Self-diagnosis is a perilous endeavor, and it needs to be approached cautiously. All diagnosis, from all sources, should be treated with skepticism, curiosity, and exploration.
Some years ago I began to experience intermittent bouts of gastrointestinal distress. The cause was unknown. Measures such as more carefully washing vegetables, washing hands more frequently, things that could easily have been performed inadequately, were given attention. These measures made no difference at all, and the periods of distress remained unexplained.
The winter of 2014/15, when I spent the winter alone here at Mist Cottage, I enjoyed eating a bit of Ricotta Cheese each day. During that time my bouts of distress increased immensely. At the time I thought it might be the result of missing Attila so very much. But to my surprise, when I ran out of Ricotta Cheese, and ceased to eat it daily, my symptoms disappeared within 24 hours. Aha! Finally a clue to what might be going on.
Since that time, I have experimented with dairy products, and found that the gastrointestinal distress returned every time I consumed them. And so, I have diagnosed myself as lactose intolerant. The other possibility was a dairy allergy, but since my Mom is lactose intolerant, I decided to go with that as my first theory. And the results of my experiments have been consistent with the symptoms of lactose intolerance.
Some weeks ago I began to make my own yogurt. I read quite a few journalistic pieces, and scientific journal articles, to determine if yogurt would irritate my system. There seemed some hope that my body might not react to the low concentration of lactose in yogurt, and that a few weeks exposure would tell all.
I have been eating my homemade yogurt every morning, for breakfast, or as a snack, for a few weeks now. My gastrointestinal system has not appreciated the experiment, and distress has been increasing as the days have passed. Over this same time period I have been experiencing short, mysterious, uncalled for, periods of mild sadness., and mild insomnia. I found this surprising. My first thoughts on this were that winter weather was the cause, or even the news of the unhappy spread of the COVID-19 virus.
Yesterday yogurt made from regular milk was removed from my diet.
Yesterday I made a new batch of yogurt. This time I used 1% lactose free milk. This lactose free yogurt was consumed for breakfast yesterday, and again last evening as a snack.
Today my gastrointestinal distress has disappeared. I slept soundly though the night. Today, thus far, I have experienced no periods of sadness. I suspect lactose as the culprit in all instances. And since I am still eating a dairy product, while my symptoms have disappeared, a dairy allergy is no longer considered a possibility.
The decision to consume fermented food daily was made last summer. Homemade Sauerkraut was a big success here, delicious, crunchy, and good for us. BUT for someone on a low-sodium regime, it gobbled up all of the daily quota, which required reducing sodium everywhere else. No, that would not do. So I searched for an alternative, and settled on yogurt, which I enjoy with a bit of syrup or jam.
Choosing milk to make yogurt has been a sequential experiment. 1% milk was chosen as it limits dairy fats and cholesterol in the diet. Regular milk was preferred, if possible, because it is half the price of specialty milks, such as lactose free milk. So the first phase of the experiment, with 1% regular milk, is over, it will not do. So far the yogurt made with 1% lactose free milk seems to have resolved the issues noted with regular milk. But time will tell.
The new batch of yogurt, strained, made with 1% lactose free milk.
Worldly
Weather
-1°C Date: 10:00 AM EST Wednesday 26 February 2020 Current Conditions Light Snow Wind: NNE 27 km/h Wind Chill: -7 Temperature: -0.6°C Pressure: 101.6 kPa Dew point: -4.3°C Visibility: 24 km Humidity: 76%
Quote
“When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and true maxim that ‘a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.’ So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great highroad to his reason, and which, once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing him of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause is really a good one.”
Abraham Lincoln 16th president of US 1809 – 1865
This fails to take into account that people who are ruled by avarice and greed regard sincerity as a weakness to be exploited, seek no justice, regard reason as a flexible and useful tool, and seek no sincere friendships.
But as for the majority of ordinary people, I think Mr. Lincoln is correct.
