I Found the Lost Tomatoes

And the 265 other photos.

This is a shadow one doesn't want cast upon her curtains.

SugarPlum made magazine art when she was last here for a visit.

I caught Son4 before the mirror in the kitchen,
admiring his harvest earrings.

Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD.  Praise ye the LORD.  -Psalm 150:6

PTTD

Son4 told his dad last night he has PTTD:  Post Traumatic Tomato Disorder.

As he helped me scald nearly 100 tomatoes, he asked, "Have I told you how much I like tomatoes?"

"This isn't a labor of love for you, is it?" I responded, long aware of Son4's distaste for tomatoes.

"It's a labor of loathing," he muttered.

Bathed and cooled, I arranged the tomatoes just-so on trays on the table, so I could memorialize them via photography before we dispatched them.  Years ago, when I was smitten with blogging, the camera was my near-constant companion, providing images to illustrate most blog posts.  Maybe I could restart that engine, and an image of one hundred tomatoes on the table seemed fitted to the post forming in my head. 

When I inserted the camera card into my computer this morning, I noticed it contained over 250 photos.  Drat, I'd never erased those early July photos.  I'd do that with this upload.  Then something went wonky with the process, the card contents were erased, and the photo destination folder was also empty.  Oopsie. 

I made salsa with the bulk of yesterday's portion of the harvest.  Some of those tomatoes were peeled, seeded, and refrigerated for making tomato butter today, a favorite of Charles'.  The recipe is here, if that piques your interest, and you're overrun with tomatoes.  And I can steal the recipe's illustrative image for this post.  Heh.

Charles brought in a bag of another 25-30 last evening and was met by 2 silenced mouths and 4 widened eyes.  In addition to yesterday's canned salsa, we already had fresh tomato juice, fresh salsa, and ketchup.  That tomato-butter-to-be is waiting in the wings (and clearly, I'm ignoring it).  What next?

Poor Son4 will be suffering RTTD -- Recurring Traumatic Tomato Disorder -- for some time to come.  Into each life a few tomatoes must fall.  And to some, a bit more than others.

 



Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.  Colossians 3:2

Cantaloupe

Among other things, Kevin's growing cantaloupes this year.  As we were paring and cutting another this morning, and Kevin sampled a piece, I asked if it was sweeter than previous ones have been.  He said maybe a little bit, but he's liked them better -- at my suggestion -- with some sugar added.  "Well you didn't add sugar to that last bowlful, did you, because I did."

"Yes," he said, "I did.  But I only used about a teaspoon.  How much did you add to it?"

"Two or three tablespoons."

Candy.  We have cantaloupe candy.
It's delicious!  

How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!  Psalm 119:103

(chicken) Liver Spots

Liver spots.  I could be mistaken, but I think that's what some call "age spots."  I suspect there's a term more technical than either liver spots or age spots, but I don't care enough to find out.  I've always recoiled a bit from the term liver spots.  I dunno, maybe that's about referencing internal organs.  Overhearing a conversation about whether or not someone could fall from our second-story balcony, 4 year old Son3 said, "Don't talk about body."  Good advice, and we've always remembered it: don't talk about body.

So I've had age spots for a while.  And I've cared not one whit about them.  Perhaps that's because I've been spotted all my life; adding more freckles — however large — just isn't a big deal. 

Mrs. Piecrust phoned one recent evening while I was cooking dinner.  "Is this a bad time?"  (Mrs. Piecrust has such good manners.)

Actually, it was a good time.  I was frying two skillets of chicken livers, and they were going to be mighty tasty with the onion rings: let the good times roll.  "No.  What's up?"

To be honest, I can't remember now what was up.  Yet, I won't soon forget the acquisition of liver spots while we talked.  With the phone in one hand and tongs in the other, I was in a world of hurt, when one or more of those livers I was nudging about the pan exploded.  Without a peep (such strength and control she possesses), I dropped the tongs, rushed to the sink, and flipped on the cold water, rinsing grease and liver shrapnel from my arm and hand.

