we lose power for more than a day, any overflow freezer meat that will not fit in the RV freezer will get canned. This evening I'm doing full meat inventory and working up an emergency canning menu plan. Its been two years since my gastric bypass. The type I had rerouted my GI and vastly changed the way I produce enzymes and other chemicals; it was not 'restrictive only.' I actually eat more carbs now than I did in the few years before the surgery and my diabetes is still gone. I have to have regular lab work done and it is all normal for that. This surgery worked for me and my body is processing things like it should. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has diabetes due to metabolic reasons. On a sadder note, I'm recovering from an ectopic pregnancy. They gave me methotrexate (a chemo drug) and managed to save my tube, but the medicine makes me feel like crap. Earlier this year, I had to have a D&C at week 12 due to a miscarriage with complications. That makes five miscarriages and 2 live births for me. I love my daughters and my step daughter, but it is hard to stop crying for the ones I didn't get a chance to hold. I worry about the safety of all my children--especially the one rolling her eyes at me right now. DD15 and DSD21 are giving me gray hair and turning me into my mother. DD10 continues to be sweet and I pray that lasts through the teenage years. My MIL has more issues than every other family member combined. I have no idea how to deal with the situation and it continues to escalate. She lives with us since she cannot support herself and we are locked into a passive aggressive 'I have to live with you' battle. Every day is filled with Soap Opera worthy squabbles and drama. I live in hell and I just want peace. We have decided to stay here in this house in suburbia for another 5 years. Property values around here are going up and, after assessing market trends, I think that we will still be in a good position to sell at that point. DD15 will be out of school and something should come to a head with the MIL one way or another by then. We keep washing back and forth on moving out to the country. Goats & Gardens vs low maintenance Suburbs. I was the biggest proponent of country living, but lately I just feel old and tired.

This is what I make a few times a year. My recipes are in my crazy shorthand, so please forgive the sparse directions. Pepper Jam 6c pepper puree 6c sugar 3/4 c vinegar 1/4c salt Clean and remove stems and seeds from about 20 red (or green or whatever color) bell peppers. Cook down to mush and run through a sieve to remove skins. Combine all and cook to jellying point. Pour into hot jars with 1/4 in head space. Process 1/2 pints for 10m in hot water bath. Makes 8-9 half pints. *Sometimes I add a bit of tobacco sauce or toss in a hotter pepper for extra heat

I grew up with my grandparents and my grandfather was type 1; I'm type 2. There has never been a time in my life I haven't had to deal with someone one having it. I've prevliously done close to zero carb diets and my A1C was still high enough to be classified as diabetic. I've tried almost every diet under the sun. Nothing worked and I gave each plenty of time. Currently, my A1C and the 'glucose' test are not high enough to classify me as diabetic. ​The type of surgery I had changes the way my chemistry reacts and I'm very happy with it. I will continue to monitor everything and be careful, but this isn't something I could do without the surgery and I'm very glad that I did it. All of my physicians are taking the diabetic diagnosis off my current list. I'm glad that you found a diet that worked for you XD.

That pumpkin protein pie sounds good. I'll have to try it. My sugars have been 80-120 since the surgery. It definately worked. No oral meds and no insulin. Health prep is always on our minds and we are so glad to be slowly moving into a better situation.