We are experiencing another cold snap, last night the temperature dropped to -20C, wind chill -25C, and tonight it is predicted to fall to -21C, wind chill -25C. In reality it has been a little colder than that here at Mist Cottage, as the thermometer outside the kitchen window reads a little higher than than the outdoor temperature, because it is mounted on the wall of the heated house, where some heat is being given off. We are cozy though. The winter thus far has been mild, so that we have used less than a quarter of our winter fuel oil. Last winter we used 3/4 of a tank, so I suppose there is still time for this winter to catch up!
Life is very quiet, which is lovely.
The work on the basement insulation has slowed considerably, Attila’s next step is to work on wiring, and that requires shutting off the electricity to the house, to be absolutely safe, so it will be put off until the weather is a little warmer we need our heating system right now. In the meantime, this week he finished the trim and painting on one of the windows in the basement, it is quite cheerful down there now! We plan on painting the floor joists and underside of the floor boards, which form the ceiling in the basement, and that should add quite a bit of cheer down there as well.
Our fermenting projects have yielded mixed results. We still have much to learn. The unripe ground cherries I fermented were very good, I ate a few everyday, and now, alas, they are all gone. I like to have some fermented food each day, so I decided to make Yogurt.
It was quite an ordeal trying to figure out how to do it in the Instant Pot! The manual is useless for my purposes. Almost every recipe I bumped into on the internet was for cold start Yogurt, which is fine, except that it requires the use of ultra-pasteurized milk, which is very costly. I wanted to use regular milk, at regular prices, and finally found a video made by a woman who was using regular milk to make her Yogurt in the Instant Pot.
My first run through any food preservation or preparation project is usually pretty rocky. This Yogurt project was no exception. I first discovered that although I had a Duo Instant Pot, as the woman in the video had, the control buttons on mine work differently than hers. So I opted to begin the process on the stove top, heating 5 cups of 1% milk in a saucepan, over s slow heat, simmering it for 5 minutes. Then I poured it into the Instant Pot, and let it cool to 110F. In a small bowl I added some of the cooled milk to 3 tablespoons of active culture Greek Yogurt, that I had purchased at the grocery store, mixed them together, then added the mixture to the Instant Pot. I stirred that in, put the lid on, leaving the vent open, pressed Yogurt on the controls, and set the timer for 6 hours. Success!
This is my Instant Pot Yogurt. I used 5 cups of 1% milk, just regular milk that we Canadians buy in 1.33 liter plastic bags. I love it mixed with Maple Syrup or my Dandelion Bloom Jelly.
Since my first batch of Yogurt, I have done more research. Apparently, on my Instant Pot, I can adjust the Yogurt button to read boil, which will boil the milk in the Instant Pot. This means I will not have to wash a saucepan next time, a small improvement, but they add up over time, so it is worthwhile.
Let’s see, what else is going on around here. Last year I knocked over a table lamp, and broke the glass shade. Finally, the right shade presented itself!
Here is the new shade on the lamp. I really like it, Attila chose the pattern.
And finally the Christmas Tree project continues. The Christmas ornaments were removed from the tree and stored away in boxes above the basement stairs, where they will wait patiently until next December. The lights and tinsel remain, to provide bright lights and sparkle to the new decorations. The new decorations are small hearts, in honour of the approaching Valentines Day. I was decadent today, and also bought Attila a box of chocolates, which I gave to him, under strict instructions to enjoy them privately, as I should not be eating candy.
Worldly
Weather
-20°C
Date: 8:00 AM EST Saturday 8 February 2020
Condition: Mainly Sunny
Pressure: 102.1 kPa
Tendency: Rising
Temperature: -19.7°C
Dew point: -23.9°C
Humidity: 69%
Wind: NNW 7 km/h
Wind Chill: -25
Visibility: 24 km
Quote
“Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going too fast – you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.” Eddie Cantor 1892 – 1964
I think this is the first video clip I have ever created to post on this site! I am a complete beginner when it comes to videos, and this is the result of taking a video with the iPad this morning, then using iMovie to edit it a bit, save it, upload it, and place in this entry. I watched about 45 minutes of videos on how to use iMovie before getting this result. The beginner iMovie youtube videos move way too fast and don’t cover the basics very well. I will be searching for a video made by someone with a bit of instructional ability, not just technical ability! Baby steps! ANYWAY, this was our snow this morning, so pretty.