So now, in addition to my age spots, I have liver spots.
How rude.
Don't talk about body.

Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men.  See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men.  1 Thessalonians 5:14, 15

Kinda Jammed Up Here

Also plum cobblered and clobbered.

The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: the Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.  Numbers 6:24-26

Tomato Butter

I still have tomatoes flowing through the door.  Perhaps you do, too.  Try some tomato butter.  It's tasty.  See the recipe at CarolineNot Cuisine.

If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: for thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the Lord shall reward thee.  Proverbs 25:21, 22

O.k.a.y.

He that gathereth in summer is a wise son: but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame.  Proverbs 10:5

Another Knucklehead Moment in the Kitchen

I was in a hurry.  We'd be eating in about 10 minutes, and I wanted to hot-bathe the tomatoes before dinner, so I could peel and process them after the meal.  Forget the recommendation to do "a few at a time."  I'd load that pot to the hilt and just dance the tomatoes with some shakes of the pan insert, so they'd each get a good all-around of the boiling water.

So I lowered the tomato-filled, perforated insert into the pot of boiling water, then turned my attention momentarily to setting tea to steep.  Executing my plan to cut time corners, I then lifted the tomato filled insert several inches from the pan and plunged it back into the boiling water; had to be sure those tomatoes moved around, don't ya know.

Well, I don't know how the tomatoes took to this, as my attention was immediately diverted from their well being, because quickly ramming a full, weighty pot into another potful of boiling water (*smacking forehead*) causes a kitchen volcano.  It's science.  Don't do it!

Boiling water everywhere, including the faces of those freshly painted cabinets (how long can I say fresh when I keep abusing them) and the floor, and although I'd leapt out of the way and saved my sandal clad feet, the eruption doused the length of my dress.  Not for a single moment have I ever regretted my decision a dozen years ago to wear only dresses, and at this moment in time, I was probably the gladdest ever for a garment flowing away from my body, saving myself from parboiled legs.  Whew-wee.

Harvey helped clean up the mess, everything cooled down, and five quarts of tomatoes are ready this morning to magically become tomato butter.

Words to the wise: Don't dance your tomatoes in a pot of boiling water.  Oh, you already knew that? ºÜº

Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations.  Deuteronomy 7:9

I'm Plum Thankful, Jeannie

She had me with, "...never...fuss with them at all other than to wash them."

A couple of posts ago, in the comments section, Jeannie talked about making plum jelly.  Now you're going to think it was all about her causing turning plums into jelly to sound like a simple feat, and I'll grant that part was huge.  But Jeannie said fuss.  She doesn't fuss with them.  Gotta love the phrase.

So I wanted to not fuss much with plums.  With Jeannie's encouragement, I did.

[Confession:  I fussed at my plums, when I was glistening and dripping over a hot stove.  And I fussed at them when they boiled over and warped my new cabinet paint job (in an inconspicuous place \o/).  I fussed when the juice climbing the neck of my homemade jelly bag was scalding my fingers...since I was too impatient to wait for the pulp to cool.  But I didn't fuss much with the plums.  Jeannie was right.]

Thanks for the plum jelly, Jeannie.  ºÜº

Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.  Proverbs 30:8, 9

Hen Fruit

Partly because I'm endeavoring to cycle Brannon off the main page, yet equally because this is just good stuff to pass along, this one is to provide a link to a good article Willow sent my way:  The Incredible, Edible Egg Yolk.

"Egg yolks are indeed full of cholesterol. Like most cholesterol-rich foods, they are jam-packed full of important nutrients, especially the fat-soluble vitamins and essential fatty acids.

In fact, the slew of nutrients in an egg yolk is so comprehensive that a few a day would offer better insurance than a multi-vitamin. Most importantly, the yolk contains most of the nutrients in an egg."

Eggs are good.
Get a chicken or 27.

