01.20.12
Posted in Anything goes, cooking, family stuff, felt projects, hobbies, knitting and crocheting at 1:33 am by Administrator
This post is going to be a mixed bag of things. The first item is actually a mixed bag of yarn. Around Christmas time I was doing a search online for sock yarn and came across a link to the Supersock Store. They were advertising a 50% off sale on Cherry Tree Hill yarns. However, there were “rules” to follow to participate in the sale. First of all, the sale would start on New Year’s Eve at 11:30PM eastern standard time. The first 200 customers to place their orders would get a free “goodie bag.” Within one of those 200 goodie bags would be a card that had a saying that would have the initials DBNY. If you got that card then your whole order would be free! Well, just the 50% off sale was an incentive for me. The goodie bag was yet another lure that was reeling me in. And finally the thought that my whole order “might” be free was the clincher. On New Year’s Eve I planted my butt in front of the computer shopping for sock yarn like a looney looking at sock porn. Ha ha! I then chose the skeins I wanted to sample, placed my credit card at the ready, and waited for 11:30PM. . . errr, that is 8:30PM Pacific Standard time (the east coast is three hours ahead of us). Okay, so I didn’t just sit there really, I joined the family feasting on our New Year’s meal. It wasn’t long when 8:30PM arrived, and I ran upstairs to start dumping my order in the “cart”. One of the rules was that you couldn’t add anything to the cart until 11:30PM when the carts would open. In ten minutes I had my order placed and confirmed. Was I one of the first 200 customers? I wondered. . . The next morning I got a confirmation letter from the Supersock Store with the added info that they ran out of goodie bags just before the ball dropped in Times Square. Ah! I must have been one of the 200! Yes! A week later my order arrived. . .
Aren’t they lovely? Ummmmm.
And what’s this? My “goodie bag?”
I got seven balls of novelty yarns, a needle gauge, some sample corn yarn, a few buttons, and several knitting patterns. Ah, I love it! Nothing like a goodie bag!
So what I found out was that the Supersock Store has these sales twice a year. So I decided I’m gonna test out these yarns to see if my boys like the quality. I’ve started to knit up some of the yarn to see if I’ll be participating in the next 50% off sale with goodie bag. This is the first pair of socks in the works.
Not sure how the boys are going to like the colors, but there she be. I’m curious to see how well they hold up.
Now while I’m at it, here’s something else I worked on for Christmas gifts for my crafting buddies.
Here they are completed with the scissors paired up.
I actually didn’t know what I was doing when I was making them and just winged it as I went along. Overall, I’m satisfied with how they came out. Most of all, my crafting buddies seemed to enjoy them. Here’s another view of the completed scissor cases.
Then my sister asked if I would help her out by making cookies for her staff. She wanted me to make some ornaments to tie onto each bag of cookies. Here’s what I came up with.
By this time my camera was starting to die on me. I had to try a million shots to get something that wasn’t over-exposed looking. This was the best I could get. The tie cords I made were done on my spinning wheel.
Here’s what the cookies looked like all bagged up.
There were 20 bags all together of oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies.
My camera was acting up again, so this picture has a weird coloring. But at least it captures the gist of what the completed cookie bags turned out like. Oh! While I’m sharing goodies, my friends from the Isle of Man sent me a really nice gift basket of fruit cake, pudding, and chocolates. I thought these boxes of chocolates were so cute shaped into their IoM emblem–the three legs, which I was told meant that no matter which way they are thrown, they will stand.
Now those were yummy! This picture is all that’s left of them. . .
Toodles for now!
Marlakins
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05.11.10
Posted in cooking, family stuff, hobbies at 2:34 pm by Administrator
I’m not sure where Aaron got his interest in cooking, but he’s been working on it off and on for years now. He’s tried making coconut ice cream once, made some Thai custard desserts for Christmas, learned to make great cinnamon rolls, and other things. He currently makes fantastic omelettes. I think his first recipe was some sort of meatball mix when he was around 10 years old or so. If I recall correctly, it was tasty, too! Or perhaps I’m just being a biased mom who thinks everything her son makes is wonderful? Ha! Anyway, since our travels to Asia, Aaron’s interest in trying new recipes have once again ignited. Last time we returned home from the Philippines he cooked some pancit. This year he wanted to make some lumpia. Now this I have to hand to him. . . he makes great homemade lumpia wrappers!