It is snowing here this morning, lots and lots of snow. It is melting too, but enough is falling out the sky to accumulate significantly on the branches of the tree branches outside my windows, about 4 inches so far.
I love the first snowfall of the season! It is pretty. But beyond the visual is the feel of the soft white blanket that now surrounds my little house. The busy brashness of late autumn sounds has been muted. White brings sharp visual contrast to the landscape. I can see paths in the snow, where squirrels and rabbits have made their way in our yard. That is on the outside of me.
On the inside of me is a deep feeling of containment and contentment. I am cozy here in my little house, warm enough, well fed enough (understatement), and peacefully occupied enough to love where I am. The first snow always brings into sharp focus how wonderful it is to have a peaceful home to live in. I stepped out onto the back porch this morning, to take out the compost bucket, and to bring in some washed and dried plastic bags that were hanging on the clothesline, and oh what a pleasure to breath deeply that air, so sharp and crisp and biting. And then, what a delight to retreat back into the warmth of this little house.
These feelings of wonder at the first snow never get old. They return every year in late autumn, when the world first turns white. It is amazing to me that I feel this way every year, despite having experienced late winter impatience for it to melt away.
The first snow marks a turning point in the seasons, a natural turning point, dictated by mother nature herself, and it is delightful.
There is another turning point at this time of year however, that is not so delightful, nor is it natural in any way. It is a corporate interest turning point that occurs here in Ontario, where we have Time-Of-Use monitoring and billing for the electricity we use. It is the perfect opportunity to increase prices, and inflict restrictions on the domestic population of Ontario, Canada.
On November first we were switched to winter rates and time schedules. The rates have increased of course. And what this also means is that I must do my daily tasks that use electricity either before 7:00 a.m. in the morning, or after 7:00 p.m. in the evening. In other words, the most economical hydro is largely available overnight, when I sleep. This is very, very inconvenient, and changes the way my whole day is structured.
There is a period of mid-peak pricing from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., when I will undertake tasks that I feel just cannot be done during the 12 nighttime hours when the electricity is least expensive. But I try to avoid doing that, because it will affect our monthly billing.
It seems Hydro One is determined to make the short cold winter days as dark and dreary as they possibly can.
Heating is our priority, and it is a service I do not want to cut back on significantly, despite the government urging seniors to turn their heat down! The government paid for ads a few years ago, showing an elderly woman wrapped in a blanket, turning down her thermostat, like that was the RIGHT thing to do. I hope the genius who thought up that ad, and the one who chose to run with it, have severe arthritis in their older years, and find themselves wrapped in blankets in chilly homes, doing the RIGHT thing. Heartless campaign.
I’ve been busy. One of the things that has come to my attention is that I experience significant pain if I try to get down on the floor, or back up from the floor. Arthritis is not my friend. All of my life I have been physically nimble, hale and hearty. Age is having none of it! So I did a bunch of research on techniques for getting down on the floor, and up from the floor, and have been practicing. And the practice is paying off, after a few days of cleaning shelves that can only be reached if one is down on the floor, I can now get down, and up again, without experiencing pain. I still forget I am not young anymore, and without thinking try to get down, or up, as I had whole life through, for decades and decades. But pain is a determined reminder that adaptation is required.
On Tuesday I made a loaf of 100% whole-wheat low-sodium bread in the bread machine. The whole loaf contained only 1200 mg of sodium. I added dried mango and dried cranberries to it. Wow, it was so good. I love bread with dried fruit in it.
