Finding My Collar Bones

[chefk]

Sorry for your funk. I do have a suggestion for your tomatoes. You could pickle them. Green tomatoes are a Kosher classic.

This is my great grandfather's recipe. Keep them lightly covered during the pickling time in a cool place. I use a baking rack over the jars with a tea towel over it.

The recipe for Dill Pickles and Dill Tomato's are as follows:

PICKLES:

Mix Brine: 1 1/4 cup of salt per 2 gallons of water
Spices, per gallon of pickles:
2-3 long sprigs of fresh dill
2 red peppers crushed
1 tsp pickling spice
4 (or more) cloves of garlic crushed

Put 1/2 of the all spices on bottom of 1 gallon jar, then one layer of pickles standing up, then the balance of all spices, than second layer of pickles standing up and then fill jar with as many pickles as you can.

Slowly pour in brine over pickles until all pickles are covered in brine. Leave uncovered 3 days in a cool dark area. (You can put a saucer on top of jar to hold pickles down, leave uncovered to vent.) Note: Covering and putting into refrigerator stops pickling process.


TOMATOES;

Same as above except;
Brine is 2 1/2 cups of salt per 2 gallons of water, and
pickling process takes 2 weeks.

[dragonflymt]

Hey long lost friend! Gosh...I want to find my journal in here but it's probably so far back I'm not sure I'll ever be able to find it.

Moving on Thursday...hope to get back on here and back in the swing of things when the dust settles.

I hope you are well...I'm going to read and catch up on things. Do you still go to the other board?

[JeffInJax]

Hey smay, we all may fall at times or feel down in the dumps but just try to keep your chin up. You've definetly made good friends on here as i see all of you supporting each other day in and day out Things will get better, stay strong!

[smay]

Happy dance for seeing you here Dragonfly! I do still go to the other board, but it is more social than diet and I keep up with basically one or two people there. I'm very happy to see my old diet buddies back now!

Yesterday was again beachy. Breakfast is eggs over easy with a slice of cheese on ww toast, v8, and a coffee. Didn't snack, no time... Lunch was leftovers from dinner the night before. Chicken breast covered in our homemade chunky spaghetti sauce and then topped with fresh ball mozzarella. We had venison burgers and green beans for dinner last night. Mine was bunless topped with some tomato and splenda ketchup. I didn't get to eat all of my tomato though, since I have a 2 1/2 year old tomato thief.

Not sure what today will bring food-wise. I have another pound of ground venison thawed for dinner, and some chicken already cooked in the fridge. Bought celery at the farmers market this weekend, and I think I am out of garbanzo beans. So, no hummus today...

Yesterday was chaotic. Salsa making until 10:30 last night. Our last batch of black bean and corn. Pressure canner is great for processing all of it at once, but it takes forever to go through the canning process. And the husband did most of the work with this batch, and he isn't as fast with his knife skills. I spent a good chunk of time packing up summer clothes for the kids, and having a fit that my little girl will not fit into the fall clothes I bought her rummaging earlier this summer. She grew like a weed this summer. She's the same size as a bunch of the boy's 4 year old classmates. Her 3t fall shirts are belly shirts, and she won't be 3 till early next year. Ugh! So, going to go shopping today at the outlet mall when the boy is at preschool. Hoping to find some good gymboree or old navy clearance. It should be chilly at this weekend's wedding, and I need to find her something to wear for that. I also need to find something for myself. I have a cute green shift dress that I bought with the intent to belt, but it falls into the a little too short for my taste category when belted. I'm thinking black leggings? I am so out of style!

So, I'm staying beachy, and not seeing scale movement. P1 got me back into my comfort zone for weight, and I have the horrible feeling that my body will just stay at this lovely little plateau forever, like it has for almost the last year. Exercise has been lacking, so when I get back in routine, hopefully that will help. I would just like to break this plateau, and then hope for the scale to get moving again.

[Kyan]

P1 got me back into my comfort zone for weight, and I have the horrible feeling that my body will just stay at this lovely little plateau forever, like it has for almost the last year. Exercise has been lacking, so when I get back in routine, hopefully that will help. I would just like to break this plateau, and then hope for the scale to get moving again.

See, that is me! I am..... simply STUCK!

Good job getting the canning done!

Do you like venison? My daughter and her hubby do. I think I ate some bad stuff when I was living in Montana - I don't really care for it. Or maybe it is flash-backs to the horrors I felt when my then husband would kill a deer and make jerky and other delights in my kitchen. Blood and guts as far as the eye could see! He was only 19 so I guess I would cut him some slack...um.... nahhhh! I don't think I will!

[chefk]

The day all your canning work ends we'll through a virtual party for you. Man I'm exhausted just reading about it!!!

[smay]

We very much enjoy venison. And it's such a lean and healthy meat. When I cook it, I have no oil to drain from the pan at all. I grew up with a family of hunters, so I was used the waking up in the morning to a deer carcass on the kitchen table at the end of season. We send it to a locker plant for processing now, just for the time-saving convenience of it. I used to have fun telling my "city" friends all of my redneck-y stories. Skunks having babies underneath the dog house and having to help "take care" of the issue, how much kitties love gophers (we'd trap them in the fields, cut off their hind feet because the township pays you for them, and feed the gophers to the barn cats), ummm.... I could go lots of places with this, but I'll stop!