These wrappers are made from scratch and are specifically for lumpia sariwa. Here’s what the filling of the roll looks like.
He could use a little practice wrapping the lumpia, but not bad for his first go!
I should mention that Aaron also made the sauce from scratch as well, which turned out to be really delicious!
The next recipe Aaron worked on was Red Lentil Dosas. The lentils and brown rice has to be soaked for 8 hours then the ingredients have to be blended and allowed to sit for another 24 hours (boy, this kid has patience!) This is what the mixture looked like just before cooking.
Just before cooking minced cilantro is added. The final dosa looks like this.
Not bad! Looks pretty much like the pictures in the recipe book! He has since made more, which turned out even tastier.
Okay, so in Aaron’s spare time he has been enjoying looking up how-things-are-made videos as well as cooking videos. We got a kick out of watching some such as “Cooking with Dog.” Hehehehe. Cute videos. Not only do the recipes look great and tasty, but the cook gives nice tips. Then Aaron found some videos on “pulled noodles.” This inspired him to try making handmade noodles. The problem we’ve encountered is that we only use whole grains, which seems to be a problem with elasticity, or rather the lack of elasticity. So Aaron decided to try to make buckwheat soba noodles instead. Here’s his first attempt.
Not bad! Only I didn’t take a picture of the finished product. . . oye, my bad. I will say that the noodles were tasty although a tad on the thick side. . . hee hee. But no complaints from this mom! Any of the boys cooking in this house is welcome! Brian and I joke around that Aaron’s wife is going to be one happy woman, heheheh. And as a mom, I don’t worry about him knowing how to feed himself when one day he flies the coop.
Marlakins
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02.17.10
Posted in Health-related--Natural Alternative Treatments, cooking, food and restaurants at 12:40 pm by Administrator
A few years ago I watched a video series called, Jamie’s Kitchen. IIRC, it was a six part series of students going through chef’s school hosted by Jamie Oliver. I found it to be very interesting, and also thought it was very gracious of Jamie to sponsor these kids and help them become professional chefs.
Apparently, Jamie’s love for food and helping others didn’t stop with helping some students become professional chefs. Recently I found a video of him speaking at a TED conference discussing the importance of teaching children about food and how it’s so important that this be done because of the rising obesity rates here in the U.S. Obesity, Jamie points out, is linked to so many health issues that it must be addressed. His contention is that our society has been so removed from basic cooking skills that many of us don’t even know what foods are. . . for example he showed a short clip wherein he showed small children various veggies and they didn’t even know what they were! The idea is if we don’t know what things are, we won’t eat them. Conversely, we need to know what exactly we’re eating in all our processed, packaged foods. Education, he believes, is the key and as a result he has opened free cooking lessons at a facility in Virginia.
For anyone interested, here’s the link to Jamie’s presentation.
We need more people like Jamie. Thanks, Jamie, for your inspiration, dedication, and heart of gold.
Marlakins
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12.27.09
Posted in cooking, food and restaurants at 12:59 pm by Administrator
Just waiting for Brian to finish up with his breakfast before heading out. In the meantime I thought I’d update with a belated Merry Christmas wish to all! Hope it was great. We had a nice simple one, and as usual, I loved it. As I’ve mentioned before, our family starts to celebrate each Christmas with a Christmas dinner at my parents’ house. But first we start cooking at home. This year I got a nice group of helpers and couldn’t resist taking this picture of them.
Aaron was helping to form the pie crusts, Andrew was mixing the cookie dough, and Brian must have been washing something.
Here’s a pic of my sisters and me after we stuffed ourselves.
Then we all hang about with each other until midnight when we open all our Christmas gifts. Until then we occupy our time eating and yakking and whatever we drum up for entertainment. This year the boys gave us a little performance. We took their keyboard and Chinese zither to my parents’ house this Christmas eve. Here’s Matty playing for us.