When I was a single Mom on a tight time and financial budget, a loaf of bread with mixed fruit in it was my only special treat. I even dreamed about that loaf of bread at night, watching the slices fall as I opened the bag. I love breads and pastries. Yesterday, I could not resist having my homemade bread with butter for breakfast, again for lunch, and as a bedtime snack. And I had it for breakfast again this morning, and again at lunch. I know I will not want to eat anything else until that loaf of bread is all gone, and it won’t be long. Well, it is best fresh, right?
I was so in love with the bread I made, that I decided I needed more dried fruit in the house, with which to make it. Out came the dehydrator, to dry the Gala apples purchased at the grocery store this past week. They are Ontario apples, and on sale at the moment for $1.00 a pound. They were peeled, cored, sliced thin, then spread out on the racks. I ran the dehydrator at 140F last night after 7:00 p.m. when the hydro cost dropped to off-peak pricing, and turned the heat down to 90F for the night, to let it run overnight. It seemed best to keep the temperature down when the unit was not being supervised. It was turned off this morning at 6:58 a.m.. The apples are not dry yet, a little rubbery, so they aren’t done. Tonight the dehydrator will be turned on to 140F again at 7::00 p.m. and will run again all night if need be.
The apples cores and peels are now in the crock turning themselves into Apple Cider Vinegar, which needs to be stirred daily to prevent mold.
Last Friday the pressure canner was put into service again, this time to can six 500-ml jars of Taco Soup. These are intended for my lunches, on those days when I am suddenly hungry and just can’t figure out what to eat. Since there were no empty jars left, the pressure canner was cleaned and back into storage it went. But Attila, upon finding out that the jars were all in service, picked up another dozen jars when he was out and about. So there will be more canned instant meals on the way soon.
Six jars of Taco Soup canned, ready for quick lunches. On the plate are seeds from our Jack-O-Lantern, a pie pumpkin, drying for spring planting. Pie Pumpkins are amazing, who knew! I have always purchased field pumpkins for Jack-O-Lanterns, and then cooked, pureed, froze, and baked with them. They were perfectly acceptable. BUT why use a field pumpkin if you can have a Pie Pumpkin. This was the first Pie Pumpkin I had ever had, and wow, the cooked puree is sweet and not in the least bit watery. It is significantly superior to any commercially canned pumpkin pie filling I have ever purchased.
The cabbages were first harvested in September. Each stem that was left started to grow new little cabbages. Attila harvested them on the weekend, and now we have a 1 liter jar of sauerkraut fermenting in the basement. Hopefully this batch will be a success!
These small cabbages, on one stem, were harvested from our garden over the weekend. They sure don’t look like much, do they! These all grew from the “stump” left when the first crop was harvested, a second crop on the same plants.Here is what the little cabbages looked like when the outer leaves had been removed. they look pretty good!The cabbages have been cut into thin slices and are now ready to be made into sauerkraut. This cabbage is sweet and crunchy, so good. Not really what might be expected based on their appearance when harvested.
Worldly
-1°C
Date: 11:47 AM EST Thursday 7 November 2019
Condition: Mostly Cloudy
Pressure: 102.3 kPa
Tendency: Rising
Temperature: -1.3°C
Dew point: -3.5°C
Humidity: 85%
Wind: NNW 14 km/h
Wind Chill: -6
Visibility: 16 km
Weather
Quote
“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy: They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” Marcel Proust 1871 – 1922
Yesterday we were out at the Camp for a few hours. What a beautiful day it was! Attila brought his chain saw and managed to get two of the many dead trees out. But the recent rains brought water back to the swamp, so many dead trees remain to be removed at another time. Grace the trailer was closed up for the winter, and happily there was no sign of mice inside. The mouse trap will be left operational for the winter, using plumber’s anti-freeze. it is hoped that the wildlife will live in the wild, and that the trap will be empty come spring. Hopefully there will be more
Today began with heavy, cold rain. The skies are unbroken and the colour of slate. Attila is shutting down much of the garden, mulching some of the perennials, pulling frost killed plants and cutting them up for the composters.
