The spoon is unusually large, and is used for stirring in the large stock pot, such a handy tool!
Most of our green tomatoes, harvested before the first frost, have ripened now. As they ripened Attila blanched and peeled them, then I put them through the food processor, and they were frozen for future use. Today is the future use day.
We have our large stock pot on the stove, into which the frozen tubs of tomatoes have been emptied. The tomatoes will thaw, then I will add dried herbs and reduce them to about half the volume. The final product will be steam canned in 500 ml jars, hopefully today.
We are discussing pressure canning vegetable broth. We have dozens of recycled milk bags full of vegetable scraps in the freezer. Attila has setup the portable burner on the back porch, where the steam juicer will do its magic. There are at least three batches of broth to be made, usually at least eight cups of broth per batch. The reason to can them would be to free up space in the freezer, as canned food is shelf stable.
We are very pleased that the freezer is full to bursting with our garden produce! Now we need to make room for temporarily freezing our dry goods, it takes quite a while to rotate those bags through the freezer for a few weeks, then into buckets. It is the same every year, but this year we froze a lot more produce than we have other years, a lot of kohlrabi and rutabaga, they are great in soups.
I just watched a video discussing what foods to eat to minimize the likelihood of dementia. We eat a lot of the foods on the list, but some are way out of reach on our budget, berries and avocados in particular, nuts and seeds are also very expensive. These items are on sale occasionally, but only strawberries are sold in season where we live. I wish the people who compose these lists were cognizant of food prices, and the increasing food insecurity in Canada and around the world, surely there are viable economical alternatives to expensive ingredients.
Our snow is still lying thick on the ground. Today it is finally above freezing out there, and the snow is beginning to melt. Hopefully it will be gone soon. This is the first autumn here at Mist Cottage that we have significant snow cover before the Tamarack trees dropped their needles. They dropped after it snowed, a dusting of bright colour in the black and white landscape.
Worldly
Weather
3°C
Date: 1:00 PM EST Wednesday 12 November 2025
Condition: Light Rain
Pressure: 100.1 kPa
Tendency: Falling
Temperature: 3.3°C
Dew point: 2.2°C
Humidity: 93%
Wind: WSW 26 km/h
Visibility: 8 km
Quote
“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.”
Harper Lee, 1926 – 2016
To Kill a Mockingbird, 1960
Hi, Maggie. I don’t know how you get those tomatoes to ripen. I’ve never gotten any green tomatoes to ripen. Doesn’t matter if I put them in a brown paper bag. Doesn’t matter if I add an already ripe vegetable. They stay green.
Reading about dementia, the things I’ve keyed on are reading, word games, and social interplay. DH and I are constantly discussing advances in science and medicine, for example. But I am lucky that no one in my family has ever had dementia, even those who have reached 89 (my grandmother) and 92 (my great grandmother).
Berries I can do, but avocado? Nope! Whatever the cost, those buggers (which I used to love) give me a feeling like my stone filled gallbladder grew back, complete with stones. (Ulcer pain???) So that’s an avoid. I do like almonds, but other nuts disagree with me. We all do what we can, within our budgets and/or allergy limitations.
Teri, no dementia in my hereditary genes, either. I love the word games. I do a ton of them, and they are creating new ones all the time. Great fun, also. (One of my grammas made it to 96, and one of her sons made it to 103. (Not the one that was my father. I’ve already lived longer than him (lung cancer felled him at only 63.)) I hope I got the good genes!
Teri, some of our green tomatoes do not ripen, they were a darker green than the others when picked, luckily there were not too many of them! The ones that had lightened in colour, still green but a lighter green, they all ripened.
Interesting about dementia. My Mom is 94 and as sharp intellectually as she was in her youth, she does word games, puzzles, plays bridge, socializes, and is a prodigious reader. She sets an example for her children, we are so lucky to have her leading our way.
There has been no dementia in our family either, lucky for us. But as they say, if it isn’t one thing, it is another, there are other health issues that are hereditary in our family. We make the most of the cards we are dealt.
Joan, your body’s reaction to avocados sounds truly miserable. I find them very heavy, so even when they are on sale I eat sparingly of them. Too bad about the nuts, but yay about almonds, they are a very healthy nut. As you say so well, “we all do what we can, within our budgets and/or allergy limitations”, so true!