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.  Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.  Isaiah 26:3-4

Apricot Sauce

Scouring the web for recipes incorporating fresh apricots, I found very few.  What I did find, I used as a springboard to creating a sauce to our liking for use with meats, so I've plopped the resulting recipe — Apricot Sauce (for meats) — into CarolineNot Cuisine.  Perhaps another woman will stumble upon this possible use of her family's abundant apricot harvest.

Let love be without dissimulation.  Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.  Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another; not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer; distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.

Vanquished Apricots

With a combination of jam and sauce for meats, in a quantity of 30 pints, 2010 apricots are out of my life.  Well, excepting for the part where they're perched atop the cabinet in the bathroom.  I know, I know, cool, dark place is better.  Give me a few days to enjoy no mountain of orange orbs in my kitchen, and I'll try to hatch a better plan.  And, too, there are those final dozen jars of sauce which were processing when I realized I'd completely forgotten the garlic.  Label: APRICOT SAUCE - GARLIC.  Fresh garlic at the time of use will be better anyway; yeah, that's it.  *phflubbb*

Wouldn't it be awful if fruit trees bore several times a year?  Thinking about putting up a harvest is quaint and so Little House.  The actual act is a whole other story.  I'd never have made it on the pioneer prairie.  And I hope we can eat tomatoes fresh and in a measure equal to their ripening, at least until Tuesday!  Prepare for my next whine.  ºÜº

Mopping steamed brows.

Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.  Psalm 30:4

Some of Us Are Busy

Some, notsomuch.

This big guy is setting a poor example...


For this little guy.
He sure got with the program quickly.


In another part of the house...


Five pints of apricot jam down and all those ↑ to go.
Tasty.  And grateful for a bountiful harvest this year.

For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.  ...But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.  Isaiah 64:6, 8

Pickled Blogsite

Lying fallow for more than a year-and-a-half, this morning I breathed a little life into CarolineNot Cuisine, posting a recipe for Candied Dill Pickles.  If you get right on it, you still have time to make some of these crispy-crunchy, candy-sweet dill pickles for your Independence Day celebration.  Simple to make, never-fail, and always a crowd pleaser.

But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.  These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.  But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.  Jude 1:17-21

Favorite Thing - Net Scrubby

Realizing the image is a bit scroungy looking (and there's no sense in trying to dress it up), I nonetheless deem my net dish scrubby one of my favorite things.

I first learned of washing dishes with a net scrubby a couple of decades ago, when we lived in Illinois, and a friend who was also a transplant to that state received a fresh scrubby from her mama back home in Georgia.  Now hers was significantly more elaborate than what you see here, and I studied and mimicked hers at the time and for a time.  But over the years I've discovered my personal preference is to just cut a hank of net and put it to work as-is.  You can see it doesn't appear very deliberate in this form, and you wouldn't want to wrap it up and give it as a gift.  Yet, I like the free-form feel in my hand and the ability to truly stretch that thing out for rinsing, so no food particles are left in it as an unsavory presence, or worse, a contamination threat.  (← I added that contamination part for Little Loo, who curls her lip every time I offer her a scrubby: "NO!")

My dish scrubby makes me so happy^♥, and at something around 75¢/yard, when it eventually seems a bit on the limpish side, I can fairly economically toss it away and cut another hank.  Last summer, I bought quite a stretch of net to shield my strawberry plants from the birds, but my strawberries croaked...as naturally they would in my care.  See how thoughtful I was, buying green, so it wouldn't be an outdoor eyesore?  Who knew that net would become grass green scrubbies in a non-grass-green kitchen?  For five or six years.

Favorite thing (despite being grass green) — Net Scrubby

Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.  II Corinthians 7:1

Kitchen Faces

Anticipating what was to come in world affairs, we sold our 10-year-old house the summer of 2006, and inserted ourselves in a higgledy-piggledy farmhouse, the central portion of which was built in the 1880s.  One might call that home-shock, but we've lived in just about every sort of abode under the sun, short of a tent, so we're malleable.  We're also slow, though, and these nearly 4 years later, the kitchen isn't finished-finished, but it's receiving its nips and tucks.  This most recent one certainly nipped my and Son4's tucks.  We're going to rest today. Ü

Touring prior to closing.  The "kitchen" was a large room, with a graduation in the floor level, the lower portion including the side entry to the house.