I made tomato sauce this morning, from the tomatoes that have ripened in the basement. There are still quite a few tomatoes down there, and most of them will ripen nicely, for eating, and for more tomato sauce. I am not going to can any more tomatoes, we have enough for this season, and enough pizza sauce as well in the freezer. So as the green tomatoes ripen, they will be either eaten fresh, or made into a sauce for the refrigerator. Tomato based soups will be on the menu this week.
Attila’s ferments are only two weeks old, but they both developed kahm yeast. Attila removed the kahm yeast, and pronounced the ferments tasted great. They were put in mason jars and refrigerated, and won’t last long. What was learned though, was that the ferments with kahm yeast could have been left the full fermentation time, 20 days minimum, before removing the yeast and bottling for the refrigerator.
Attila’s garden harvest was amazing this year. Not since moving away from the family farm have I seen such home grown bounty. Our house is now full, the bulk of the harvest is in, and there is no more room on the shelves, or in the freezer.
* INDICATES harvested in sufficient quantity to surpass immediate consumption needs, so requiring preservation.
Over the last year or so, I have acquired some fantastic food processing equipment. All of it got a good workout this year.
Food Preservation Equipment Used:
Canning Jars: 1 liter, 500-ml, 250-ml, wide mouth and regular mouth Metal Canning Lids and Rings Pickle Pipes (silicone) Pickle Pebbles (glass) Fermenting Jar Rings All American Pressure Canner Victorio Steam Canner Victorio Steam Juicer Two 8 Quart Stock Pots One 16 Quart Stock Pot Long Handled Wooden Spoon Sieves Ladle Funnel Jar Tongs Clean cotton rags Onion Chopper Apple Whacker Paring Knives Food Mill Apple Whacker Food Processor Dehydrator Onion Chopper Stove Oven Vacuum Sealer Vacuum Sealer Bags
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
It is bright and sunny this morning! My load of laundry is almost finished washing, so that I can hang it on the line. The laundry will be hung on the line under the porch until the temperature drops so low that it will freeze out there. So far, the weather has been bonny for hanging out the wash.
Time slipped away on me again. A few busy days, checking things off my list. Actually, yesterday afternoon I checked the last thing off my list! But of course, it is time to start a new list. I love lists, they keep my mind free of clutter, and my days focused on the things that matter to me.
Attila and I decided that it would be best to apply window film to the lower portion of all of the living room windows. Up until Sunday evening, the possibility of coming out of the bathroom after a shower, to go to the bedroom to get dressed required closing the living room curtains, before dawn and after dusk. Open curtains opened up the possibility that anyone down the street, from the street, from a vehicle, from a house window, could look into our house if the lights were on, and observe us in the hallway and bedrooms. It was a niggling concern, which we have dealt with diligently over the last ten years, but now seemed a good time to address the issue.
The project of applying window film has been put off for weeks. All other projects seemed appealing, compared to it. The materials had been waiting. Our grocery bill has been lower this autumn, with our garden bounty providing so much of what we have been eating, so the surplus was used to purchase window film. All other projects seemed appealing, compared to this project. But at last, Monday morning, I had run out of excuses, the only project left on my list was applying window film. So it began.
Measuring and cutting such a large and cumbersome roll of plastic is difficult to do in a small, almost tiny, house. It took a half an hour to clear a space on the floor, large enough to spread out the film, in order to measure and cut it. And I can honestly say that the older I get, the more difficult it gets to work on projects using the floor as my workspace. Getting down there, and back up again, over and over and over again, well, it isn’t any fun. I am grateful I can still do it, but this is one of the rare instances where I find living in such a small space constraining.
The project took all day. Attila said he was glad he wasn’t here for it, and well he might! Some curmudgeony endeavors are best tackled solo, this was that sort of endeavor. At completion, the constant tension of the “fish bowl” effect evaporated. Why didn’t I make this happen earlier!!
