Hummingbirds

I love hummingbirds. They are just such amazing little jewels, zooming around the backyard. We have had mixed success attracting them to a feeder until recently,  so now we are starting to refill on a pretty regular basis! 

The commercial goop is garbage. It's sticky, a ridiculous red color, and outrageously expensive! My mom and dad figured out a perfect recipe decades ago, so I made up a batch tonight. 

Simple supply list: I had an empty gallon orange juice container that I cleaned out, a large saucepan, and good old white, granulated sugar. Yup, no food coloring necessary once the little guys have found your location! 

Bring a half gallon of tap water to a boil with four cups of granulated sugar, stirring occasionally to make all the sugar dissolve. When the solution becomes clear, turn off the heat and let it cool. I only boil a half gallon of water with the full amount of sugar for ease in refilling the jug. When the solution is cool enough to handle safely, pour it into the jug with the remaining water, cap tightly and shake to reach the proper dilution. That's it! Just refrigerate and pour into feeder when needed. You may want to occasionally shake the jug if your solution starts to crystallize back out, or you can simply boil it all again. 

Enjoy your bird show!

More pickle pictures

Missed the bowl when icing the brine!

Armenian cucumber pickles part two

Apparently my blogger account ate a post in the middle of the pickling saga, so here it is again, out of order. 

Peeling the pickles into the sink, make sure you stopper it and do not put this down your disposal! Only your plumber will be happy about that! 

Pickles are done

Left the pickles brining for a couple of days in the cooler. I forgot to change the water one day, so I ended up throwing out some of the top ones that dried out. Weighed them to make sure I had five pounds, then cooked them in a cider vinegar/sugar solution with garlic, celery seed, mustard seed, powdered ginger and turmeric. 

I run my jars through a hot dishwasher cycle, and pull them out during the dry time, then pack the spears as tightly as I can with a pair of tongs. Jar lids and rings were scalded in simmering water, then screwed on top after pouring in enough liquid to reach within a quarter inch of the top. I then inverted the jars for 12 hours to cool completely. Check the seals at that point by tapping the tops, if any have not sealed, refrigerate and use within one month. 

And here's the finished product! I'll give them at least a week to develop the flavor before I open a jar.

Armenian cucumber bread and butter pickles

Dearest hubby loves bread and butter pickles. He's Portugeuse, so he adores sweet and salty,  while I'm Norwegian (mostly) so I prefer my pickles sour and dill.

We went camping a couple of time in August and I let the garden go, so when we returned I had four monster Armenian cucumbers! This was the first time I had ever tried growing Armenian cukes, and I was very pleased with them. They are actually a type of melon, which is nice because they don't get bitter in the horrible summer heat we have here. If you pick them small enough the rind is crispy and edible.

These are nice small cukes picked at the right time!

The first thing I did was slice the ends off the cukes and then cut them into pieces just slightly shorter than my canning jars. I peeled these fairly quickly over the sink with a good sharp vegetable peeler. Make sure you put a stopper in the sink before you start peeling. You don't want to put all this down the garbage disposal for two reasons: It makes fantastic compost material, and the only person who will be pleased if you use the disposal for this will be your plumber, trust me!

After peeling I halved the sections and scraped the seeds out with a spoon. Add this to your compost heap as well, or save a few seeds for next year if you are so inclined. The halved chunks are then sliced into spears lengthwise, roughly 5 - 8 per half. Don't worry too much about precision here, that's what makes homemade pickles more interesting. The sliced spears are all tossed into my large stainless pot, and I threw in a few tiny sliced onions on the top. I don't grow onions myself, we don't use them often enough and they are so inexpensive most of the time it just doesn't make sense for my household. These little guys were a dime each at a local stand so they don't exactly break the bank!

After I sliced all the produce, I poured one half cup of kosher salt over the top and then carefully mixed everything with my hands to get the salt evenly distributed. I then added cold water and ice until the mixture is submerged. Let this sit for a couple of hours. 

Notice what happens when you don't aim very well pouring the ice into the pot!

A new page

Well, after a ridiculously long hiatus, I have returned to this forum, with the hope I can actually create some meaningful content this time around. Long story short, the last 3 1/2 years were not a happy time in my world. I went into an intensive school program, only to flunk out at the very end, my father died after a long, sad battle with Alzeimers, my daughter was diagnosed with mental disease, and my youngest son got released from the military due to a (non-life threatening) injury and got his girlfriend pregnant!

It's been fun. What is the old joke? The Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times!"

So anyway, this will be my personal diary, therapy, and maybe, if someone reads it, a little bit of fun.

My newest impetus is that I LOVE to start projects, but I NEVER finish them. It's really rather embarrassing. I'm like a dog when he sees a squirrel, "oh, look over there. Oh, over here, shiny! Hey, something smells good! What was I doing again?"

So maybe, just maybe, if I have to post these projects, I'll actually finish someing occasionally.

Group Therapy Reunion

Way back when, in the mid-70's I hung around with a group of girls in Southern California. Some of these friendships started in the third grade, some junior high school (which is what we called it back in the day!), and a few from high school. Anyway, we would congregate and chat and gossip and generally do the things that females do. Fast forward 30 years, and we've pretty much lost touch with one another since we've all scattered as adults. But lo and behold, thanks to the magic of the internet, a couple of us hooked up several months ago, and gradually the old gang had all been found. One intrepid gal (bless you Janine!) suggested a reunion...and the excitement began! The meeting had to be postponed by a month when someone (ahem) had a little issue with a nasty gall bladder, but all her friends rallied and graciously deferred the party until she could attend as well. What a wonderful bunch of friends!!!