Applesauce & Anniversaries

In our travels the other day we ran across a neigborhood sign...'Free Apples'. Cue Bat-Turn onto the street to follow the signs!

The man handing out the apples had two trees that had produced a truly gargantuan number of apples, he had them in large brown grocery bags lining his driveway--Red and Yellow Delicious varieties. Most were smaller because he said he hadn't gotten to thinning the fruit off the trees that year (been there, done that), and combined with a bumper crop year he was anxious to get rid of the things while they were still good.

After we got done petting his cool old Basset mix dog and visiting with him, we bagged up a bunch in exchange for a promise of more bags (he had run out and still had a ton of apples to bag up) and some eggs from our hens. So we trucked home the apples and ran back over with the eggs and bags...

Next was to set to work making applesauce! It came out great--I peeled and cored the apples and popped them into the slow cooker for about 6 hours with a few spices and a bit of vanilla. The house smelled wonderful! We kept some of the finished products out to eat and froze the rest of it, applesauce is terrific for adding to cookie dough to sweeten and moisten it. Yay for neighbors who share their windfalls!


Also this week was the 20th anniversary with that darling husband of mine, double yay! I wanted something a bit special and unique for an anniversay gift this year (anyone who hangs with me for that long deserves a prize) so the kid and I went shopping and found ourselves at Cheshire Antiques, a cool multi-seller antique shop here in town. After wandering around the store a bit I got an idea--to create a '20' out of various objects, kind a build-it-yourself 20th anniversary gift!

I scavenged a large number '2', a road sign number set with reflectors...but could find nothing to serve as a '0'. The staff pitched in to help me--the store has a second story that I cannot access since I can't climb stairs due to chronic gimpiness. Two employees went up there and one of the ladies came back down with several objects and I settled on a HEAVY glass and brass porthole cover.

Great, I've got my 20!  Hmmm, now for something to mount it on...a bit more prowling and I discovered a box full of fruit crate end pieces, including one with a 'Pure Gold' paper label on it--perfect! To top it all off I had a gift certificate in my purse that I'd been hauling around for about 5 years--in the past everything I've wanted at Chesire has been either $4 or $400 so the certificate had gone unused. Today was it's day to shine, and I ended up paying 35 cents out of pocket. Thanking the store staff for their awesome service we left.

Now off to Meek's hardware store, also here in town, to put it all together! Luckily the number 2 and the porthole cover already had perfect mounting holes in them, I figured if I bought the hardware, the folks at the store might be kind enough to drill a couple of holes in the fruit crate box end so that I could take the parts home and assemble them. Figuring out the hardware we needed was a bit tricky since the '2' was MUCH thinner than the '0' so would require shorter bolts. And the brass-and-glass porthole cover for the '0' was MUCH heavier so would need beefier hardware to hold it on...The kid and I were standing in front of Meek's wall 'o hardware bits juggling parts when one of the employees happened by and asked if we needed help...boy did we ever! I knew what I wanted but couldn't reach some of the stuff--their display had been designed for people taller than I so OF COURSE I couldn't see the exact parts I needed...ain't that always the way?

It was a slow time for the store, so by now several employees had appeared. One of the guys kind of took over the project and hauled all my stuff to the front of the store where he spread everything out on a worktable so we could assemble everything. I'd asked if they could just drill three holes for me, but the guy ended up actually building my 20th anniversary gift to completion! Once they started and ran back and forth getting the right hardware they got so enthused I didn't have the heart to stop them, they got so into it...plus they know their products best so I went with their recommendations. They even had lovely brass hardware to match the porthole cover! The Meek's folks were so kind, I explained that because my hands were messed up I couldn't hold a drill any more so they just charged me a few bucks for the hardware--small towns are wonderful!

But damn if between all of us if it didn't work out, go together in the end and turn out AWESOME!
And here's the finished gift!

It was just one of those times where fate smiled on me, people I didn't even know went above and beyond the call pitched in to help me and everything just kind of weirdly fell together.
J. likes it, now to hang it on the wall!

Something Icky This Way Comes 3: Butterscotch Zucchini Seal Burp Balls

Finally getting to the back of this wretched recipe box...