Another project was to start two more ferments, green Ground Cherries, and Jalapeno Peppers. The Ground Cherries are experimental, they may be tasty, but they may not. All a failure will cost is a few teaspoons of wasted salt, so it is worth a try.
My crock of apple scraps are fermenting nicely. The crock is covered with a cotton cloth held in place with an elastic band, and is stirred daily to prevent mold from forming. It smells grand, very hard cidery. In about a week I will strain the fruit from the liquid, jar the liquid and compost the fruit scraps. Then the mixture will sit in a dark cupboard for weeks, until it it transforms itself into Apple Cider Vinegar. The last of the 2018 Apple Cider Vinegar, that was made with our own Crabapples, was used last night.
One of the projects being undertaken here at Mist Cottage is to reduce the recyclables. That was the starting point. Most of the recyclables here are beverage containers, coffee, milk, juice, and plain soda. In an effort to minimize packaging from beverages, a customized recipe of Switchel was prepared, and stored in a clean, empty two liter juice container that would have ended up in the recycling bin. Attila loves this stuff! So, some of the juice containers will no longer be coming into the house. Switchel, as per the recipe, is a sugary drink, and sugary drinks are a treat and not a beverage. The plan it so play with the sweetening agent, substituting some of the honey for Stevia. It will be an experiment to alter the proportions of honey to stevia until a delicious yet healthy balance is achieved.
There is an added benefit to Switchel, it is a lot less expensive than juice. Since a whopping third of our food budget is spent on beverages, this is a step towards reducing the food bills.
So far I’ve tackles a few small tasks. In 2017 I harvested some lovely lavender flowers, dried them, then stuck them in a glass jar with a lid. Today I removed the little blossoms from the stems, placed the blossoms in a labelled jar, and set the stems aside pending research into possible uses for them.
The edge of the forest at the Camp.Where my day was spent, breaking up the dead branches, that were collected from all over the cleared area. The walk to collect dead branches is getting longer every season. When we started small trees and deadwood were dense into the cleared area, right up to the frontof the lawn chairs. It is much different now. In the next few years the dead wood under the hydro lines will be gathered and burned, and that is a very long walk indeed! Note the ring of sand around the fire pit, it was refreshed this year with three 7 gallon bucketfuls of sand, that had been shoveled up from our driveway. The sand in the driveway is the runoff from the road, and is a result of all the heavy construction equipment traveling past us daily. It is ours now!Deadwood burning in the fire pit. The fire was allowed to burn down at lunch time, and hot dogs were roasted over the coals. They were served on homemade bread, with home grown chopped tomato, home grown Zucchini Relish, some mayonnaise and some chopped onions. Lip smacking good!This little fellow was busy investigating me! He showed up at my elbow, as I was sitting in my chair. Eventually he moved, and disappeared from sight, although he was probably in plain sight, so well camouflaged was he.The ingredients for Switchel, all lined up and waiting. On the left is the last of 2018 homemade Apple Cider Vinegar, made from our own Crabapples.
Worldly
Weather
13°C
Date: 10:00 AM EDT Wednesday 30 October 2019
Condition: Mostly Cloudy
Pressure: 102.5 kPa
Tendency: Rising
Temperature: 12.9°C
Dew point: 8.9°C
Humidity: 76%
Wind: N 18 km/h
Visibility: 24 km
Quote
“All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.” Aristotle 384 BC – 322 BC
I have found this to be true, in my experience. I will say though, that picking fruit, and other menial labour jobs I have had, allowed a certain freedom of thought. It was only the “professional” jobs, where the mind was confined to set parameters, that cut into mental health. With manual labour, I could read a book in the evenings, and think about it all day doing repetitive manual tasks. I had a pretty good time actually, working on the farms.