Then it was Aaron’s turn.
Aaron also played the keyboard for us. Since he has progressed so nicely, we got him a new upgraded keyboard for Christmas.
A few Christmases ago Matty and Aaron were working on making puppets for a play for us. The year before the boys made a play with hand puppets and we all had a blast with it. So this time they worked so hard on it for most of that summer, then Matty hurt his ankle badly and never finished all his puppets. The partially finished puppets sat in the closet for a couple years, and this year he remembered them and brought one of his puppets to share with the clan. It’s supposed to be a dragon, but it’s a bit skinny, ha! And my dad said that the poor thing looks “scary,” and should be for Halloween instead of Christmas, ha! But they had fun playing with it, anyway.
Here’s a closer shot of this monster creature. Well, it’s not supposed to be a monster. Matty was into dragons at the time, and that’s what it was supposed to be.
Matty said that he was anxious for Christmas because there were “presents that needed opening.” Ha ha! As every Christmas eve, it zoomed by, and in no time it was time to open the presents. Then after all that hard work. . . heheheh, it was time to eat some more. Desserts are always good at this time.
Afterward we watched a rental until past 2AM, and then called it a night. So another Christmas gone by. . .
Here’s a pic of my family that night. We generally take the Christmas family pic at my parents’ house because we don’t usually put up a tree at our house. This year the little stuffed tree I have was given to me by one of my knit group pals.
As usual, our family Christmas is casual. Years ago we used to get more dressed up, but as time has gone on, we’ve decided it’s much more comfortable to wait until midnight in casual wear.
Oh, and one final picture I wanted to share is of a couple items my Isle of Man friends sent to me. It’s a cute little Santa that I set on my mantle at home as well as a little Merry Christmas pillow.
So now the calm before the next storm–New Year eve! In case I don’t get a chance to update before the new year. . . HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Marlakins
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10.23.09
Posted in cooking, food and restaurants, humor at 12:45 pm by Administrator
Way back in February I tried to get the recipe for rellenong bangus from my aunt. Unfortunately this aunt isn’t internet/computer savvy, but my other cousins said that my other aunt could give me the tricks to making this rellenong banus. Sadly, that aunt has been very sick and is still in the hospital.
This is the rellenong bangus that my aunt prepared and my boys loved.
Aaron and I were checking out the net when we came across this video on “how to make rellenong bangus.” Ah! Not sure if these are the exact methods and ingredients my aunts use, but it looks pretty good. Check it out.
Not sure when I’ll be able to try this, but at least now I have a better idea of what is involved and can mull it over in my head until I get down to it. And I do realize that there’s likely some variations on how to prepare this because I do remember hearing that my aunt BBQed it wrapped in banana leaves. . . hmmm
Anyhoo, while I’m on the Filipino kick, here’s a video from Happy Slip that we watched the other night that gave us a little chuckle.
I just took my sister to the airport yesterday, so I might get some interesting pictures after the flooding. It so, I’ll try to share some of those pictures. However, they are still in flood season and anticipating another storm. So we’ll see what that brings. Gee, come to think of it, I bet she still hasn’t landed yet. . . but almost!
Well, better get on with the day. . . Toodles for now!
Marlakins
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03.02.09
Posted in Uncategorized, cooking at 1:58 am by Administrator
Yesterday my youngest son, Aaron, turned 15. Sometimes life gets so busy, I forget to thank God for all the blessings He’s given me. But when your youngest son turns 15, it’s hard not to stop and wonder for a moment where all the time has gone! And then I realize that about 10 years ago in 1999, when I got diagnosed with aplastic anemia, I didn’t think I would ever see my youngest son reach his 15th birthday. I was told that if I didn’t do anything quickly, I would likely not survive another year. And I start to realize that God has really blessed me. Not only did I survive that year, but I went on to live 9 more years several of those years filled with fun and even travel. This year was even more special in that I was able to spend some time with Aaron, just the two of us, for a couple weeks in the Philippines. Brian and Matthew were with us the first two weeks in the Philippines, then they went home, and Aaron and I stayed another two weeks. And in that two weeks I was able to focus solely on Aaron and really enjoy his company and learn a little more about what he’s like. We talked and read together, it was very nice. I’m happy to say that he seemed to appreciate and enjoy learning about his Filipino side. Here he is wearing his first traditional Filipino shirt, a barong tagalog.
