Earithia: Garden Insta-Jungle, also, Florida

Turns out this month is an all-time high for hits on my blog, which I think is pretty cool.  This whole making-it-easier-on-myself-to-post thing has been working out for keeping me more in the loop.  Also, if I get 5 more hits during August... then I clear 90 for the month!  Woah.  You guys and gals in Russia that are pinging my site totally rock my socks!  I've no idea how you found me, too cool.


So there's this nifty thing that happened recently, I got to spend 5 days at Clearwater Beach, Florida, and it was the most relaxing and wonderful thing during which no one could keep me out of the water.  Going right before school started was perfect since there was very little collegiate debochery.  What a laid back town!  I got a few very nice photos of our visit.

Causeway over the Gulf

 Funny little yellow footed bird was not shy

 Beach sun rise photo series

 Even a departing RAINBOW on my last day there

And on my return, I am overwhelmed by the sudden growth spurt in the garden!  It's a jungle, and it gave me no warning.

I didn't know a tomato plant could get 8 feet tall!  Woah!  These are hillbillies gifted from a friend.

The Sunchokes went bonkers, what a sight, I can't wait for them to bloom!  There must be a million tubers underground.  I had to trim access to my walking path, it was impassible.

Tons of Cayennes, they just need to go red.

Strawberries are back at it.

Brassicas went wild.

My harvest on return was intense, look at all this deliciousness produced from 7 days neglect!

I got a ton of weeding done, very productive Friday gardnening evening.  I also think I've caught up on all my vacation-related technical difficulties.  I had bad luck on a handful of things down there.  You'd think I'd gone wild, though it was in fact a family reunion and very calm... glasses apparently had defective cryzal coating which the salt water air aggravated to the point they are unusable, sent those back on warranty; my tooth filling cracked which is fixed now, I saw the dentist Friday, all better if my sinus will just calm down now; toenail cracked from all the running and tumbling in the sand and surf, so it's super glued, and the night I sat in the surf in the dark and watched the thunderstorm hitting the Gulf of Mexico I left my sandals, so now those are replaced.  I hope that's it!  I had one technical difficulty per day of work missed!

I'm going to need to be making more Laundry Soap very soon, have some laundry running now, just popped open the 3rd bottle of soap from the last batch.  I've been catching up on washing blankets and stuff.  I'm also thinking about tackling the ceiling project in the stairwell finally!  I really want to, it's gonna be so pretty, and it's a long time since I first conceived this idea, it's so very much time to get that rolling.  And as usual, I'm enjoying my Fancy Chocolate Milk very frequently.  I put vanilla extract in it tonight.  Nummy!  Also, I have to try this.

I hope everyone is well!

CombODDnation: Poka-dot Cream Sausage

There's something very interesting here, you see it?  I swear it's not just something imaginary.  We're not just staring at thin air, even though that's what we usually do.  And it's actually not a bird in the yard, either.  No.  You knew it wasn't a bird because we're not making that weird bird noise right now.

It's Poka-dot Cream Sausage!  This was so yummy!

The baby maters keep coming a mile a minute, so I keep doing funny things with them.
All kinds of funny things.

Anyways, as usual, this is super easy!

With about 2 lbs of ground meats of your choice
(This is the "sausage combo pack" from Khuns' Market, 1 part ground pork, 2 parts beef.  Omg, YUM!)

Smoosh ground meat into 2 balls
Squash one ball flat on a plate
On this squashed flat ball make a little pile in the middle including:
     2 Tbs fennel seed
     2 chopped up fresh cayenne peppers
     Dolup of about 2 oz cream cheese
Squash the second ball of ground meat on top of it all and fold together until it's rather evenly distributed.

Make a dent in the top of this spicy creamy enormous meat ball and plunk down a big handful of baby maters in that dent.
Gently combine the tomatoes into this enormous meatball you're building.  Add as many baby tomatoes as suits you by again making a dent in the meatball and folding them in.  More maters is more yummy, but also makes the sausage patty more likely to fall apart on you.

Take off sausage patty sized pieces, flatten them and place them in the skillet.

On very low heat, cook these until fully browned.  I used the smallest burner, the back burner, and the cream cheese didn't melt out of it, just got all soft and nice.  Here they are when done and ready to be lifted from the skillet.

You can serve this with additional cream cheese, or with cooked greens, such as my chard and beet greens, which I use the grease from cooking the sausage to simmer those to a delicious green yumm-ness.

Not much going on here, it's summer and the garden has decided that this week is the week for growing exponentially!  Endless supply of tomatoes, and the strawberries are pickup up again now.  Starting to see a stink bug population on my bean plants, scrambling to thwart that trouble, they are so destructive.

Also, I smashed a banana into my Lego Yogurt today, and it was PheNom.  I'm on softer foods for a few days, until my tooth can be looked at tomorrow.  Problem with a filling, it hurts.

Happy college move in week :p lol.  I work at a university, it's mayhem.

CombODDnation: La'Rouge Cercle

See what I did there?  I got all creative with the naming convention.  I really don't know french.  I'm sure that's way beyond obvious here.  I'm just being a terrible dork.  Plus it sounded kind of gross in English.  These are over-easy eggs with a red circle of baby maters.  Simple and delicious.  And if you have wonderful friends like I have who spoil you with gluten free bread on the random, than you can do it up one more level...