Things have been a bit topsy-turvy for a bit, but it is starting to settle down. DH has been working a lot and is going out of the country for a month right after thanksgiving. He is having some health issues and we are waiting on VA stuff. MIL has a lot of health issues and personal issues. I don't see her circumstances changing for the better, and she will most likely be living with us for the rest of her life. Originally she was going to be here for a few years to get back on her feet. DD1 is still waiting on the insurance to approve her hearing aid......since may. She does have an FM system for school and we have a loner aid, but I wish BCBS would quit dragging their feet. She has bilateral congenital loss severe R and moderate L. New meds have drastically improved her twitch, and we are back in special ed. DD2 made GATES which is the gifted class so she has extra work. I had a meeting with her teacher yesterday, and was told that she is a wonderful citizen, an all around good person with excellent manners, and a blessing to have in the classroom. She is very quiet and patient and understands more than she lets on. DSD (dear step daughter) so much going on there it keeps us up at night. I had gastric bypass surgery a month ago. My diabetes is gone, I am off all medications, and I'm down over 30 pounds. But everything makes me sick and I can pretty much only eat scrambled eggs and protein shakes. I still have to cook regular meals for everyone else. My computer died and DH accidentally wiped my back up external trying to fix it. I lost everything. My new computer is awesome, but it was a huge lesson in not relying on digital. DH and I have a plan and a timeline for moving further out into the country and plans are slowly falling into place for everything else. We cleaned out the tiny upstairs junk room (it is the size of a large walk in closet) and turned it into the 'prep' room. I moved all my extra supplies up there for easier inventory and climate controlled storage. It freed up a lot of room in the garage and sunroom as well as made the kitchen pantry look more organized. I'm still under a lifting restriction from the surgery, so I have to get DH or one of the kids to bring some things down, but overall it has really made things much easier to organize. It is like having my own little general store and I'm thinking about decorating it that way when I have the time. Our goal for the next year is to exercise more, put in a garden, visit local u-pic farms, and do some serious home canning. --euphrasyne

I make orange jelly all the time and it turns out fine. I usually make a quadruple recipe because my kids and MIL blow through all that I make. Spiced Orange Jelly 2 cups orange juice and grapefruit juice total (I usually use about 1/2 and half or 2/3 orange and 1/3 grapefruit) 1/3 cup lemon juice 2/3 cup water 1 package powdered pectin 2 tablespoons orange peel, finely chopped 1 teaspoon whole allspice ½ teaspoon whole cloves 4 sticks cinnamon, 2 inches long 3½ cups sugar Yield: About 4 half-pint jars To make jelly. Mix orange juice, lemon juice, and water in a large saucepan. Stir in pectin. Place orange peel, allspice, loves, and cinnamon sticks loosely in a clean white cloth; tie with a string and add to fruit mixture. Place on high heat and, stirring constantly, bring quickly to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down. Add sugar, continue stirring, and heat again to a full rolling boil. Boil hard for 1 minute. Remove from heat. Remove spice bag and skim off foam quickly. process 5m for pints or half pints.

The lady who kept my eldest used to fry it up like pork chops in a cast iron skillet. it smelled wonderful--just like smothered pork chops.

If you are using a light syrup or too loosely packed the jar, it can sometimes do that. It doesn't necessarily mean that it is bad. Other common causes are not boiling the apples long enough first (apples shrink because they contain a lot of air) or putting on bands too loosely (you'd see loss of liquid in that case.) For best results, I'd reprocess it.

Last 2 weeks, Kroger has buy 10 for 2.49 ea on 1lb Land o' lakes.

There are two t's. I have fat fingers today. crochetpatterncentral

Hairpin lace would have a long instance of just yarn and would not hold the beads in place like this does, so it is easy to tell that it is just basic chaining by the way the beads are on the piece.

This is definitely crochet. It is a short, beaded poncho. The neck is done in the round and then the stitch is changed to a doily type stitch for the body. stitch pattern, chain (x), stitch pattern, chain (x) around. The beads are threaded onto the yarn before you start and you just crochet around them wherever you want them. You could use any short poncho pattern, Just do the top of a longer pattern, or make a neck and then use any doily pattern making sure you increase the amount you want for fullness. I can't get the link to work, but crochetpaterncentral website then chose free patterns at the top then either ponchos or doilies from the list. There are quite a few lovely and usable patterns there. Tatting leaves a more knot-like appearance and is usually much smaller, more delicate work. After a closer look, the established round pattern for this is: DC, ch2, DC in same space; ch 9 with beads in every other chain, DC, ch2, DC in same space. After you establish that stitch you will work this around [ch4, DC in ch 2 space] *ch 19 with beads in every other chain, dc, ch2, dc in chain 2 space* repeat around sl into ch4 The chains with the beads will increase by odd numbers every 2 or three rows. They will always be odd so that there is a beadles chain at either side of chain sequence between DC, ch2, DC. My eyes are bad, but it looks like it starts with 9 and ends with 19 chains between the pattern marker. So row 1 &2 =9, 3&4 =11, etc.

