Category: Life

Today I’m going to spend the day puttering in the garden. I bought some new work gloves and a kneeling pad, so I can work with ease. I need to clean and clear a good quarter of the garden where the powdery mildew has destroyed my squash. I was upset about it for a while, until I realized how truly sick of summer squash and zucchini I am. Before the powdery mildew hit, the plants were extremely prolific and we’ve been eating squash nearly every night. Cooked almost every way that you can imagine!
Next year diversity is the key. I will have maybe two zucchini plants and two summer squash. Then I want to plant eggplant, peppers, maybe some corn. Anything but hill upon hill of squash.
The cucumbers? Yes, I’ll still plant a lot of those. Making pickles, piccalilli and mustard pickles is fun, and we all know how much I love mustard pickles!
So I’ll be puttering in the garden. Maybe the dogs will play outside with me. The sun will shine and life will be good.

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I’m taking this week off from Saturday Scavenger Photo’s. I wracked my brain for an idea about how I could present the theme of “money”, but I realized that money is the one area that I’ve never been comfortable with. Money means very little to me, it just pays the bills.
I’ll be back next week…

The Pickle Lady here.

Today I made another batch of Mustard Pickles. I used a different recipe, just for the heck of it. I am not happy with the results. The first recipe was so much better, so that one will be the one I save and use when I make them again. Hopefully, next year. After canning all these pickles, piccalilli and mustard pickles, I am sort of all pickled out! Of course soon it will be time to do the peaches. We like to can some as well as make a peach preserve called Heavenly Jam. I hope the peaches are ripe before I have my surgery!

We’re at the end of my squash. The powdery mildew has pretty much killed off the plants. I may get a few more, but what I need to do is get in there and take out the dead plants, and then set up the Butternut Squash to flourish and grow. Next year I will start at the beginning of the season and use preventative measures to guard against the mildew.

The heat broke about 6 o’clock on Thursday night. It’s cooler right now than it has been in days. I’m thankful. I’m not sure I could take many more days of hot, humid and hazy!

My weekend plan is to putter around the house and to putter around the garden. Life is good and so it’s time to enjoy it a little, especially now that the heat has broken.

Stay cool and enjoy the weekend.

My garden is growing. And growing and growing. I really can’t take much credit now. It’s all in God’s hands. In fact the garden is still producing at this point despite the fact that we have “powdery mildew”. I wasn’t sure at first what this was, but after reading about it I have learned that A) It’s too late to do anything about it now, and that B) Next year we will need to use a fungicide right from the start to keep it from happening again. Good thing Hubby has his Pesticide applicators license. I knew there was a reason I kept him around!
Meanwhile, I am still able to enjoy a harvest and I am keeping my fingers crossed that it won’t affect my huge crop of Butternut Squash. I must have a dozen babies that are easily seen. There is no telling how many of those little buggers are hiding under plant leaves.
I was looking for cucumbers and squash today under all the leaves and look what I found:

This one weighs 2 1/2 pounds!

Far too big to slice and eat, but I figured I could do something. I raced up the hill to my neighbor’s house. She knows everything about vegetables and how to get the most out of your garden. She gave me two recipes to use to make pickles from over ripe cucumbers. I will start that tomorrow. Who knows I may have another couple of monsters to add to the pot!
I’m really getting into this canning thing. In fact I have already found ways to eat mustard pickles with almost every meal! I just love them!!! My neighbor also told me that she liked them very much. I’m thinking of canning some in half pint jars for Christmas presents. At least for people who like mustard and pickles!
Maybe I could become the “Mustard Pickle Queen of New Hampshire”!

Piccalilli! Yes, today was Piccalilli day. As you know, I chopped up all the cucumbers, (6 pounds of them!) onions and peppers yesterday. Everything soaked overnight in a heavy salty brine. This afternoon I drained the vegetables, and then cooked it all up with the vinegar and spices.
It took a while to simmer the pickles until they were tender/crisp.

Then Hubby came in and helped me with the canning. He is a master! I present the hot sterilized jars to him, he fills them, and then I seal them.



After we were done, I did up the dishes, and Hubby came into the kitchen, hugged me and said, “Well, look at this! Maribeth’s Piccalilli! Maribeth’s vegetables from her garden! And you’re doing all this canning!” He was smiling and I knew he was proud of me.