A barong tagalog is the formal Filipino attire for the men. Each one is hand stitched, so “supposedly” there are no two alike, although the basic design is similar to one another.
I knew that Aaron loves to joke around and play around with words, but apparently that’s not all he likes to fool around with. Eh, chicharon is also fair game, especially when it reminds me of Mr. Bill. Yes, I know I’m dating myself again, but those of you who know “Mr. Bill” might appreciate this picture.
I also learned that Aaron likes quite a few Filipino dishes, and one in particular that made me laugh was the pusit aka squid. Here’s a picture of the squid Aaron ate while in the Philippines. I laugh at this picture because he and Matty were eating this squid, but making fun that it looked like little monsters. So I had to take a picture of it and Matty caught me on video taking a picture of it. When they saw this they had to laugh again.
Well, yeah, that does look a bit sea-monster-ish, but the boys still enjoyed eating them, probably because they looked like sea-monsters, ha! So today I decided that since squid is easy to prepare, why not make some for Aaron’s birthday? They way I prepare it doesn’t look quite like the one above, but I like the way it tastes, and evidently it was okay for the boys, too. Here’s what the ones I prepared looked like. Before anyone gets too queezy, these are just calamari minus the batter.
It’s really simple to make. The ingredients are just squid, butter, garlic, salt, pepper, and scallions.
When I developed aplastic anemia back in 1999, I not only changed my diet drastically, but also my family’s. My boys were fairly young back then, so they ended up not getting a lot of Filipino food because for a while we all went vegan (two full years). We were learning how to eat that way, so much of the foods prepared in our home were westernized style foods, and then later more Japanese style. This recent trip to the Philippines really showed me that my kids really haven’t been exposed to much Filipino foods at all. Sure they’ve had a little, but nothing compared to what I had grown up on. So wow, did they (especially Aaron since he stayed two weeks longer than Matty) have some new culinary experiences.
As I was going to prepare the squid, it occurred to me that Aaron might like to see how squid is cleaned. So he helped me prepare it. These following pictures might make those who aren’t used to seeing raw seafoods a bit squeamish, but hey, calamari should be cleaned before cooking and eating, right? Here’s what it looks like before they are cooked.
And here’s how to prep squid before cooking. First you pull the legs off the body, yeah, doesn’t that sound lovely?
Then remove the hard part on the bottom half of the squid by just pinching a hold of it and then pulling it out. The part is embedded on one side of the tubular part (now doesn’t that sound scientific? Ha!) and looks like clear plastic.
Then from the other half of the squid, remove the beak which is located in the center of the legs. Aaron’s got a hold of it in this pic.
Just pinch it and pull it out.
Yep, the whole string thing and all. . .
Some people like to take the eggs out, too, but I like to eat those, so I leave them in.
Rinse off the squid, and I like to soak it in salt water for about an hour or so before cooking. And that’s it.
Along with the squid, Aaron’s brother, Matthew, wanted to make something for his birthday, too. He decided to make some sushi for him. This is his first attempt. Not bad!
He has tuna, cucumber, avocado, and rice wrapped in nori. Matty followed the instructions to make the sushi rice from a sushi recipe book. I think the ingredients are rice vinegar and sugar mixed into freshly cooked sushi rice.
Brian made Aaron some pancakes this morning out of organic pastry flour, egg, cashew-sesame milk, and a little baking powder. We make cashew-sesame milk out of blending raw cashews and sesames with a little water in the blender. We use this in place of cow’s milk. It whips up just like regular pancakes and cooks just the same on the griddle, too. It goes really well with maple syrup. I should have taken a picture of his pancakes, but they ate them too fast!
Andrew, Aaron’s oldest brother, contributed to the affair by eating everything. Well, that’s not entirely true, Andrew did cook a loaf of bread, too.