I was amused to find a bunch of recipes that used zucchini, all dating from the time when my dad decided we were going to put in a big raised-bed garden.
When I was a kid my dad was huge into fruit and vegetable gardening, we also raised rabbits, turkeys and chickens for meat and eggs (and a few as pets). Our family did the self-sustaining urban farming thing long before it was hip.
We did all our own growing, harvesting and canning, ditto for processing animals for table.
My dad, being thrifty, would get enormous packets of zucchini seeds. And not being wasteful, he couldn't stand to only plant what we needed and toss the rest.

So he'd plant ALL the seeds.

And anyone who's grown zucchini knows what a damned weed it is. Pretty shortly you've got so much zucchini that you consider building another room onto the house just for squash storage. To make things even more fun, it all comes ripe in the same few short weeks.
The kicker in our area was that all of the other people in our town grew zucchini as well. And my dad, being thrifty...well, he couldn't bear to throw away all that thrice-damned zucchini.
We all liked zucchini...but criminy.
So here are a few of the zucchini recipes my mom had gleefully hoarded, no doubt prized for the sheer volume of squash they used up.

Spicy Zucchini Wheat Bread. Hmmm...OK. Looks alright but has a high, fussy PITA value as it's labor intensive; the entire back of the recipe card was heavily notated. And only uses 1 1/2 cups of the damned squash.

Zucchini Pancakes..ooh..these use a respectable 2 cups of squash and could be nice for breakfast with some butter and syrup--wait, what? Salt, pepper and catsup?!

Greek Zucchini and Macaroni...ulp. Better, uses 3 cups of the stuff. But some of these ingredients in the 70's in our small town may as well have been on the moon.

NOW we're talkin'! Each of these bad boys uses 4 CUPS of the demon squash. Although how in the Hell zucchini and horseradish are considered Dutch Relish I have NO idea. The Zucchini Olive Salad is just a giant bowl of diced squash with a tiny amount of dressing mixed into it, this 'recipe' clearly is saying, "Just shut up and shovel this stuff down your neck already, we're drowning in zucchini, here!"

But getting back to the weirdo recipes still lurking in this tin box...

Not To Be Outdone stage 3...Tupperware parties were where it was at in the 70's. When my mom had hers, the Tupperware rep passed out 'recipes' that hinged on using your new Tupperware (pretty sharp for back then, huh?).
But when I first ran across these odd little slips of orange paper, it took me a minute to figure out the strange notations.

Seal? Burp? Shake into little balls?! Has Bettie been into the sandpaper bread wine?!

Seal, wink and shake sounds like a series of country line dance moves. Now, everybody grapevine!
And oh yeah, using 7Up in everything was quite the thing for a while, too. It was a very odd, embarassing time to be alive.

On the subject of desserts, how about some Spicy Ice Cream Pie? Applesauce cake mix and maple nut ice cream. Then frost that mess. Another fussy, demanding, PITA recipe that orders you around. Up yours, weird piecake!

Again, I sense that this recipe singlehandedly tanked both applesauce cake mix AND maple nut ice cream.

Moving on to Peanut Butter Fruit Squares! A lovely desert that...uh...wait, what the Hell IS this glop?
One bite and all your teeth would fall out, I swear.

Ribbon Fantasy Fudge..which sounds like it's giving the recipe above some serious competition when it comes to speed-rotting your teeth. And secret ingredient, my eye--I think that marshmallow creme was invented strictly for it's ability to freak out the person who's eating anything made with it, so that they cough, choke and gasp, "I ate WHAT?!"

This is all too modern. We should get back to basics.
Like Steamed Pudding, right? Right...?
I admit, it's hard to find the ground suet department in the grocery store. And you wouldn't think something old-fashioned, when women's time was at a premium and they were usually cooking dinner, nursing a baby, churning butter and repairing the roof all at the same time, would end up being yet another fussy, demanding, pay attention to meeeee kinda recipe, yet there this one is.

On the plus side, it includes a recipe for Hard Sauce...
Wait--NO IT DAMNED WELL DOESN'T. I see NO booze there what so freakin' ever.

Sigh...
Where's that sandpaper bread wine...

Y'know, eventually ya just say the Hell with it and make things like Butter Sticks.