I am sitting here thinking back to when I was in High School.
Back then, I really wanted a home in New Hampshire, a vegetable garden, and to learn to can the stuff I was growing. It seemed so romantic and so wonderful.
Fast forward 30 years. I have all of the above, but I have learned that it isn’t quite as “romantic” as I thought. I remember the digging of the garden in the heat and getting sunburnt, I remember planting everything the day before Hubby’s surgery and hoping I’d done it all right. I remember doing the “cultivating and weeding”.
I remember watching over the garden, thinking it would never grow. Now. I go out each day and hope upon hope that I won’t have too much produce. My neighbors now pull their shades down and pretend they aren’t home when they see me coming with more summer squash!
I have to say that the joys of gardening are many, even if the work is tough. I will be doing it again next year. I’m already planning it…

I just sliced 6 pounds of cucumbers, 5 large onions, 3 large green peppers, salted them all and set them to rest overnight. What am I making now? Cucumber Picalilli. I had all these cucumbers, (I still haven’t used them all up!) and I knew if I didn’t do something now, they would simply rot. Tomorrow is the cooking and canning. I can hardly wait to see how this comes out.

The children left Saturday morning. It was sad to see them go. They had to cut their visit short this year because their father has accepted a new job and they are moving to a new town. The kids were a little nervous about the move, but we all told them how great it was going to be. Matina picked up Greta and hugged her and said, “I wish I could put you in my suitcase and bring you home with me!” and I could hear her voice crack. It’s a beautiful thing, the love between a child and a dog.

Today was a Greek Festival in a town near-by. We drove down and enjoyed a lunch full of Greek goodies. Hubby had a lamb shanks meal and I went A La Carte with Lamb Kebabs, and stuffed Grape Leaves! I also tried something new this year, Pastichio. It’s sort of the Greek equivalent to macaroni and cheese, but it also has meat in it and in many ways is creamier and finer. Yum!

I was lying in bed last night thinking of my Uncle George.

He is my cousin, Janet’s father. He was probably the single most important male in my life growing up. The one that showed me what a real man could be.
He taught me to swim, to dive and to do somersaults off his shoulders. He would play games with us in the water, watch over us if we got in over our heads, and above all he made sure we always had fun.
When I was maybe 6 or 7 years old I stepped on glass at the beach. My foot was bleeding pretty badly. He wrapped it in his T-shirt and then carried me the 5 minute walk back to our house in Falmouth. He sat with me while I got stitched up and then carried me around the beach so that I wouldn’t get sand in my stitches afterwards. I asked him about that recently and he’d forgotten, but I’ll never forget it, because he was so kind to me.

How lucky we are to have these special people in our lives. Young and old, they add so much.

Today it arrived!

I have been waiting almost two weeks for this.
As many of you know, I love to cook. I also love to experiment with new recipes, (or old) and try new techniques. So, as soon as I got home from the Post Office I tore open the box and sat down to revel in the book. My hands quivered as I turned page after page, seeing what Julia had to say to me.
I love the way she puts things. It’s simple, well thought out, and easy to follow. Most of the recipes are French Cuisine. She narrates the recipes with how to’s and advice for the new cook. And yet I never felt like she was talking down to the newer cooks either, but reassuring them that they too can cook like this.
The first recipe I want to try is her Quiche Lorraine. I have tried other recipes over the years and found them simply horrid. I somehow know, Julia will guide me through it and that it will make a sumptuous dish!
I’m getting a ton of pickles again! Almost enough to make some sort of relish. Perhaps Picalilli or Sweet Pickles with onions? Not sure. I wish my neighbor was back from New Brunswick, Canada because she makes some really wonderful pickle recipes and I would love to pick her brain.
My first baby Butternut squash appeared last week. One is a good 8 inches long already! Today I noticed probably 8 new, tiny 2 inch squash. Butternut squash are my favorite. I love to peel, boil, mash with butter, brown sugar and cinnamon for a truly awesome meal.
I hear the local corn is finally in. There are signs up that tell you to basically not expect much because of all the rain we have had. Even with that they are charging 60 cents an ear.
And lastly on the kitchen front My dishwasher is leaking. This will mean another call to our repair man, Barry, and it will also mean I will have to wash dishes by hand until he can fit us in. Shoot! I detest doing dishes all alone.
When I was a kid, I would stand on a chair and my sister and I would do the dishes together. Mel would either tell me stories or we would sing. We loved to sing, “White Coral Bells” or “We Are The Sister’s” or “Frere Chaque”. Yes, back then doing the dishes was fun! Thanks Mel. Want to come up and help me do the dishes?