It's easy!  Preheat the oiled skillet (things flip easier when the oil is heated up before it's used).  While the eggs are all uncooked and stuff, just set the baby maters in a circle around the yoke.

IF you have gluten free bread, this is a nice touch, but not necessary at all.  If you do, you can place the slices of GF atop the uncooked egg parts.  as the egg cooks it will solidify and become part of the slice.

Flip it over when the edges of egg start to brown a bit.  If you have the GF bread there you'll have to toast it for a while to get it to cook through to the rest of the egg.  If no bread there, then just flip the egg and skillet it for another minute or so and you'll have yokey eggs with baby maters cooked in.  2 to 3 minutes and it'll be cooked the whole way through.  And it looks cute.  :)

YUM!  This is Udi's white bread.  It tastes yummy, very dense and the texture is really bread-like.  With toasting like this it gets much more crunchy than I expected, it actually snaps like a cracker after this.  Also it really gets a sweet taste to it.  Good stuff!

Hopefully I'll come up with more baby mater recipes soon, I have too many!  Yay!!

CombODDnation: Baby 'Mater Sauce

We've had a couple of cool days here.  Downright chilly at times, it's almost as bizarre as it was having summer in April.  If it lasts more than a few days, it may be more so on the unusual factor.

This week, my favorite Lego Yogurt flavor is clove and cinnamon, by the way.  Last week I was using honey instead of brown sugar, which was so different, almost savory.

So yesterday I made sauce from the zillions of baby tomatoes that are growing in the rear plot.  These little guys are volunteers so I don't know what variety they are, probably some cross breed.  And I will note that it's a little odd to fire up the canning supplies for 16 ounces of can-ables (which is different than cannibals entirely) but that's what I did and it wasn't as much of a fuss as I thought it would be.  But I think I should have added lemon juice for the acidity, and didn't, so we'll see how well the sauce holds in storage.  And you remember the lemon juice, okay?

It's seedy, but it's delicious.  Not exactly your Italian grandmother's sauce, but freaking yummy.  And who wants to be wasteful with all the amazing harvest, afterall?  Oh, and the first cayenne grated into the mix, wizard.  Could have used two, it isn't that spicy.  My fingers were spicy, though, oh my!

And I cooked and cooked on the smallest burner at the lowest heat setting.  Which worked because, as I said, it was darn near cold that day.  August got lost, November took up duty for a day or so.

When it was way cooked down I spooned it into two jars just like the ball book says to do, and gave them the canning bath.  The result is in my cupboard.

And I ATE the rest on some chicken.  Yummmmmmmmm.  :)  There was less than an 8 oz jar left after, which looked like dinner.  Here's dinner!

I love being not wasteful.  :)  Need to eat the rest of that cabbage head in the frigger.  It's early for cabbage coming ripe, you know.  Maybe I can plant another stand of them?  Maybe.

EatNote: Almond Milk

So it turns out I'm backwards; Almond milk makes me ill.  But I gave it a good solid try before switching back to cow and had a few thoughts to share with anyone who is giving it a try.  I have a different but equally not-fun response to soy milk.  I can handle little bits of either, and tolerate them better when they have been heated than when cold, but over all, it's a failure. 

But for starters, I want to ramble.  See, I have this theory that the generations of milk and dairy farmers going back through my family have caused me some unique evolutionary traits.  Seriously.  I'm not kidding. 

Why?
Well.

It is incredibly common to those with Gluten problems to also have milk problems.  Cow milk problems.  I can literally live off of nothing more than cow milk... for days.  I have done.  It works fantastically.  Also unique to my existence is just how quickly the elimination of red meat from my diet triggers anemia for me.  I need cow products.  Seriously.   If I start to feel dizzy on a regular basis, my first thought is "when's the last time I've had cow meat?"  And I add it to the grocery list.  One day when I have money I really would like to start buying organic cow products for my health.

There still are cow farmers in the distant family, still in the same region as great grandfather and all his lineage had.  About 15 years ago they switched from milk to beef because of cost.  I got quite the instruction as to costs involved in cattle rearing based on product desired once that I visited.

So, yeah, there's that. 

However, during a couple months of trying to use Almond Milk while trying to determine why I was unhealthy more often than usual, I learned a few things.

First, it doesn't need heat for as long, can stand higher heat temperatures, and isn't going to end up with that gross skin on the surface that happens when you overheat cow milk.  Basically, microwaving 1 cup of cow milk for 3 minutes at 80% is the same as 1:45 minutes at 100% with almond milk.  In the oven and on the skillet, shorter and hotter cooking times are also applicable.  Up by 25 degrees and down by 15% of the total cook time is about right.

It doesn't turn your coffee as light a color.  Don't base your expectation of the creaminess of your coffee on the color of the mixed liquid.  It will be creamier than it looks.

It's dryer.  I needed greater quantities in baking than the amount of cow milk being called for in the recipe.  Like 1/4 cup more.  Or an extra egg.  Things dried out in the oven if treated normally.

So there you are.  Almond milk tips.  Considering how poorly I handled it, these will be the only tips on the matter from me.  I don't like being ill.  The whole I'm-fine-when-it's-heated thing really made it difficult to point to what was going wrong, glad that's sorted and I'm back to healthy me. 

Yay!