Jesse Glessner

Using scented dryer sheets seem to work for me1 I just fold one and stick 1/2 of it down my collar in back.
I really get big welts when a Mosauito zaps me, up to the size of a dime, so I'm really aware that I need one of the sheets especially when I mow the lawn. Being around the garden area they don't really seem so bad. though.

I know biscuits aren't normally on the Menu for whatever reason and I don't necessarily like the little small buns that are on too many menus. You can't properly even butter those. So, here is a link to a quick fix of making a batch of Biscuits that would go great with the Onion soup and other things listed in this thread.

This is a LINK to a Two Ingredient Biscuit that will knock your socks off. Very easy recipe, hey are made any SIZE you want but are many layered making them fluffy. And who doesn't like a nice warm biscuit right out of the oven?

https://www.southernliving.com/2-ingredient-biscuits-7504189

NOW, where is that butter dish - just for me?   :-)

ENJOY

O.K. HERE IS MY TAKE ON WINTER GARDENING!  These two attached PDF Files explain my adaptation of Seed Balls (found here in Permies) into Seed Cubes and the other the sequence of planting Veggies. AND you can do veggies in the Seed Cubes as well as other items like saving your Apple Seeds and putting those in the Seed Cubes.

The other list is for planting times that I swiped from Clyde's Garden Planner

SO, we have a bit of winter left and that gives you time to EXPERIMENT with Seed Cubes. With what I learned in making the mix for Seed Cubes you might want to use actual clay instead of Cat Sand loaded with chemicals, and the ratio of the real clay lessened (from my mix Instructions) and using a bit more compost type materials which will a better breakdown of the cubes in Spring rains, etc.

ENJOY! MAKE YOUR SEED CUBES AND GET OUT AND THROW THE AROUND IN THE FRIGID WEATHER! Then you're allowed to get back in the house, make a warm chocolate drink, and open permies to find other planting ideas!   :-)

CAVEAT :  The list for growing is very loosely compiled from the Clyde's Garden Planner. I DO NOT specifically follow those dates and I DO NOT even follow my own listings as I start seeds indoors for long growth items or items I want in the ground early in very good condition. BUILD YOUR OWN LISTS IN THE ORDER YOU WANT TO PLANT  -  BOTH INDOORS OR DIRECT SOWING.  I PUT MY LIST UP SO IT BOOSTS YOU INTO GARDENING ACTION.

r ranson wrote:It's officially in drying mode.  I don't know how to make it better, so I will leave it to dry and maybe later, I will have skills to see what needs improvement.
Although it is tempting to paint the companion piece to this.  When I took the original gosling photos, I got two really good ones.

Here in East Central Indiana on Thursday mornings there is a TV show with a lady doing paintings with water colors that is really interesting and it seems that some of the painting techniques lap over with the oil, or other, paining. It is out of Fort Wayne, IN area on channel  39.3 at 8:00 AM if you're interested in watching that.

Mark Reed wrote:Someone said to "boil the hell out of it" and that is what I do. Peaches, strawberries, grapes or what ever it is. I don't really care all that much about consistency or  appearance. What I'm after is that it is preserved and most importantly tastes good.

Like I mentioned, I don't really know what to call it. It's got globs of fruit, its sticky and gooey. Compared to a lot of jams or jellies it looks awful but if it's made from peaches, it tastes like peaches, if it's made from grapes it tastes like grapes and so on. If it's made from wild black cherries it's incredible.

Hey Mark, when I was a kid we (kids) had to do all the picking of anything being canned. And I don't recall seeing any recipes lying around although I'm sure my mother had one as she also used a pressure cooker.

Thirty Five years plus - this old Dude moved back to Indiana from California to retirement. I got the house remodeled and things settled down somewhat so I decided to do some canning again. The first thing I had to do was buy the equipment and right beside that was the most recent version of the Ball Blue Book, now called something like Ball Preserving, and the best investment I made.

That book gives you a pretty good idea of what should be pressure cooked and what things you can just do water bath canning on. It is also loaded with recipes and I used those many, many times.

You get to a point of manipulating recipes. For instance when a kid my mother canned stewed tomatoes - and that was all that was in the jar, tomatoes. In MY recipe for Stewed Tomatoes I add about one cup each of cut up Celery, Onions, and Bell Peppers and that turns out fantastic. Another example is that I was shopping one day about 4 to 5 years ago and saw Peaches and Plums on an end cap at the market, and just went, "Hmmm, I wonder if that would make a good jam?". I picked up about 8 lbs of each and went home and searched for a recipe on the Internet and actually found one, tried it and you wouldn't believe how good that jam is.

I do like my jams "chunky" with enough evidence as to what the jams are made of, although I also use 2" X 4" labels printed on a laser printer to identify the jams, a short little synopsis of the recipe, and the date made.

As for WHEN jams are ready to funnel into jars, those recipes in the Ball Book usually give you details about how long to cook them, at what point to add the Pectin, whether you might want to add a bit of butter to hold the foam down, how long after adding the pectin to let the batch boil, and then the ladeling into jars and whether to water bath or pressure cook the batch.  CAUTHION: IF a Pressure Cooker is required - DO NOT, DO NOT use a low pressure Pressure Cooker for canning. Use a regular Pressure Cooker as this process requires some minimum lbs pressure.

The very best way to do canning is to invite a couple of female friends over to HELP!!  :-)

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Our little cold corner under the basement stairs has mostly potatoes, several different varieties that we love and grow.

Also in the cold room are onions, alas commercial ones since we have a hard time getting them to grow here. But I bought a bunch of 10 lb bags at $5 each in season, and then spread them on a rack with a small fan on them for 10 days. That way they dry down properly and don't start to mold/rot. Haven't lost more than a couple.

Our other "root cellar" is the basement fridge, which has a good stock of carrots and beets that will last us until we start harvesting fresh ones next summer.

HELLO: I ran across an ideal to store veggies vertically 3 or 4 years ago and copied it out of the Sketch Up Repository, pasted in word, and turned into the attached PDF file. You can literally make these any size and height, however, instead of making all of the trays it would be easier if you could find trays that let ventilation flow through and then size the structure to those trays. See or download the attachment.

Dian Green wrote:I have tried the overnight oats thing and loved the convenience but didnt care for the "chalkiness" of the uncooked oats. It's a minor taste/texture difference but it doesn't work for me or my mother so we're sticking to cooked for now.
If I desperately needed the time saved, I might get over it but I'm glad I don't have to for now. ( when cooking oatmeal, I will make a large batch and it usually covers 3 days. It reheats in the micro fine for us.)

My breakfast is an early morning "turn on the kettle & small pot" and then a mix of 'stuff' like a handful of chopped English Walnuts covering the bottom of my standard kitchen bowl. I then add a package of Instant Oats, a small box of Craizens, a package of Gelatin (for cracked fingernails), 2 pkgs of Truvia (Stevia Leaf). With all of that leveled out I then sprinkle the top with a good dose of Cinnamon - and next comes the boiling water and set the bowl on the table to cool a bit. Then I get my cup of tea, made from 3 different teas in a large container that lasts most of the week. And, of course I pop on the boob tube and computer and round up the most current book I'm reading and I'm all set to enjoy a few pages of reading while the bowl cools down a bit more then read and eat at the same time. That all makes for a good morning and the meal lasts me through to around 3:00PM!

eva guo wrote:Wow. Looks great, Austin and Burra. Wish I could build one. I just stacked some fire bricks. Have no idea how to mortar.

EVA, this is a 2500 year old version of your version of a kitchen RMH cook stove!

See the attached photo. I scanned this off a very large display on Rocket Stoves on the Internet.