Everything sounds so good. S: Chicken pot pie (using leftover chicken and leftover gravy) grapes M: Tikka Masala (last of the leftover chicken), collard greens, rice, spinach T: Pot roast with potatoes, carrots, & onions, yeast rolls, fresh pineapple (sale .99ea,) grapes W: tonight we're having homemade lasagna, leftover yeast rolls with garlic butter, and grapes

Monday: Baked chicken with potatoes, onions, and carrots sprinkled with garlic, salt, pepper, paprika, and evoo; asparagus with lemon; broccoli rice (with a bit extra dehydrated broccoli.) smores from a kit sitting on the shelf since nurse's week ...which tasted fine once everything was melted. (I cooked a LOT of chicken) Tuesday: Leftover chicken shredded with BBQ and made into sandwiches, leftover potato salad from Saturday, baked beans, fruit or carrot sticks, chocolate cup cakes, Wednesday: Leftover chicken & potatoes & broccoli rice with leftover gravy from last week and a can of mixed vegetables topped with biscuits (basically a pot pie) and salad If I need to leave the kitchen, I set the timer (not cooker, they all have timers go figure) on my microwave. I used to burn things too, but that fixed it. It makes it easy to leave things for 5m, 15m, an hour, etc.

I love the beef and the sausage tvp. I use them alone and mix them with real meat when making meals. My family loves them.

Annarchy! We're having pizza tonight. I was hoping for leftover lasagna, but the four of them finished off 90% of it last night. o.O Apparently I need to make lasagna more often.

One trick I use is that I buy beef flavor TVP. Then I freeze .75 lb bags of hamburger meat. When I defrost it, I mix 1c TVP and 2C water with it to make tacos. I can usually get a 5lb chub of ground meat on sale for about $8 or $10 and I usually buy several when they do go on sale. It works best in dishes with 'loose' meat rather than meatloaf as the TVP doesn't hold as well and you have to add an extra egg if you want to use it that way.

I need to defrost the deep freeze, so we're planning meals around using certain things up from there and from the pantry rotation since it is nearing the end of the year. I have to feed 3 adults and 2 kids so I try to balance it so that there is something that everyone will eat. My dh will eat anything, but his mother lives with us and prefers very bland cooking so I always try to include something unseasoned with dinner. Yesterday: Baked beans with extra BBQ sauce and smoked sausage cut up into it (poured over the potato cakes to serve) leftover mashed potatoes mixed with flour, egg, and milk then fried up into potato cakes steamed mixed vegetables grapes Tonight: Cobblestone bread (homemade dough snipped into a greased casserole with herbs and baked) Roasted beef (sale beef cut into strips with mushrooms, red wine, onion soup mix, & carrots) egg noodles (leftover so a bit mushy but good with beef over) green beans Tomorrow: Lasagna (from the freezer) leftover green beans leftover bread

I cook 3dz boiled eggs a week for the family. Put desired number of eggs in a pot just big enough to hold them. Put your index finger on an egg and add enough water to reach the first joint. Heat to a rolling boil over high heat (unsalted water) and turn it off. Do not remove the pot from the stove. Set a timer for 10m. This time does not change no matter how many eggs you boil. Drain the eggs and fill the pot with cold water. Peel each one by smacking it on each long end then gently rolling it on the counter. Pry up a cracked section and the whole peel usually slips right off. They are hard cooked with no green, only yellow in the centers. For soft cooked, let them sit closer to 5m before peeling.