Chefk, I'm exhausted! And we haven't hit grape season yet. The concords are ripening! Jelly time!!!!

[Kyan]

Smay.... I must say..... your lovely post this morning about gopher guts, skunk stink and deer splatter in the kitchen has really helped me on my Beachy journey. I probably won't be able to eat breakfast at all! HA HA HA!!

Signed,

A slightly green-faced Ky who must definitely be a city girl!

[JeffInJax]

I still remember when i was a kid sitting down at the dinner table on my uncles farm, they had killed a deer that day and made venison burgers out of them. Well mom had a weird inclination that day to watch Bambi with all the kids and when the burger was on her plate she just stared at it for several minutes before looking at my dad and asking him how he could kill bambi. When he replied that she ate hamburger the other week but didnt complain that someone killed the cow, she said that if they made a sad movie about a cow she probably would. I remember the whole table cracking up laughing, but yeah she is from the bronx new york, the only animal she saw on a general basis was probably rats.

[smay]

Kyan, glad I could gross you out enough to make dieting easy for you yesterday!

It's all what you are used to growing up! I remember freaking out the first time I drove on a road that had more than 2 lanes of traffic. I was 18 and heading to college registration/orientation and it scared the heck out of me. I'm much better now, but my parents add an extra hour to their already 7 hour drive to visit so they can avoid Minneapolis/St. Paul and the burbs. Dead deer, no problem, traffic... panic attack!

We DID NOT CAN ANYTHING last night. It was so nice! Husband mowed the lawn, probably for one of the last times this year. We'll still have leaves to deal with, but I would guess grass growth is about done. Sauerkraut is tonight.

Food was still beachy. Yesterday was a day of salads, chicken for lunch, taco (again) for dinner. I'm hanging at 2 starches and 1 fruit most of the time. Happy to be back in P2, because I can have a tiny fix of dark chocolate when needed!

And tomorrow is his birthday. I have to decide if I'm going to bake him his favorite carrot cake or if I'm going to get him a small DQ cake. The boy wanted to buy him walkie talkies, so we got him some Motorola ones from Cabelas. The girl got him a new tie tack, the father holding a child infinity one. And he started talking about a kitchen timer he saw on America's Test Kitchen, and that's what I'm getting him. Though it doesn't look like it will get here by tomorrow. I didn't have much time to order it though, since he watched the episode on either Saturday or Sunday of last weekend!

[chefk]

Good. I feel more relaxed now too. AHHH...

[smay]

Oh Chefk... My week has been filled with endless projects! Canned the sauerkraut last night. 13 pints, 13 half-pints. I'm a little afraid it is too salty, because I got less kraut than expected. Otherwise I just let it cook a little too long before canning, or packed it tighter than expected. I don't know! First time canning kraut!

sauerkraut!

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I have a carrot cake in the oven right now for hubby's b-day. It's in an R2D2 pan. The boy thought dad needed a character cake! So, decorating that will happen today as well.

Yesterday I also made a pair of slippers for an aunt we will see this weekend.

felted crocheted slippers

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And today I will finish tacking the wedding gift I made for this weekend's wedding down onto its matting.

name in filet crochet

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I'm tired.

[smay]

Yesterday was beachy. Lunch was another taco salad, and dinner was Jimmy John's Beach unwich. I love that they have an unwich option! Scale is still stuck in neutral.

We had our first freeze last night, and I didn't see the low, but I'm guessing it was a hard freeze. The computer told me it was "currently" 28 degrees when I looked at the weather around 6:30 this morning. We picked all of our green tomatoes except for one plant which we covered. It's my favorite plant. A yellow tomato, called Old German. Best tomato ever! I'm hoping it is okay. I won't take the sheets off of it till at least 10:00 this morning. We have tons of green tomatoes picked and waiting for us now. And since I'm on a picture kick today, here they are.

green tomatoes

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Tonight will be dinner out, and the carrot cake for the husband's birthday, so I will stay beachy during the day and enjoy the evening. Food this weekend will be interesting since we are not going to involved in what is being served for half of the meals.

Have packing to do, and a bunch of minor things to take care of before the weekend.

[Healthybound]

Hi, I hope you don't mind me chirping in, but all these latest postings have reminded me of my 'growing up' years. My Mom used to can everything through the summer and fall. I can fondly remember the canned peaches, corn, pickles, carrots, and especially the ripe tomatoes. My brother and I use her tomatoes as a 'measure' of taste when buying canned tomatoes today. Her efforts kept us full through the fall, winter and the beginning of the following summer. I can still see the jars lined up in the cabinet in the basement. I drew the line though, on the canned green tomatoes. I never could develop a liking to them. Before we ever had an electric refrigerator, I can remember the 'refrigerator' in the hallway: an insulated box and a big spot for the block of ice that kept everything cold. Mom needed to can just so we could something good to eat. And I don't remember too many sick days other than the usual tonsilitis, measles, very few colds. And none of us 3 kids were 'fat' or the least overweight. But we ate real good! Keep up the good work!

[Kyan]

Smay!

Those slippers are BEYOOTIFUL!! Did she love them? I can't believe how awesome they turned out!

Hopefully your kraut won't turn out too salty.

Also... I didn't know Jimmy Johns had an "unwich"!! That is so cool! We have a Jimmy Johns right by my grocery store but I never go there. Which number do you order? And they just serve it without bread or something?