Ahhh...my old nemesis, Bisquick. Just me, thee, a stick of butter and some cold water. A meal in itself.

I think for dessert I'll make a Butterscotch Yule Log.

But why bother with cutting it into slices when you can just peel back that waxed paper, plonk down in front of the TV and gnaw on that bad boy?

Pass the sandpaper wine, would ya?

Something Icky This Way Comes 2: Mayo And Tuna And Meat, Oh My!

Welp, let's move on to main dishes!
Spicy Beef Cesspool Casserole, sporting a breathtaking FIVE teaspoons of bouillon in this indigestable salt bomb. Just to make sure they've added green chilies, if the sodium don't get ya the sleep dep from the late-night heartburn will.

The combination of stewed tomatoes AND taco sauce only serve to make this look like a crime scene. Obligatory Bisquick wads wonderously made even worst with the addition of cornmeal, rigidly spaced.

OK, maybe something simple. I know, Macaroni and Cheese!

Wait...what?! A freaking CUP of stuffed green olives?! And the 'cheese' is a combination of parmesan and 'grated' American cheese?! What planet did this recipe originate on?!

Well...maybe Pork Chops with Cheese Biscuits will save the day...

Or not. The meat is either slathered in melted chocolate or suffocating in a Bisquick and bouillon glaze Hell. Want to bet which it is? The impenetrable biscuithenge wall surrounding the meat like it's a ritual sacrifice is a nice touch though, props to the photog...

Sigh.
How about a sandwich? Maybe a nice Reuben Foldover...? TWO CUPS of Bisquick in this bad boy.

For extra fun tell your kids you've made homemade pizza pockets and watch them bite into a corned beef & sauerkraut nightmare of epic proportions! Just make sure to lay down a tarp first.

Mushroom Cheese Appetizers, anyone? Willing to bet that the 'extra fuss' will be in the ER around 2AM when the winning combination of sausage, onion and that whopping 3/4 of a cup of mayonnaise kicks in.

These were the kind of thing that after the party the hostess would be finding for weeks tucked into the potted plants and hidden behind the knick-knacks on the mantle.

Mayonnaise, like Jello and tuna, was a staple of the 1970's, no dish was complete without it. As proof I give you...BLT Dip!
Yeah baby...a metric ton of mayo, a touch of sour cream and bacon. A meal in itself.

And should your sodium levels fall dangerously low...never fear, scoop that glop up with potato chips!
Why was it the life expectancy rate was so low in the 1970's...?

Get ready--it's time for Mayo2: The Queasyning! See if you can spot a theme, here...
And the Bisquick is back. Hello darkness, my old friend...

Layered Tuna Bake. Or, how to combine a bunch of perfectly fine-on-their-own ingredients into the culinary equivelant of Mr. Hyde.
If it helps, just envision a hot tuna fish sandwich. With cheese.
Yeah...there it is. Lordy, where's that wine from the sandpaper bread?!

Oh...I'm sorry, that last was nothing like a hot tuna fish sandwich that's been left in the package tray of a '52 Buick for 8 hours on an August day in Death Valley.
This one is. Tuna Cheese Braid! Yay!

This hot mess clocks in with a 1/2 cup of mayonaise. Hot mayonaise, keep in mind. Willing to bet that the white wine in this recipe is for the chef to drink just to get through making this oven-baked nightmare.

Deep Dish Taco Squares.
When I was a kid I saw a Star Trek episode that featured a burrowing creature that suffered burns and looked just like this. So I think I'll reinvent this as Horta Casserole.

Only 1/2 a pound of ground beef, but between the 1/2 cup of sour cream, the 1/2 cup of mayo and the 1/2 cup of cheese, your arteries have seen their last sunset. Life finds a way, and so does Bisquick.

Only one more post to go. Hang in there.

Something Icky This Way Comes...

So today I was trying to hunt down a recipe and ran across a little metal recipe box I'd given my mom years ago that has now made it's way back to me. Today was the first time I'd looked through it...and man, mom had some weird shit in there!

Thank heaven she loved us, as I can honestly say I have NEVER tasted any of these recipes. And once I post them here, they will be burned at midnight at the new moon, the ashes buried with 18 cloves of garlic, a vial of holy water and the earth salted so that nothing ever grows there again. I may rig up some kind of black sarcaphogus to bury them in, actually...

