Thursday, September 26, 2013

Odds and Ends

Things have slowed down some in the garden.  There are tons of things that need to be done but nothing is really pressing right now. We are enjoying the weather and I proclaimed it a putter around day. So many little things I need to get done that sometimes things get lost in the shuffle. I'm just not as organized as I want to be, which might be a good thing since then I'd probably get all OCD. Thank goodness I'm a list maker.

I'm still getting tons of cayenne peppers. I've been drying them as they ripen and probably have at least 4 quart jars full. That sounds like a lot (even to me) but once they are ground to cayenne powder it won't be. 

 I had a couple of  ripe yellow bell peppers and a couple of red ones that found their way into the dehydrater too.  They will add some color and yummy peppers to soups or stews (or whatever) this winter.  I've got all sorts of regular bells dried as well.  Some are cut lengthwise and long, some are diced and some are done in bite size pieces.  I make up all sorts of one dish meals and I love having them on hand.

I was reading somewhere, (I'm sorry I don't remember exactly where)  about saving your vegetable "scraps" and dehydrating them to make vegetable powder.  I have a gallon baggie I keep in the freezer and just add the scraps as I go.  When the bag's full I'll dump it onto the trays and dehydrate it.  Once it's dry I put it in a jar and vacuum seal it for using later. I know you can go ahead and grind it at this point but I'll just grind it as I go.  That way I'm not running the risk of the powder caking up and becoming a vegetable rock! 

I've got one of the dehydrators full and running.  Cayenne, red green and yellow bell peppers and a whole baggie of veggie "scraps" will be ready by tomorrow!  Lately if the dryer isn't running I start feeling like somethings wrong. I can almost always find something that needs to be dehydrated.

I've got almost a quart baggie of jalapeno's that have turned red.  Once we get a few more the plan is to smoke them on the grill.  Once that's done I'll dry them and grind them into Chipotle powder.  Pretty neat huh?  Much of the stuff I'm doing now is helping to add a variety to our diets in the coming months.

I want to thank Sandy from over at Oklahoma Transient for sending me some of her cool pepper seeds.  And guess what else she sent!  Bluebonnet seeds!  I'm hoping they'll grow here and right now is about the time of year to plant them for next year.  Sandy, thank you so much.  Bluebonnets are special to me.  It's a Texas thing I suppose.  I owe you an email girl. (and some seeds)  Ya'll go check out her cool giveaway.  It's a good one!

Oh, I almost forgot!  I know I told you that we've been without our nightly movie for a few days now.  Very different kind of a rythem to things makes it interesting. I've been able to do a little reading.  I've got a crochet project going as well as a project "on the needles".
 I went to town again with a bunch of tomatoes, squash, grape tomatoes, green bell peppers and a variety of hot peppers.  I'm amazed!  All I came home with were three buckets ( think cool whip container) of tomatoes,  Folks around here really do like their tomatoes!  From what I understand many folks didn't have a good tomato crop.  I think it might have been that really late freeze we had.  Shoot, we were out there covering those babies every night and taking the covers back off once it warmed up in the mornings.  Anyway....  I made enough money to order a new DVD player.  We should be back to the Netflix by the first of of next week.  YAY!!! I really do miss our nightly movies, especially now since once again WildBlue Sucks has slowed our internet speed to slower than dial-up. *sigh*  It will probably take a couple of weeks to get to the level they'll speed us back up.  Geesh I miss high speed cable connections.   I've never had anything other than a cable connection to the interwebs until we moved out here.  Call me spoiled but it has been one of the hardest personal challenges to have such a limited internet service.  After 2 1/2 years you would think I could get used Sorry for the lack of pictures but trying to get them to load is pure torture.





 

8 comments:

  1. I always enjoy reading about your adventures out there! Gives me a bad case of "garden envy, though!

    Have a good day!

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  2. "Vegetable powder" - I'd never thought of that!

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  3. I want to make my own Mrs. Dash from dehydrated vegetables and spices. . I ground up cayenne for pepper and was quite pleased with myself. I felt all Little House on the Prairie! You have certainly gotten a lot put up.

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  4. Love the idea of veggie powder! Going to try that myself. Wish I was close enough, I would buy some of those tomatoes from you. I got such a late start, I may not really get much.

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  5. I'm sorry I'm not able to answer each of you "individually" but it sucks the bandwidth and would take me an hour to do such a simple thing. *sigh*

    Dear Jim,
    Maybe you should come see us next summer. I'm sure we could cure that garden envy. I've got an extra hoe and some gloves! *wink*

    Mr. Smythe,
    It's quite good in all sorts of things. It also acts as a thickener. Things that make you go hmmmm.....

    Hi Linda,
    Girl I never thought of that!!! I'm gonna have to make some sort of a Mrs Dash. I bet it's really not that hard now that I think of it. Congratulations on your cayenne powder. It DOES make you feel all "Little House" doesn't it. LOL

    Hello Stephanie,
    I'd recommend vegetable powder to anyone. It's kind of like making your own bouillon/ Girl, if you were close enough I'd have already given you some tomatoes! LOL My neighbor sees me coming with a bag of tomatoes she won't answer the door! heheheh It's ok though, I just leave them on her doorstep and RUN!!!!!!!!!

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  6. SCI,

    Hey girl, I'm so happy to hear you received the seeds! I was beginning to wonder with our post office.

    I love the idea of throwing your veggie remains into a plastic bag and freezing them until you can dehydrate them. I usually throw the remains into the compost. I'm going to set this in motion, starting this weekend.

    Beans.......I have baby beans appearing on the vines, the peas are growing ......only about 5 inches now, no signs of flowers yet. My cucumber plants are also growing, no signs of flowers either. I've harvested another handful of little cherry tomatoes for salads. With out exaggeration I have about 100 green cherry tomatoes just waiting. The other tomato plants have just a few tomatoes all still green........and finally the Japanese eggplant keeps producing little eggplants.

    Have a wonderful weekend, give Mars a hug for us.


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  7. I've started saving veggie ends in a baggie in the freezer for making bone broth. It's excellent for joint health!

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  8. With those slow internet speeds your blog must frustrate the heck out of you. I love reading you, but even with a good internet connection [not great mind you, just good] yours is one blog that takes forever to load. When I am on pay as you go mifi it cost a lot of bandwith [I think that is what I mean] to load a blog as content heavy [pics on the side bar, ads, etc.] that I could only come sporadically. So I do feel your pain.

    Happy happy on the new DVD player. We have been scouting them at the Thrift store, but have been content with our VHS since our move. We get movies for 50 cents at the thrift. ::grin::

    I am off to read your dehydrating post. I really want to make those treats for Spottie. She has taken to not eating since this final move and I am getting worried about her.

    Thanks SciFi. You're the best.

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