I really thank God that I’ve been able to live to see this day. I have to remember that each day is precious, and I should not wait until birthdays to remember that. I thank God for my family and am so happy that I have these days to spend with them. Another thing that magnifies that is on this same day the fire department was busy trying to coax a man down from the top of a church a few blocks away. He was up there naked trying to commit suicide. How is it that some of us what to live so much, while others just want to end it all?
Nice but crazy day, Aaron’s birthday was. . .
Marlakins
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02.27.09
Posted in Uncategorized, cooking at 5:02 pm by Administrator
I have never considered myself a gourmet cook. I’ve been more of a “practical” cook, while my hubby has been more the gourmet cook around here. But he doesn’t cook Filipino food, so this is my recipe for Filipino chicken adobo. It’s a simple recipe, and since I realized that I didn’t have any pictures of it, I cooked it for the boys today. This is for Laura 
fresh off the stove.
Here’s the recipe:
~5 whole chicken legs with the legs and thighs cut apart (some people use white meat, but I prefer dark)
~1/4 cup water
~1/2 cup organic apple cider vinegar (or regular vinegar for those who don’t care about organics. Also if you like a more vinegary taste, of course add more vinegar)
~1/4 cup soy sauce (if you like things salty, you can add more soy sauce, if you care about organics, then I use organic Tamari)
~1/4 tsp pepper corns which I crush part of them (again, if you like more spice, add more)
~6 large garlic cloves coarsely crushed and chopped
~2 or 3 bay leaves
~1 scallion chopped for garnish
Cooking instructions:
In a skillet wide enough to accommodate all the chicken, deep enough to accommodate all the liquid, and with a cover place all the ingredients except the scallions. Bring it to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for about 40 minutes to an hour or until the chicken is fully cooked. Check occasionally to make sure the chicken is submerged in the sauce while cooking or baste the chicken with the sauces occasionally. When cooked scoop out the chicken onto a serving dish, pour the sauce over the chicken, and sprinkle the scallion garnish before serving. Viola! Serve with rice and any other veggie dish.
Now there are various ways to cook this as some adobo recipes use pork or fish or beef or even a combination of meats with chicken gizzards and livers. I usually like it with gizzards and liver, but my local Whole Foods didn’t have any organic chicken gizzards or livers today, wah. Some like to thicken up the sauce a bit, so a liver sauce can be made for that. Basically you cook up some liver and make a paste of it and add it towards the end of cooking the adobo. And then there are even those who fry up the chicken a little first with the garlic, and then add all the wet ingredients. I do it the easy way and just toss it all in and let it go.
Another comment is that chicken can have a lot of fat sometimes, so if the chicken fat bothers you, then just trim the fat before cooking and also remove the fat as it comes up during cooking.
Another fairly easy Filipino dish is lumpia shanghai. There are actually many different kinds of lumpia, which is basically a wrapper that is filled with ingredients of any kind. The amount of time and energy required would depend upon what you want to put into the wrappers. Some have lots of stir fried veggies, others have slivered palm hearts, and yet others like Korean style even have noodles in them. Not all lumpias are fried, either, as some are eaten raw. So some lumpias are time consuming to make while others not. However, I found a website that shows how to make lumpia shanghai pretty quickly and easily. Here’s the link. http://onefilipinodish.com/blog/2009/01/lumpia-shanghai/ He made a nice little video, and how much clearer can that be? This is what lumpia shanghai looks like when done. They are generally the smaller of all the different rolls.
Well, I thought those two Filipino dishes are amongst the easiest to start with. I’ll try to add more later like kare kare (an oxtail dish), and deela. Not sure I’m spelling that one right, but deela is aka lengua aka tongue. But I also like pancits, which are different kinds of noodle dishes with different kinds of noodles–i.e. rice noodles, egg noodles, wheat noodles, mung bean noodles, etc. I think I’m a bit out of practice cooking these things especially since they aren’t exactly considered the most healthful dishes being fried and all with lot of meats and fats, but hey, that’s part of me heritage. So I did grow up eating quite of bit of this stuff. . .
Okay, hope you like it!