Join me as we dive headlong into the 1970's...that ugly time of Jello, mayonnaise, Bisquick and tuna. Frequently mixed together.

Buckle up, kids...this Pandora's Lunchbox was FULL of recipes so I'm gonna space this out over three posts.

The little recipe box was put out by the Bisquick folks, so naturally it was top-heavy with every Bisquick recipe under the sun and then some. And food styling was...um...to be kind, in it's infancy. So yeah, the pictures are genuinely nauseating and what's worse, are I'm sure an honest depiction of the end product of the recipe.

Like Italian Casserole!
Seems fairly harmless, just one of those 'Meh, dump everything in a big dish, lump some wads of Bisquick on it and you're good to go' things...until you come to the screeching halt that is...a layer of American cheese slices.

Which does not belong?

Not to be outdone is Italian Chili with Dumplings!
YES, I said 'Italian Chili'. This mess looks suspiciously like someone just grabbed some ingredients out of the pantry while blackout drunk and threw it in a pan...but it's not the worst offender in that area today, believe me.

With the requisite Bisquick wads, of course. Notice that nowhere in this recipe is chili used or mentioned other than the nonsensical title.

Not To Be Outdone 2, The Sickening : Block Party Beans!
Now we're talkin'! There's that pantry dump to use up those cans of weird shit that have been lurking back there since time itself began. It's like a scavenger hunt of every canned legume known to man. I give it an 8 out of 10, two points deducted for forgetting the Jelly Bean/Coffee Bean garnish.

That'll teach Karen from down the street to leave you off the Block Party Planning Committee ever again, that bitch...

Apricot Prune Upside Down Cake!
Surprised, aren't you? Didn't know that cake could be depressing and sad, did you? Dried apricots. Dried prunes. Lurking Bisquick. It's like some dusty, weirdo survival food that even the Donner Party would reject.

I'm sure the reason for leaving the pan over the cake for a few minutes is so your children don't burst into tears of despair when you announce you've made a cake...and they are then greeted with this slimey mess.
Note: as with the chili-less Italian 'chili', there is no cake in this 'cake'.

But what, I ask you, WHAT are the 1970's without a Jello mold or two? Or twenty?
Molded Vegetable Relish, the perfect alternative to that unholy apricot-prune thing that made your children need 16 years of therapy. Just when lime Jello seems like an acceptable alternative to dried fruit and Bisquick wads, fill that sucker to the brim with chopped vegatables, every child's favorite! No eating around them, kids!

Because who doesn't love 'em some lime Jello paired with green peppers? Both green, right? OK, we're good. Just make sure you make this abomination in a bicycle helmet, as shown.

Barf in a bike helmet not your thing? Well you're in luck, 'cause we've also got Molded Chef's Salad!*
Retch along with me as we explore the wonders of Lemon Jello, vinegar, strips of cheese, HAM (I shit you not), onions and more of that goddamned ever-present green pepper.
The best part about this picture is the Glaive-like shape of the finished product. Who knew they had Jello on Krull?

*Few actual Chef's Salad ingredients, sorry.

But wait, don't decide until you've seen Frozen Fruit Salad!
IT'S SCREAMING AT ME. I'm...I'm not the only one who sees a happy, screaming face in there, am I...? Good. *whew*  Also, this thing is the color of Spam.

 Fun game: cover the lettuce up, show this pic to friends and ask them: Jello mold or fancy artisan soap bar?

Last but not least in the land of Jello...
Creamy Fruit Salad! 
Apricot Jello + mayonaise = Flesh fruit salad. JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL

 I *did* warn you about the mayonaise thing. Willing to bet that the flesh tones of this biopsy-on-a-plate singlehandedly meant the death of apricot-flavored Jello.

Not your thing, either? How about Jolly Gelatin Gem Cake?

Oh...haha...did we say 'cake? Silly us, again; no actual 'cake is present, sorry. Closest you're gonna get is a soggy layer of graham cracker crumbs entombed in an acre of butter.