Immediately upon possession, we constructed walls to separate the entry from the kitchen, and leaving a corridor into the kitchen, created a broom closet on one side and clothes closet on the other.  This is the broom closet side, which also houses the entry to the partial basement we didn't know existed, until we took up the carpet and noticed the floor boards were all wanky in that spot.  Removing the boards revealed a stairwell to what we aptly named the abyss:


And on that new wall in the entry went the computer.  Yet to be dressed at the time, that completed area is depicted in this photo:


From the newly diminished kitchen side, looking back, is my clothes closet on the left (broom closet on right).  Yes, this is why I've commented on my clothes being in the kitchen.  They are. Ü  Here's a shot of my closet, still under construction:


Over on the kitchen side, its face was looking like this:


The quick, easy fix for that faux brick was a couple of coats of paint: 


And these nearly 4 years later, it, the countertop, and sink wait patiently to be replaced.

But leaping from my chair at 3:47 last Thursday afternoon and working with Son4's help through late in the night Saturday, brought the kitchen's face to this:


That photo in the unlit room most realistically caught the color, so I'm using it, but the silly photographer (*raising own hand*) wasn't paying much attention to what was captured in the frame.  Here's the rest of the face, lighted:


The window isn't yet scraped, which set Uncle Kemtrail to twitching yesterday, as we lounged 'round the kitchen table in the evening: "Do you need a single edge blade?  I just bought a new package."  I had to burst out laughing.  We're just slow.  We'll get there, Lord willing, but we're slow.

Right now, the kitchen and I have happier faces, and the kitchen's is pretty perky.  Mine...notsomuch.  *snort*

Then in the audience of all the people he said unto his disciples, Beware of the scribes, which desire to walk in long robes, and love greetings in the markets, and the highest seats in the synagogues, and the chief rooms at feasts; which devour widows' houses, and for a shew make long prayers: the same shall receive greater damnation.  Luke 20:45-47

Keepin' It Real

Have I no shame?  I'm setting this post for deferred publishing, so I'll have about 24 hours to back out and never let you see this mess.

It was about 3:47 on Thursday afternoon.

This is it.

THIS IS IT!

The idea first struck me about 2½ years ago.  I do believe it was around the time I did → this ←to my kitchen.  You know, the cabinets just didn't have very happy faces in the first place, and that lame attempt at making my own liquid laundry detergent etched more lines of aging.  So one can't truly say this was a snap decision, given I'd been ruminating on it for such a goodly bit of time.  But even I recognize there's something a bit quirky about leaping from one's seat at 3:47 on a Thursday afternoon and asking for the sander.  Go figure.

Five hours later, Son4 and I washed our roller and brush, hammered the lid onto the paint can, called it quits for the day, and walked away from this:

Scary

Everyone wants to be me.  NOT!

It gets even scarier when one considers company is coming tomorrow (today as you're reading), and there is left to do: second coat on the base, sand 10 drawers and 23 doors, and two-coat those bits.

Mildly amused by the mess, I decided to snap a couple of photos.  Uploading them to the computer, pictorially surveying the damage, and not being able to wrest my weary self from the chair, I hollered to the other room, "The mayonnaise is sitting out on the table!"  With 4 window air conditioning units on-the-roar, a girl's gotta speak up.

The responsive voice of approaching Son3 called back, "What, Mummy?"  No, the strapping young man doesn't normally call me that, but he shares the sick-sense-of-humor gene.

"The mayonnaise is sitting out on the table.  I just spied it in this picture."

The mayonnaise is in the fridge now, but nothing else has yet changed, therefore, I am SO outta here.  I'll let ya know when things are in order again.

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.  I Corinthians 2:14