Marlakins
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12.27.08
Posted in Uncategorized, cooking, knitting and crocheting at 8:10 pm by Administrator
Well, Christmas is over. . .
Due to some unexpected circumstances, our Christmas gathering was a tad smaller, thus the smaller cake this year and fewer desserts. We also did something different in that this year we did a potluck-style dinner, instead of one or a couple of us having the brunt of preparing the whole meal. I think it turned out pretty well with lots of food, anyway. Even Aaron, my youngest son got into the potluck thing and made custard puddings for us! Here he is in front of his creations.
He did come up a bit short, so some of us split a serving. The ingredients are coconut milk, eggs, cream, sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon. At the rate this kid is going, he’s gonna have a lucky wife, heheh. I know I feel blessed that Brian is a good cook! At the very least, I feel I won’t have to worry about Aaron feeding himself out of cans and boxes when he finally goes off on his own. At 14 this kid already knows how to cook and follow recipes. He even whips up his own whipped cream.
I didn’t take pics of all the food as there turned out to be quite a bit! We had BBQ ribs, and beans and bacon, corned bread, cubed squash, raw kale salad; Brian cooked a pork casserole with more beans!, seasoned rice, and even sushi.
I did catch Brian loading up his plate. . .
Aside from lots of eating and yakking, we try to bring things to keep us occupied until midnight. So a group of us can be just yakking away, while another group is watching a movie, or we also play games. Our family has this long-standing tradition that on Christmas eve we meet at my parents’ house and we all spend the night. Basically it turns out to be a big slumber party. But instead of waiting until Christmas morning to open presents, we wait until midnight. When the clock strikes midnight we all drop what we’re doing and rip open all the packages, ha! Then we hit the hay and get up to more feasting in the morning, ha! My kids have gotten used to this, so they look forward to this. They also get into the spirit of preparing things, and this year they wanted to make some small gifts for everyone. About two years ago Matty made hats for everyone using a large corker. This year Matty drew some pictures and laminated them to make book markers. Here’s a pic of some of them in progress.
While most of his designs were of dragons and the like, he did think of me and made a girlie one that is actually part of one of his old stories he called, The Gooseberry Fairy. The Gooseberry Fairy lived in a place with lots of mushrooms. I loved his pictures of them, so he drew a little sampling for my book marker. Here’s what it looks like.
Aaron made book thongs for everyone using beads and Chinese knots. Here are some of what he made.
Andrew wasn’t sure what he would contribute, but he ended up writing a short story sci-fi and recited it to us.
Since we had a laugh last year with Matty’s “face assembling” game. He pulled it back out again this year and added more features. Here’s a sample of some of the goofy faces we came up with.
LOL We managed to get a kick out of it again this year, so maybe we’ll expand it more next year and add prizes, ha ha!
See, even my dad got into it. And yes, he is sitting on a “tiny” chair! That chair has a little history to it. Brian made it for the boys when they were very little. They have long since outgrown those chairs, but my dad took them and still uses them for things like gardening and arranging the wood in the fireplace, etc. So he told Brian this Christmas as he pulled out his trusty kiddie chair that, “These chairs are the best thing you’ve made, Brian.”
I didn’t knit as many Christmas presents this year as I pretty much ran out of time. However, I did finally get my feet wet with multidirectional knitting that I have been wanting to learn. Here’s a pic of my first multidirectional project. It’s a scarf or sash. The pattern is taken (and slightly modified by me because I’m using much smaller yarn) from a book by Iris Schreier called Lacy Little Knits. I think Schreier is another lady who belongs in the genius category of knitters. Once I got started on this project, I really loved it.
In fact I loved it so much that I decided to make a few more for my sisters, my mom, and my aunt. It was just a little something to add to the other gifts we got them. Here’s a pic of the completed scarves. Since the yarn is much thinner than that pattern called for, I added more stitches.
And here are the scarf recipients showing the different ways to wear them, heheh.