Five more jars of Organic Green Tomato Salsa, canned Friday, October 18, 2019. They are made with our very own garden Jalapeno Peppers. That makes 15 jars of Salsa in total. I use a China Marker to label my jars, with content and date processed.
Saturday, October 19, 2019
Early last week I ran into a problem with a piece of software on one of my older Macs. It was a result of an incompatible update, which had auto-updated. I began interacting with tech support for the software company, the issue was escalated to more technical support team. I interacted with them for days, tried all their suggestions, and nothing worked. The old Mac just would not connect to the internet. I feared its functional life was over.
Frustrated with the software tech support, this morning I got out of bed, immediately setup the computer, and started to play around. I kept playing around for over an hour, then I found the issue and fixed it. It was a setting buried deep in the software, which needed only to be toggled off, which let me connect to the internet, which let me update the software to get rid of the issue. It is a wonder the tech support didn’t start with that setting when they were troubleshooting with me! I feel very satisfied that I fixed the problem, despite, and not because of, technical support.
Today is an apple day. I am finally sitting down, after being on my feet since 9:00 a.m., it is just after noon now. One half bushel of apples has been peeled, cored, diced, and is now sitting in pots on the stove, on a low heat, turning itself into applesauce. Attila peeled, I cored, sectioned, and diced. I hope we get to the other half bushel today, but I don’t hold out much hope. Sixteen quarts of apples are going to take some time to cook into applesauce, and can.
These Northern Spy apples are very dense. Water needs to be added at regular intervals when it is being cooked and made into applesauce. Stirring it is hard work, and it cooks very slowly, so there is a lot of stirring. My arm and wrist are very sore.
The peels and cores are being saved to make apple cider vinegar. Our first batch, made last fall with crab apples, is fantastic. So we are in high hopes that these apple scraps will give us some wonderfully flavoured apple cider vinegar.
Just shy of a half bushel of Northern Spy Apples, peeled, cored, and sectioned. It was the first time I’ve used this coring/slicing device (two red handles), and it is very handy. The apples are first peeled, the stem and calyx ends are removed. Then the corer is placed on top of the apple, and pushed down to core and slice it. Here are the cores, and the bits of apple that surround the seeds, which were removed from the slices with a paring knife, where needed. We froze these scraps from the first bushel of apples. The peels went into the compost pile. It is my dream to find affordable organic apples to use for applesauce. So far so bad on that score. We do not use the peels of these commercially grown apples. OK, here is where my best laid plans failed. And a spectacular failure it was! I was sitting in the living room, taking a little break while the apples began to heat on the stove. I was pretty tired, and more than a little tetchy at the time, the break was needed. Time out for Maggie. Anyway, I heard a noise in the kitchen. I thought Attila was in there, so I called out his name. No answer, the noise continued. So I sighed, dragged myself up out of my chair, and headed into the kitchen. And this is what I saw. Now the picture does not show it, but this body of apples was steadily rising, like a volcano, and apple segments were falling all over the place, the floor, the stove, everywhere. Laugh. I couldn’t stop laughing. I laughed so hard it was difficult to deal with the issue. Every time I touched the tower of apples, they launched off the precipice. What a mess! And the bottom apples were burning, that much I could tell from the smell. Eventually I managed to get enough of the apples off the top of the pile, so that I could put the spoon handle down into the pot. A huge rush of air came out of the pot, spewing apple segments, then what remained of the pile collapsed into the pot. I spent the next hour or so collecting and rinsing apple segments from all over the kitchen. Then I washed the floor and other surfaces, because apples are sticky. After removing all of the apples from the pot to other pots, except the bottom layer, which was burnt, I cleaned out the pot, and prepared to start again. I used three stock pots, with an extra liter of water in each pot, to cook these apples into applesauce. It took over five hours of stirring frequently to make the applesauce. After having such a hearty laugh, I wasn’t feeling tetchy anymore.
Monday, October 21, 2019
This morning the fog was thick and the air was chill.