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Doors

The doors to our home

In the last year I realized that I write a lot about food. I do love to eat, doesn’t everyone? Well, Hubby says that not everyone loves to eat as much as I do.
Now surely there are people out there who enjoy a good ice cream? I had the best ice cream Sundae, in Berlin two years ago. It was so good! It was also Hubby’s birthday. You will notice that while everyone was having a healthful fruit Sundae, mine was chocolate! The next day Miss Greta came into our life.

I am not above making cupcakes for the pups on their birthdays. This was Fritz’s birthday last summer. You will notice that, although Shubi was not in good health then, she managed to jump up and attempt to snatch the cupcake away from her big brother.
I do, in fact, celebrate each of my fur children’s birthdays. Each gets a cupcake, and maybe a special meal and oh yes, a candle on the cupcake!

Living in New England, I often cook Lobster. It is one of my favorite meals. One time Hubby and his college roommate were away fishing. The night before he was to return I bought myself a 2 pound Lobster just for me. An hour before I was to cook that big boy, they called and said they were almost home and would be here for dinner! Do you know how difficult it was to find two other big Lobsters on short notice? In fact I could only get 2 one and one half pound Lobsters and my cover was blown!

I recently learned to make Baked French Onion Soup. It is now one of my signature dishes. I made it the other day and that was dinner. Both Hubby and I could live on the stuff!

This is tonight’s meal. Wiener Schnitzel, Asparagus and Potato Croquettes. Not bad for a first attempt. I still feel that I am missing a spice in the schnitzel breading.

Last but not least, I try to go to my favorite restaurant Canoe a couple of times a year for my favorite meal. A Jumbo Lobster Roll, Sweet Potato Fries and the most wonderful Dill Pickle!

I know I have made you all hungry, but it is the start of a holiday weekend and I wanted you primed to enjoy it. After all, here in America the Fourth of July is usually celebrated with a barbecue. I know that’s what we’ll be doing. In fact I bought Hubby a new charcoal barbecue grill for Father’s Day just so I know that for one day this year, he’ll be doing the cooking!

I’ve decided I like winter better.
In the winter I can wear flannel lined jeans and turtlenecks and big bulky sweaters and no one wonders what’s under all of these clothes. They just take it for granted that all the lumps and bumps are long underwear or some sort of layering for keeping warm.

If I’m having a bad hair day, I just pull a winter hat over my head. No one questions me about my big old Cat in the Hat cap, they figure I’m trying to keep my ears warm.
But in the summer, when it’s 90 degrees there isn’t much you can do to hide the sins of the supper table. They just sort of hang out there for all to see. Not to mention varicose veins, flapping middle aged arms and the notorious chicken neck!
And the hair? Yes, aside from just chopping it all off there is no place to hide that either. I have short hair anyway, so a baseball cap leaves it sticking out like Bozo the clown!
In the winter it’s so much easier to have good days, and if by chance I’m not, I can at least fool my mirror, and myself and hopefully most people I know with vision disabilities.

Since I believe in the ying and yang of life, the ups and the downs, and yesterday was a bit of a downer day for me, today will be an up day. Hmmmm, what to say, what to say?
Hubby has his staples out! Yes, and he did not fall apart so this is good news, very good news indeed!

He is still hobbling around on crutches and wants his meals served to him on a tray in his room, but I am personally suspicious that this is just a ploy on his part for attention.
In between meals he hobbles out into the yard to work on his fruit trees, pointing out where I over sprayed here, and under sprayed there. What he doesn’t know is, I have him now!
The next time we are due for spraying I intend to bring him out and make him do it! Oh and I’ll sit there and watch and say “helpful” things like “you missed a spot” or “a little more on the left”. Now that I’m an official sprayer I can offer these words of advise!
I was still worrying about him this morning. “How’s the pain?” I asked. He would put on that brave face, and tell me how he was getting by.
This afternoon I went outside to check on him while he was thinning peaches and asked how he was doing and would he like anything. He said a glass of ice cold white wine in a long stem wine glass would be nice.
Dream on, like that is going to happen! I did relent and brought him some wine, but in a cheapo glass that I would not miss if Fritz knocked it over and broke it.
He has since come back in and has retreated to his room where he is “King of the Remote Control” and his food and the beverage of his choice will magically appear…maybe.