As you can see our Christmas this year was quite casual. At about midnight we all looked like we could use some makeup, especially me! Ha ha! My aunt had her sash around her waist, my mom had the pink one around her neck, as does my sister next to her in her scrubs (she just got of work from the hospital), my other sister wearing it as a hair band, and yours truly off on the far right wearing it around me neck. I love the construction of this scarf that I’ve started knitting a blanket for Matty using the same concept. I’ll try to take a pic of that once it’s done and share later.
Well, I could go on with pics, but I think that’s enough for now. Besides, looks like the boys are ready for reading. . ., so best be off for now.
Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Even though Christmas has passed, there’s still some partying left as New Years approaches! Woo hoo hoo hoo! LOL
Marlakins
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08.17.08
Posted in Uncategorized, cooking, gardening at 8:38 pm by Administrator
Patti’s descriptions of her bountiful garden this year has inspired me to share a bit of our bounty. Brian’s actually the green thumb around here, and I’m just his side kick who enjoys the spoils. Unlike Patti, who has a nice large yard, we have a small yard, which doesn’t have full sunlight in much of the area, so we have only a small section good for planting. This year we tried a couple crops that we have never grown before–summer squash and green beans. Here’s a picture of our little veggie patch.
The summer squash is in the front with the large leaves. Behind them growing on vines is the green beans. Behind the green beans is our nectarine tree, and on the right of that is our miniature orange tree.
The squash have actually started growing in rather nicely, but can’t be easily seen unless you peer in between the leaves. Here’s a pic looking in between the leaves.
Early last week we started to harvest some of the squash. Here’s a pic of Brian holding some of them. I like to take a pic of them in his hands to help with size reference. Besides, he’s very happy when he harvests anything he’s grown, so he’s more than happy to show these off, heheh.
We started to get more than we could eat in one day. And after a while, it gets to be a bit much to have squash every day, ha! Here’s another batch we collected.
So what to do with all the extras? After all there are still more outside ready for picking each day, ack! Well, Brian decided to dehydrate some for later use in soups and such. So he stuck them in our Excalibur dehydrator and this is what resulted.
It turned out that he set the dehydrator a little high, so these came out rather crispy. When we tasted them we realized that they tasted a bit like sweet potato chip, and so now the bottle is almost empty, ha!
So moving right along to our green beans. I call them string beans, the seed package called them Bean Pole Blue Lake. The back of the package writes:
“Some say pole beans have better flavor than bush beans. If this is so, Blue Lake would support that suggestion. Outstanding flavor combined with high yields make growing these vigorous 5′to 6′ vines worth the time. Excellent canned, frozen, or eaten fresh. White seeded. Mosaic resistant. See inside for instructions on how to build a bean teepee.”
Okay, so today, we got a chance to give that description a taste test. And yes, they are yummy! Here’s a closeup of the vine before we picked the string beans off. I circled the beans because they’re kinda hard to see otherwise.
And here’s a closer up shot.
And another shot with the green beans in Brian’s hand for size reference.
Here’s a pic of our arugula patch. We actually planted this a few years ago, and each year it just comes up vigorously on its own. We actually have to thin it out, ack! This year it gave us so many seeds that they were falling in between our backyard bricks and started growing in between our bricks! Yikes!
And then we also got some bananas this year. These are the types of bananas that are cooked. Here’s a pic of Aaron, my 14-year-old, holding one stalk. It actually had three tiers originally, but I cut off the top tier and gave it to my mom when they were visiting. It is also a bit green in this pic, but the tree was getting a bit unruly, so Brian trimmed it back. But it’s okay, tho, as all we have to do is wait for it to ripen.
Brian has found that these bananas actually taste fine eaten raw, but ordinarily we have been cooking them. The above bananas did eventually ripen. Here’s what they looked like fried. For those who are familiar with foods from tropical climates, bananas like these are commonly eaten with sugar sprinkled on top or some other sweet syrup as a desert or snack. There are lots of different kinds of bananas, i.e. red bananas, green bananas, finger bananas, bananas you can fry, bananas that can be eaten raw, etc.
And here’s what they look like when they’re boiled.
Okay, I’d better quit with the pics for now before my blog goes on strike again, ha!
Toodles for now!
