Hot Sauce

We have a friend that makes really good hot sauce every year. Aaron decided he wanted to try his hand at it this year. So I planted 30 some pepper plants for his project. All different kinds. It was not a good pepper year, but we still had more peppers than we knew what to do with. Luckily they keep well in the fridge.

He squeezed lemons and limes.

Roasted some of them. They make loud popping noises under the broiler.

Then he cut off the stems.

Blended everything up.

And did what you aren't supposed to do. He tasted it. This was a jalapeno only sauce. The hottest that he made.

The second and third batches came out of my head. He split the last of the peppers, roasted half and left half of them fresh. I was actually good and wrote down everything we added, so they can be duplicated or altered.

This is the fresh one. It wasn't as good, but we think it may just need to age, and "cook" from the vinegar.

All versions, labeled and ready to store in the fridge.

Everything was made with some combination of salt, vinegar, carrot juice, lime juice, lemon juice, garlic and water. I didn't post recipes because I'm not sure how it all turned out. If anyone is interested I can post them, but we just went loosely off some online. It can be as simple or as complicated as you make it.

Fresh Eggs

Eggs from happy, healthy chickens taste so much better than normal store bought eggs, it's amazing. Our eggs are delicious!!

Corn Chowder

I had a craving today for corn chowder, so I gathered everything I needed and went to it. It hit the spot.


I paired it with some Big River bread.


So good on a fall night.


For dessert I had one of my favorite fall treats, honey crisps and fun sized 100 Grand bars.


Buffy is still laying away! Nothing the second day, but one today and yesterday. It takes her quite a while to get the egg out, but she is still learning what is happening and I'm sure it's going to take a fair amount of stretching to get used to that every day!


I'm daydreaming about getting a handful of these...

Caught

I got no eggs yesterday, but this morning when I went out to feed everyone, the buff was missing. She was in the nest box, trying to lay another egg! After my initial thoughts that one of the wyandottes had laid the egg, I reconsidered after researching some strange behavior the buff has been doing lately. It turns out I was right!


Whenever I get close to her she squats and sometimes does this funny stomping thing. It's submissive behavior and it is showing that she is mature and ready to mate. I'm so flattered she thinks of me as her rooster...
She even shakes her feathers out after like she has been mated with.

I was so excited to get to witness the egg laying, but after 45 minutes of going up to the nest box, going down to see what her friends were doing, going back up because she still hadn't laid the egg, going back down to eat something, going back up, etc. I had to go to work, so I missed the event. I'm guessing as she gets the hang of it she will get faster and get right to it when the time is right.

Water Cameras

Some how I forgot to mention that we spent Saturday night in a bar in Albany filled with members of an outlaw biker gang. Talk about wanting to be invisible with a camera, there was so much biker culture going on around us. But that is not why I started this post.
While cleaning the house last week I found 3 water cameras. I'm always bad about getting film cameras developed. We had no idea what was on them, and some of our cameras that we took to Hawaii 4 years ago (wow, I can't believe it's been that long - I have been dreaming of another Hawaiian vacation) may or may not have gone through x-ray machines. The possibility of disappointment kept me from getting them developed. But I finally took those cameras in, not knowing what was on them.
Most of them were kind of like this, which you expect:


But there were a few good ones, maybe 5 or 6 out of the three rolls of film. Oh hey flat stomach, where did you go??






There were some I was very confused about.


We didn't rent boats like that in Hawaii...or Mexico. Turns out those are pictures from a surf trip Aaron took to Baja years ago with a good friend.
But this picture made me laugh. Who is that guy??? And why does he have our camera??



I think he must have been one of our tour guides, but I still don't know why this picture was taken. It's pretty funny though.

First Egg!!!!

I was so surprised and elated to find this egg today!!! I had given up hope that they would lay this year and was holding out for spring time. I can't wait to crack it open and see how it looks!

Whirlwind

We had another crazy weekend. I need to work on balance in my life - things have been too hectic. But we have been very productive, and that feels good too.

I made almost a gallon of tomatillo salsa with our tomatillos. I started to take pictures, but got lazy half way through...

I broiled them, then added all the other ingredients and put them in the food processor. Done, so easy.

Aaron has been drying apples all weekend. Some of them got a dusting of cinnamon and sugar - yum!

Can I just say that I love this thing! We have it on loan, put it on my Christmas list. Peels, cores and slices a whole apple in like 30 seconds.

Yesterday we pressed apples and made 10 gallons of cider.

(Aaron got a new to us truck - so awesome we have already used it a ton!)

Packaging.

Cider ready to go.

