euphrasyne

Heh! I have cans of Ravioli and SpaghettiOs here as well as lots of ramen. I have teens and we eat redneck at least once a week. If you are sick of microwave, here are some alternatives: 1. Cold food like sandwiches and salad 2. Your coffeepot is basically a see through crock pot. Wrap a towel around it, put some water in it, turn it on and poach chicken, fish, or whatever. You may need to run the cycle a few times if it doesn't stay on to 'warm'. If you don't want to poach it in water, then make a casserole with lots of sauce. Cream soup, canned chicken, veggies, seasoning do well in a coffee pot. I've done this on vacation. 3. Your iron is a grill. Do not leave it unattended ever. Turn it on, balance it hot side up in something metal where it will not move--like a pot or a metal drying rack or something metal. Place a skillet on top of it. Ta-da. Cook whatever you want in the skillet. You can even dutch oven bread this way but it uses a lot of electricity and you have to watch it the entire time because of fire hazard. 4. Buy a hot plate. Its temporary so it doesn't need to be fancy or long term. Amazon says I can get a cheap one by Thursday for $16.99. You can make anything on this and a deep cast iron pot (dutch oven) really does act as an 'oven' to bake things. Use camping recipes if going that route. Vayepro Electric hot plate, Single Coil Burner, Portable Hot Plate 1200W, Kitchen Cooktop with Non-Slip Rubber Feet - Perfect for Outdoor Cooking (amazon.com) If you want specific cooking or food category recipes you can make in a hotel room, let me know. The most delicious shelf ramen ever: Take 1 ramen cup, add the packets and water ( I usually use spicey or kimchi flavor ramen). Add in a tablespoon dehydrated mixed veggie soup or veggies--whatever you have. Microwave 3 minutes. Cut up 2 hot pickled okra and add to the cup. Roll up 3 slices thinly sliced lunchmeat and use scissors to cut strips. Add to cup. Let sit 3 minutes. Yum. Very spicey but delicious. Sometimes I omit the dehydrated veggies and add some fermented kimchi with or instead of the okra. Texas Pete or Mt. Olive are my go-to brands. Mostly because that is all I can buy in this unspiced Yankee-ridden place. All in love. I irritate the stew out of DH by calling him a Yankee. I'm not an (expletive) Yankee! he screams back. Then he tells me I wont like how hot it gets in Florida. A) I've been to FL, I've been to TX, NV and CA and all the states between MS and CA by car in summer multiple times, so I know how hot it gets. and B ) I'm from MS for decades. 98F with 120% humidity--it doesn't get hotter. Anyone who thinks the humidity cannot go over 100% has never been to Mississippi. Also the 4 seasons there are Almost Summer, Summer, Still Summer, and Christmas. My roses used to still bloom in December. I'm over here freezing on the East Coast. My only issues here are the lack of food seasoning and the cold weather, otherwise I love VA and we will be here at a bare minimum until DH retires from the Department of the Navy. DH is amazing at his job and they hand out awards when they go 'above and beyond.' He got a $1K (6 to 10X the usual award) award yesterday and came home telling me he bought himself a happy that was around $160. We usually talk about purchases over $100, and he was worried I'd be upset. I was not. He is such a sweetie. I am so proud of him.

That is a good idea to clean fabric. I need to try that on some of my pillows. Thanks.

Friday DH took me grocery shopping to the Food Lion in Suffolk. It is only 10 minutes away, but it is further than the other FL. It was much better stocked than the 2 closer to me. I got a lot of junk food and easter items as well as DH's beloved chicken biscuits. I still want to eat down the pantry, but taking stock we are doing well in that vein. I intend to replace the commercial items with healthier options and do as much scratch as I can. My health is finally starting to recover to a point where I can be effective in the kitchen again. I'm considering buying a whole pig from Central Meats for $400. Its 116lbs meat broken down into : 2- Sugar Cured Hams - cut in half with their center slices. 2- Pork Loins cut into - 2 Roasts - 2 Country Style Ribs - Center Cut Pork Chops 2- Sugar Cured Picnic Shoulders 2- Slabs of Pork Spare Ribs 10- 1 lb. Packages of Sliced Bacon 10- 1 lb. Packages of Mild Country Sausage 10 lbs. of Assorted Seasoning Meat I need to make room in my freezer first so I'm thinking about defrosting the turkeys and canning them as cooked turkey or turkey sausage. That would free up an entire shelf. In that vein, I was watching one of my favorite youtubers can turkey. I love the way Becoming a Farmgirl cooks because it is extremely similar to the food I grew up with and some I currently make.

I do not keep chickens, but my Papaw did. He was wheelchair bound with one leg cut off above the knee and one below the knee so everything had to be super accessible for him. He had a portable chicken coop. His looked like a much more redneck version of this: (562) Pinterest I think he used an old bicycle for the wheels. He had a large metal ring on the front of it by the coop part and he would attach that to his electric wheelchair with a chain & clip and just move it one length every day.