Marlakins
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07.25.08
Posted in Health-related--Natural Alternative Treatments, Uncategorized, cooking at 5:41 pm by Administrator
Last week I spent some time at the hospital with my mom. Since I’m pretty picky with my foods, I decided I was going to pack all my own food. But what’s the easiest thing to pack? I figured I’d take some sandwich ingredients and make my own organic sandwiches. I tried to select everything carefully and decided I was going to treat myself a bit and buy some organic mustard. I don’t have the bottle anymore, so can’t quote the exact ingredients, but suffice it to say that all the ingredients looked natural with normal food ingredients labeled as “organic,” except there was “one” ingredient that stopped me for a second. . . “organic spices.” Hmm. I knew that “spices” is one of the ingredients which is known to be a “possible” red flag to MSG. So whenever I see spices as an ingredient, I just don’t buy it. But gee, since it was “organic” spice, I thought maybe it’s okay. I don’t buy many pre-parepared, so I don’t think I recalled ever seeing organic spices before as an ingredient. So I bought it, and boy was it tasty! When I got home, and after three days of eating the organic mustard with it’s “organic spice,” Brian tells me, “I don’t think you should be eating that stuff. Don’t you know that spice can still have MSG even if it’s organic?” Ack! I suppose it makes sense, but I tell you, reading labels gets me wacky, and that’s why I generally don’t buy many pre-prepared foods. Even when you read the fine print, they still sneak in those unwanted ingredients. So I tossed the rest of the mustard out, but now I was spoiled. It just tasted so good. But, a quick internet search revealed that making your own mustard is rather easy! So today I tried it, and it was tasty, too!
Apparently, there are a lot of ways to make homemade mustard, but I picked the easiest one I could find for starters. I can get fancier later, if I decide to. The ingredients I used is organic powdered mustard, organic apple cider vinegar, and maple syrup. All you do is take some powdered mustard (you can use seeds and grind them yourself, if you like) and add a bit of apple cider vinegar and mix until you get a consistency of ketchup. Then add whatever spices you like and a bit of something sweet like maple syrup or honey or sugar. Mix, mix and let sit for a while (I did for about an hour, but it can be shorter or longer), and viola! Mustard spread! Minus the MSG or other hidden ingredients.
Okay, so another revelation I had today was that “citric acid,” which is so common in so many pre-prepared products is also a source of MSG. Oye! I have been trying to stay away from citric acid “additives” anyway because of my skin issues, but I have not been avoiding it with the foods for the rest of my family. And now today I saw this article “The Difficulty of Keeping MSG free” by Jack Samuels. Here’s a little excerpt from the article.
“The food ingredient “citric acid” provides us with a good example of why MSG-sensitive people with little tolerance are having difficulty staying well. Many people believe that “citric acid” comes from citrus fruits, and since most people can tolerate citrus fruits, “citric acid” should not be a problem. However, most of the “citric acid” used today is made from corn rather than from citrus fruits. The Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) is a major producer of “citric acid.”
“Citric acid” is produced by fermentation of crude sugars. When “citric acid” is produced from corn, manufacturers do not take the time or undertake the expense to remove all corn protein. During processing, the remaining protein is hydrolyzed, resulting in some processed free glutamic acid (MSG). “Citric acid” may also interacts with any protein in the food to which it is added, freeing up more glutamic acid.”
The thing which bothers me even more is that some of the supplements I have taken on occasion in the past for both my family and myself have been citric acid chelated. We tended to avoid the amino acid chelates because of another article Brian and I read on amino acid chelates that appeared to damage the livers of some cows. We figured if it was damaging cow livers, then it may also damage human livers, so we opted to avoid supplements chelated with amino acids for the citric acid chelates. Now, after reading Jack Samuels’ article, it may very well be that we’ve been taking in MSG all this time with our supplements, oye! This is very frustrating, and very annoying, and just another reason why I really try to avoid bottled supplements. I hope I don’t start finding problems with herbal supplements, too. But for cost effectiveness and my own quality control, I’ve been buying my herbs in bulk anyway and preparing most of them at home. But still, the tinctures are convenient to buy ready-made.
Okay, so now that I got that off my chest, better get back to working on dinner.
Marlakins
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