Well, if you can't have cake, how about some Parmesan Wine bread?
No, it's not just you, that shit straight-up looks like particle board. Or 15 grit sandpaper. Use any leftovers to refinish your outdoor deck. Just reading the recipe makes me feel like I've got a lump of that dry shit clogging my gullet. Dry, dry, dry.

Even the saucy promise of a bit of naughtiness with the wine is cruelly yanked away with the suggestion to use apple juice instead. Why not complete the trifecta of dry, dour and depressing and just use vinegar? The Jello folks certainly didn't shy away from vinegar when push came to shove, buddy.
Bisquuuiick...

Never fear, there are other breads!
No. It is. It is SO bread, it says it's bread. Sesame Cheese Casserole Bread! Although no way is that a mere 3 tablespoons of sesame seeds crusted onto that doorstop. Maybe it's Halloween and it's just cosplaying a curling stone that has escaped from Canada...?

 I'll bet I could use this sucker to scour that stubborn algae out my birdbath...

Next up: we dig deeper and enter into a horrible, inhuman combination.


*Bisquick*

Fun With Groceries

OK, now they're just fucking with me...

I'll admit when I picked it up in the store it broke my brain for a second.

In other news, I picked the entirety of the crop off my McIntosh apple tree the other day...

One.
And it was *tiny*.  Oh well, the thing wasn't supposed to be old enough to produce yet, so more power to it!

WHAT Kind Of Jelly...?

So whattaya get from 5 pounds of chokeberries?

Four pints of jelly and purple hands for a week, that's what.  It's damned tasty and unusual, I'll give it that.  I was afraid it'd be an astringent monster, but it came out surprisingly light and not tannic at all.

However, my kitchen looks like I opened an abattoir for Barney.  I'm sure it'll take a month to scrub all the purple off everything...

I Has A Crop! Again!

OK, technically probably a 'harvest', but still.

Chokeberries!

To my surprise, the two little chokeberries bushes that were planted just a few months ago produced like mad--enough to fill my big stockpot with fruit and make at least one batch of jam, I'm thinkin'!

Chokeberries are quite astringent, to the point where you really don't want to eat them straight off the plant.  And tossing a few to the chickens results in some pretty amusing grab-it-spit-it-out-and-stare-at-it rounds of chicken football as they all pass it around, until eventually one of them bypasses that whole 'taste your food' thing and just hoovers it down.

I think I waited a few days too long to pick since some of the berries are a bit shriveled, and the near 100 degree temps haven't helped, but the chokeberries should still make good jam.

Next up will be Beautyberry jam, the berries on those plants are just starting to develop and grow!

Ravens And Jam

 Well I must say that today was an odd day.

I'd stopped off at Jacobs Family Berry Farm for some locally-grown raspberries and blackberries for jam making.

Yum!

Family sternly warned to leave them alone until after I'd measured out what I needed for jam, after that they could lay into them.  I must say, that was difficult because they smelled amazing.

But a small batch of each jam was made, yay!

Even better, I got to talking with Jack, the owner, and he and I have a 'swap fresh eggs for berries' agreement!

Later on that day, we got a visit from a neighbor, who used to work for a local pizza joint and had delivered to us in the past--he remembered Nadine yelling 'Hello!' at him when he had been here.

He told my husband that he had a very tame raven in his yard and was worried that his dogs were going to get it, and asked my husband if he'd take a look at it.  My husband suspected that it was the same tame raven that had wandered into our house back on August 18th and when shooed back outside, had allowed him to hand feed it.  So he grabbed a small birdcage and went back to the guy's house...low and behold, same bird.  The neighbor calls the raven into his pickup truck, then they are able to pick it up and place it in the cage.

My husband brought the bird back here, where we all take turns scratching it on the head and feeding it goodies--it's completely tame and was obviously someone's pet.  We decide to post some notices online, husband gets on Facebook and I get on Craigslist.

After about an hour we get two calls:  one from a very nice licensed wildlife rehabber/falconer in Yerington who offers to give the bird a home, the other from a guy named Joel a few blocks away from us, saying the raven is his--kinda.  Seems it was an orphaned baby that he raised and released, it's been hanging around for months.