It got busy around here after I wrote Saturday’s entry. I added the photographs and wrote the captions today.
Sunday Attila peeled all but a dozen or so apples from the second half bushel. I cored, and processed them in the food processor. They took about four hours to cook, using two large stock pots, even though the apple pieces were pea size. And I had to add a little more than 4 litres of water to keep them from becoming too thick to stir. Wow, I don’t remember Northern Spys being so difficult to cook. Attila thinks it is due to the very dry summer we have had this year, so there is not much moisture in them, and they are very dense.
I ended up with 5 more quarts of applesauce for the shelf, which were washed, labelled and put away on the basement shelf this morning.
The apple cores, and bits that didn’t make into the applesauce pot, were placed in a 5 liter fermenting crock. After covering them with a water/sugar mixture, I added a few tablespoons of active apple cider vinegar. A clean cotton cloth was placed over the crock, which was secured against fruit flies, and other interested parties, with an elastic band. This will be stirred every morning for two weeks. Then the liquid will be strained from the fruit and returned to the crock to turn itself into cider, then vinegar.
My next canning project presented itself to me yesterday. I was about to make dinner, an Instant Pot rice dish with turkey and hot chili, very tasty. But I suddenly realized that all of my vegetable broth was frozen! Oh dear, I had to thaw it slowly in the microwave, adding quite a bit of bother to the meal preparation.
I started making vegetable broth from vegetable scraps in August, when our garden started to deliver a lot of fresh produce. A total of about 10 quarts have been made since then, five of them I have used already for cooking. The other 5 are still in quart jars in the freezer. I was so busy with canning and roasting and drying and fermenting, and the broth was being produced only a quart at a time, that it just seemed more practical to freeze the small quantities vegetable broth.
But frozen vegetable broth does not work well for my style of cooking!
So today I have five quarts of frozen vegetable broth thawing on the counter. Once I can get it out of the jars, I will put it into the 16 quart soup pot, boil it for 10 minutes, then can it in 500-ml jars. Then it will be sitting ready to use on the shelf when I need it, no forethought required. These will be pressure canned.
Attila loved the Fermented Jalapeno Peppers I made for him. They are all gone now. We have a few ferments on the go, green tomatoes, and Brussels Sprout leaves. Attila also has a ferment of his own on the go, hot peppers. Yesterday he started yet another ferment, green cherry tomatoes, with fresh coriander seeds and garlic. Fermenting is easy. But we did have a failure, the second batch of sauerkraut. We will try another batch of Sauerkraut when the fermenting crock is free again, as it is now being used to make Apple Cider Vinegar.
And still there are things to preserve! There are about 20 pounds of tomatoes ripening in the basement. Thankfully all of the tomatoes have been harvested now, no more coming in from the garden. The Swiss Chard was harvested as well, and it will be processed tonight, probably blanched and frozen. BUT Attila says the Swish Chard has not given up, and it is growing like crazy right now, so there might be another harvest. There are some small cabbages that grew from the roots of the earlier harvested cabbage plants. And there are six more Brussels Sprout plants to harvest, Brussels Sprouts and leaves. And beets, lets not forget the beets that are still to be harvested.
Three months of steady food preservation activity. And I have so many conveniences, choppers, shredders, pickle pipes and pucks, a fermenting crock…
I do this because I choose to do it, because it is a hobby with benefits, lots and lots of benefits.
But can you imagine having to do this for a family with many children, on a wood stove… before all this modern technology, because someone HAD to do it, to be on the home front making sure the food supply didn’t spoil. This work was a respected part of the art of survival.
Worldly
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11°C Date: 11:37 AM EDT Monday 21 October 2019 Condition: Mostly Cloudy Pressure: 102.0 kPa Tendency: Rising Temperature: 10.5°C Dew point: 10.5°C Humidity: 100% Wind: NE 13 km/h Visibility: 16 km
Quote
“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.” Martin Luther King Jr. 1929 – 1968