We were getting ready to get a freezer off of craigslist, and told a friend, the same friend that gave us all of those great apples. She had just cleaned out their wonderful huge upright freezer..."We have three, do you want this one?" Yes please! They are trying to downsize. It's good timing with the time of year and just having gotten a pick-up. We should be getting it next weekend.

Today we baked a birthday cake and headed over to a pumpkin carving party.

I came home, roasted the pumpkin seeds and cleaned our bathroom from top to bottom. I can't wait to go to bed tonight!

Drowning in Produce

We pulled everything from the Avery garden because it's getting close to freezing. I've been putting the pumpkins out in the sun to ripen and cure.




Almost all of the winter squash from the Avery garden. Woohoo!




We (Aaron) dug up the peppers that weren't ripe and put them in pots to take home.



They are loaded, but not red yet.


I picked all of the green tomatoes on our large plant and have them ripening.


The smaller plants we pulled up and hung in the garage.


Tomatillos!


The current state of my kitchen counter. And I didn't even take pictures of the bags and bags of peppers we picked. Ay, we have lots of work to do!




I hope you are all drowning in produce as well (but with more time to process than me!).

Tomato Sauce

I want to share this super easy, super good tomato sauce recipe. It's from my friend Kathy, she shared it with me after I raved about her sauce. Drizzle olive oil in a casserole dish. Halve the tomatoes and place them face up. In a Cuisinart mix basil, garlic and more olive oil. Glop this mixture on top of the tomatoes and drizzle with more oil. Bake at 425 for one hour - longer if you are using larger tomatoes. She typically uses romas.


I cheated and used pesto instead because:
1. I don't have any fresh basil...and I hate chopping garlic.
2. I had a bunch of pesto that needed to be used up and it has all the same stuff in it.
Aaron made some this way this weekend and it worked fine, even though the pesto came out looking burnt.



When the tomatoes become crispy and darker around the edges it is done. At this point put it into the Cuisinart, blend and add cheese if you like. Although I don't think it needs it, and this is coming from a cheese lover.



I added some kosher salt to cut the sweetness a little and bring out more of the flavors. Into containers and into the freezer, done! We made pizza the other day and used this, so yummy!

Productive!

This weekend we:
Helped a friend move furniture around
Went to Blocktoberfest
Cooked a nice dinner together with the chanterelles that we picked
Relaxed and watched a movie
Organized the house a bit
Went for a long bike ride, but got rained out
Made pizza for lunch
Got the bees ready for winter
Kegged some beer
Did 5 loads of laundry
Picked up the yard

I love long, productive weekends!
I pulled the formic acid pads from the hives today. Hopefully our mite load is knocked way down for winter. I added popsicle sticks to the inside of the inner cover to provide ventilation for winter. Aaron added these mouse guards to the entrances. They look like robot hives now. These obviously keep mice out during the winter. The awesome part is, if you ever need to lock your bees in for moving or any other reason, you just take the mouse guard out flip it over and it becomes a screen to keep bees in. I let Aaron nail these into the hive - they did not like the vibrations one bit. One nail in and he was stung on the forearm. He decided to suit up after that and I think it was a good call. If we get more hives, we're adding these before we add the bees.




Look who is doing fabulously well! The best part is - she still likes me after all of that. I was worried she would be traumatized, but she is still my little buddy.

Release

Camilla has been released back into the wild - so far so good. She took a demotion in the pecking order unfortunately, and got pecked a bit. Then she starting eating everything in sight and I worried she would pop her crop open, but she seems to be good. In a few days everyone will be friends again and we can snip those stitches out - she'll be good as new!

New Roommate

She's kind of messy...



But she's small and doesn't eat much.


Camilla is doing very well. Although breakfast tomorrow may be the last time she gets to run around the house. I had to chase her around the coffee table 3 times to catch her tonight, so I know she's feel better. She was getting depressed in her box, and the time out has really improved her morale. Her appetite is improving as well, but I still haven't seen her drink any water, I'm not sure what's up with that. I think once she gets back with the others she will drink, they all seem to drink when one starts. Social drinkers, those chickens.



I moved her outside today so she could see her friends, but left her in her box so I could keep her on her soft food diet. I think she was much happier with the sun on her feathers and her friends close by. I swear I'm not turning into one of those crazy chicken people...



Buffy is her best friend and stuck close by most of the day. She also hung out with her before her surgery when I had her separated in the coop. I wish I had gotten a picture of everyone outside preening and relaxing. I caught them all hanging out several times today. I don't think she'll have a hard time transitioning back.


One more day in the box, one day in the coop to see how she does and then back with the others! 1-2 more days of soft foods. Her incision looks awesome, but I want it healed a bit more before she starts taking dust baths, and I think that will be one of the first things she does. As long as that was the only thing wrong with her - I think we may be in the clear.