Joel invites us over to his house, a 5 acre spread, so we grab the raven and go--we figure it'll be pretty obvious if it's his bird or not.

Well, without a doubt he raised that bird, they know each other well.  I ask Joel if the bird has a name and he tells us, 'None that can be pronounced in mixed company.'

Sounds like a raven owner, all right!

Ravenbuddy is released from the cage, and he walks around the yard begging from everyone as we stand there talking, Joel eventually giving him a Ritz cracker from his pocket. Ravenbuddy immediately goes over to a planter and caches it.

He's still a youngster and loves attention and messing with people, but is clearly healthy and able to hold his own, so we don't worry about him.  We suspect he will continue to hang around.  While we all talk the bird takes off and makes a beeline for the neighbor's yard, who Joel tells us own dogs that Ravenbuddy loves to tease--he sits in the trees and barks back at them.

We spend about an hour visiting with Joel, who is a cool dude with an awesome house that he partially built himself and has decorated with stuff from his travels around the world.  The kid is fascinated with his fish pond, and he tells her that she came back and fish in it for catfish and the like any time she wants.

I tell him I'll be back bearing fresh eggs and we say goodbye.

I'm sure we'll see our raven around again, and we let the pizza guy know that we found the bird's owner and that he should expect to see the bird around, too.

Raspberry Chicken Stew Cookies, Of Course!

So today was mostly devoted to running Chickam and cooking.

I decided to whip up a batch of raspberry meringues--deceptively simple, elegant little four ingredient tidbits that are super simple to make and crunch when you bite into them yet melt in your mouth.

Started with egg whites from the girls out back.

I was going to make half of the batch raspberry flavor and the other half coffee flavor, but got all involved and forgot to seperate out half of the finished meringue mixture.  So raspberry it is!

Toss together the egg whites, raspberry extract and cream of tartar.  Normally I make these with a teaspoonful of Chambord instead of extract, because, well, Chambord is awesome and luscious and made of angel whispers from God himself.  Next stick it in my trusty 900 year old KitchenAid mixture and beat the living Hell outta it 'until soft peaks form'.

Hmm, not there yet...

There ya go!

Now to add the sugar while the KitchenAid is whirring away and get it to 'stiff & glossy', which is what all little meringues aspire to be when they grow up.

Yeah, baby!

Onto my battle-scarred cookie sheets they are dolloped.  They don't spread but do puff up the tiniest bit when you bake them, so you can put them pretty close together.  Into a 300 degree oven for half an hour, after which you turn the oven off and forget about the things for anywhere from 2 hours to overnight.

Done!

They really do look disturbingly like styrofoam, and next time I make them I think I'll use an icing piping bag and try to make them look like packing peanuts.

Into the cookie jar they go!

At my house the cookie jar is a repurposed glass iced tea jar.

At the same time, I was making a chicken/vegetable stew for the animals.  I ladle the finished stew into muffin tins, freeze them and then I have little yummy chicken/veg disks to go on the dog's food or mix with rice for the chickens on cold days as a treat.  So the kitchen smelled of raspberry/chicken.

The kid ventured into the kitchen at one point, looking confused.  'What are you making...?'

No hesitation whats-so-freakin'-ever. I chirp out, 'Raspberry chicken stew cookies!'

She looks fascinated/disgusted for a moment, then disgust wins--but is quickly masked when I bend her a steely '...and you'd better like it!' gaze.  She wanders off in disappointment.

One of the true joys of parenting is messing with your kid every so often.

I Has A Crop!

Harvesting it took all of 30 seconds, mind you...

But it counts, damn it, IT COUNTS. Out of three tomato plants this is the only tomato so far. Our soil here is so very laughably poor, even WITH adding bagged garden soil, compost, etc. But I'll keep after it, with work (and pulling trash out of it) it can only improve.

Since I had so much free time open up after this, I actually thought ahead for a change and made little chicken & vegetable broth discs for use in the upcoming cold months for the dog and the chickens.

Once they are frozen I'll pop them out of the muffin tins and store them in a bag in the freezer, then when I need one just grab it. This winter one of two of these mixed with warm rice will make nice treats for Dusty and all our assorted chickens.

Lastly, last evening after the afternoon thunderstorms had passed we had a lovely sky.