Squeeeeee! I love goats! I like to hug them and pet them and watch them and eat them in a stew. Also goat milk soap and goat based paneer are awesome. I have discovered Skyr. It is Icelandic yogurt that is thicker and creamer than Greek with less sugar. It is delicious. Unfortunately it comes with a delicious level price, so I have to use it in moderation. DD2 is into everything dinosaur. I have a dinosaur sandwich cutter I have to use to get her to eat sandwiches and I have to shape the rest of her food as Jurassic things. Stuffed and plastic dinosaurs cover every surface and she keeps trying to make them chase and eat my stuffed desk goat. RAWRR! she actually growls it. It is so cute. The new 'sit still happily' movie is The Good Dinosaur. No songs and everyone has a Texas accent. I'm more sick of it than Encanto. Today's plan is to get the van inspected and go grocery shopping with the hubbie since it is his day off. Office work is to pay bills, plan next week, and make a meal plan. DH is smoking a 7lb pork butt on the grill with some dry rub I made and gave to him for one of the holidays. He is almost out and wants more with less brown sugar in it, so I need to research and compose a new recipe for dry rub. This one featured garlic and paprika heavily along with a few other spices and brown sugar. He says he loves the flavor, just less brown sugar. I cannot find where I wrote down what I did though. Meal shakes--I had GI surgery back in 2016 and tried all the shakes. Premier Protein shakes are hands down the best. 25-30g protein, all the vitamins and tasty. I like the chocolate and coffee flavors. DH likes the banana. We still drink them. Even the baby likes them--I give them to her in a sippy cup instead of juice or milk when she is being super picky and not eating properly.

I make my fried rice in a very similar manner. We have it about 2-3 times a month with stirfry for dinner. I usually add in garlic and MSG instead of salt and I omit the sugar. I had not thought to add hot sauce to it. I will have to try it your way and see how the teen likes it. I love my hot sauces. I have an asian crunch chili sauce that is super spicey called momofuku chili crunch. It is toasted sesame seeds in a spicy chili oil base. I add a baby spoon of it to my meals that need spicy and crunchy. If it just needs spice, I use korean gochujang for asian dishes or cayenne based hot sauce for american dishes. For vegetables, I serve with a spiced pepper vinegar. I have several types including homemade. My Papaw always made his homemade and his was so much better than mine, but he died without passing on that recipe. If anyone has a great recipe for homemade pepper vinegar (spicy type) please pass it along! I remember that the peppers Papaw used were small and green and he grew them, but I don't remember what type they were. He also added other things than vinegar but I'm not sure what he used to make his so delicious.

I've seen him do the story in various venues and different clips and it always remains almost identical. He is very talented.

I like reading older works of literature. Epic of Gilgamesh, The Tale of Genji, The Illiad, Beowulf, Shakespeare, etc. The changes in language of the day fascinate me in various translations. One of my pet peeves is from Romeo and Juliet. "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo Montague?" She is NOT asking where he is. She is asking why he is a Montague. Along those lines, there is a comedian who does the 3 Little Pigs in Shakespeare. It is about 10 minutes long, but completely worth it. I made all my kids listen to it.

Tonight's Dinner to clean out the fridge: Cheesy Southwest Soup 1/2 brick Velveeta (off brand) 2 c shredded Mexican cheese 1 qt chicken broth leftover chicken soup homemade (*1.5c) * 1/2 c black beans cooked *1/4 c leftover field peas leftover chicken fajitas diced (chicken, onions, peppers) leftover roasted veggies (carrots, onions, peppers) 1 leftover chicken apple sausage cooked and sliced up Fajita and Cajun seasoning Crockpot all till done. * 6 hours on low. Oriental Salad lettuce chopped leftover small 1/2 side salad mandarin oranges leftover beef fajita meat cut in half chow mein noodles Oriental Salad Dressing toasted sesame oil apple cider vinegar (out of mirin) soy sauce minced candied ginger lemon juice brown sugar honey maple syrup minced garlic Eyeball all amounts into a mason jar and shake, shake, shake. Refrigerate 2h+ before using Homemade Garlic Breadsticks I'm having issues shaping because of my bad wrist, but they tasted good.

My grandfather and his brothers used to make and sell moonshine back during prohibition in Alabama. That probably influences my preferences in vanilla extract. They made it in a car radiator in the woods and sold it all over. It is actually not that hard to make.

That is a georgous quilt!

I agree that everclear works extremely well, but I don't cut mine; I keep it straight. About two decades ago, I made up batches of cordial (one was vanilla extract) that were identical in 8 types with 2 jars each. I turned 8 jars once every two weeks for a year and the others I just let sit there. The ones i turned were much more flavorful than the identical ones I did not turn for every flavor. I stored them in the same place. Your milage may vary, especially if you are using a 50/50 mix of everclear and water. Blueberry everclear with sugar is smooth as the most expensive vodka after 2 years. blueberry infuses excellently.

We went to see Ginger Billy comedian last night at the comedy club here. It was a very late but fun night. Today is housecleaning and I need to go through the garage furniture and see if I have a twin bed for River or if I need to buy one.

Shaking makes it stronger. The recipe for cordial is roughly the same as with vanilla extract except with any item (fruit, nuts, etc) and some sugar. I usually turn it about once a week --no vigorous shaking, just turn the mason jar once.

Today we pick nicked and bought the baby new shoes. Then I ordered 100 credit card sized magnifying glasses off of amazon because I cannot read fine print anymore and I'm tired of looking for my larger magnifying sheet that is apparently 'somewhere.'

There is a chili cook off tomorrow at DH's work and he asked me to make some so I made about 2 gallons today. Chili for dinner, chili for work. and chili for the freezer. Columbia Gas stopped by and said that they would be updating our gas line next week and I'd be without gas for several hours. I'm still trying to get out of this funk, so nothing much productive is happening.

We went through that with DD141. All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth! was the theme for the year. So cute!

This is the most pinholing should ever look: in my non-expert opinion (but I too can quote master canners .) Notice that is is not streaky, built up, traveling down into the food, or on the actual seal part. The pictures above, just the shear amount of build up indicate that the problem is well beyond staining and the medical bill for food poisoning is going to be much higher than the $2-$10 the jar of actual food is worth.

I watched the video. She can call that staining all she likes, but that doesn't make it true. The internet if full of experts and having a youtube doesn't gift anyone with any extra trust on my part. I'm someone that will eat something 5 years out of date if it looks good. You do what makes you comfortable. I would not be and would be mad if someone served it to me. Everyone has their comfort level. That is well beyond mine.

They used to make vinegar from apples. The housekeeper is skipping the fermenting step from a very old recipe. Boil your peels and cores, strain and add 1T sugar per cup liquid. Ferment about 2 weeks. Add as much salt as will dissolve into it and this was a very old Gatorade type recipe used for centuries for dysentery. To serve it you add one large spoon to about 1 cups (2 gills) of water. It was used for both dysentery and cholic.

Staining is one thing, but the pics above are not something I would eat or serve and I'm one of the least 'safe' food people I know.

When it rains, it pours. My mother called me on Sunday with bad news. She lives in western Mississippi and my grandmother (mamaw) lives in central Mississippi. Apparently, Mamaw fell in the shower on Friday, crawled to the kitchen and was trapped on the floor there for almost 2 days before my aunt got someone to check on her because she was not answering her phone. She is currently in the hospital with broken ribs and pneumonia. Mamaw is in her late 80s with several health issues and is an extremely small woman, so it goes downhill fast. She has been very resistant to having someone in to help her. She will be going to rehab after the hospital so we have a few weeks to figure everything out. Everyone just keeps saying....she doesn't want this or that and no one wants to be the bad guy. I may have to go down there to sort things out since I'm fine telling everyone to suck it up and deal with reality. My cousin is supposed to move in with her in July, so hopefully we just need to figure out what to do between rehab and July. Her mother lived to be 99 so we need to factor possible longevity into it if we can get past the current issues. Also my niece totaled her car and went to hospital via ambulance during the weekend. I'm told that she is shaken but fine with a bump on her head. I'm currently waiting for the 3rd thing. Bad things always come in 3s.

I'm going through a bit of a rough patch, but things will turn out just fine. We've been eating out a lot and eating the easier things because I have had zero motivation to cook which is completely unlike me. I have a hematoma from the surgery, but it is a minor complication and mostly involves pain and itching, so I'm still doing well from that. The new legislation states that TSP can only be used to buy into specific 'green companies' so we've already lost a lot out of retirement and all the companies they want are doing very badly. They are killing our retirement. It is depressing watching it disappear and knowing there is nothing we can do. Cross referencing our statements with the current exchange and predicted outcomes.... seriously depressing. I am extremely unhappy with our government. I've been doing some diamond painting because it doesn't hurt my wrist and gives it mobility exercises. I've also been watching a lot of Korean drama on Netflix. Not much prepping going on, but sometimes you just have to get past the funk.

Most of the electric glass top are not induction. Instead they are just flat for easier cleaning and you are advised not to can on them as they heat unevenly (because most pots are not flat) and they have a weight limit. I used to have one and I hated it. You should follow all safety precautions you feel comfortable with, but know that many people cook with gas inside as long as there is good ventilation. This would be me on my gas stove and previously on an Asian style cooktop. It is also exceptionally common to see east Asian cultures using butane and gas indoors in their everyday usage. When I had the glass top stove, I used something like below for flame issues. Amazon.com: Suntouch Portable Gas Stove with Case (ST-7000 Blue): Home & Kitchen

Dont get rid of the jars! Those are expensive and reusable. Just bleach and sterilize them and use them with new lids. The whole point of glass jars is that they are reusable.