Tuesday in the Kitchen

58°f/14°C, cloudy all day after more rain overnight. Flooding continues in sime areas but water has receded in others. More rain expected tonight and tomorrow.

The cooler temperatures have made life so much more pleasant,  even if outdoors is still too wet to do much of anything. I had a day of kitchen work today so I was grateful not to have to sweat my way through the day!

On the agenda today: putting up the large Chicken of the Woods mushroom a neighbor brought over--a very nice gift. In the past I canned them,  but this time I decided to freeze some and dry some. 

This is the mushroom, cut apart a bit.

In process. I dried the strips, and sautéed the pieces. This was about a third of the mushroom. 

 

I filled this dehydrator tray with strips.  

The finished product.  It was fairly quick to dry them, and they came out so beautifully that I think I will do most of them this way in future.

Next was canning the peaches that have been waiting a few days. No photos, but I ended up with 15 pints of sliced peaches and 5 quarts of peach syrup. I made the syrup using the water i had put the cut peaches in while I was peeling and cutting them up, added some pureed peaches, lemon juice and sugar. It's not really thick,  but quite tasty.

By then it was time to make dinner. I made a quick quiche, using a prepared pie crust, broccoli left over from last night, chopped tomatoes, and sautéed onions, peppers, and mushrooms, and grated cheddar. Then 4 eggs beaten with Greek yogurt, mayonnaise,  salt and pepper, poured over the veggies and cheese and baked for 25 minutes. Since I had another piecrust, I made some little tarts; these are raspberry. Then a quick salad and dinner was ready.

I have been amused by the news that no news outlets are covering the idiot-in-chief's White House blatherings since his little tantrum the other day. Good on them for sticking together! That news made me smile all day.

What I am not smiling about is the price of gas. We have had to put $100 worth in our van in the last week because of the long trips to Huntington and Ohio. The tank is still full, but good grief.  Our prices in our booths are still the same, yet our costs have certainly gone up. 

Our other income is fixed, so these gas and grocery prices are really hurting. I cannot imagine how it is for people who have to drive to work, who have no gardens, and have families to feed. We have not yet seen the big increases in electricity bills that others have, but I think it will happen soon.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Monday Mishmash

One of today's projects: getting this thing ready for our Halloween display window at the antique mall. 

My poor pup Pip does not like it at all and just barks and barks. Inspiration came from the nice velvet cloak, found at Goodwill for $3.99. I used the same mannequin frame as last year. I have dubbedd it Grimm, because i am not sure if it's male or female. The odd horsehead thingy beside it, got at auction for $1 because it has a repair,  I have decided is its Grimm's familiar. So these two things, a few pumpkins, some black gauzy fabric, a lamp, some little lights and I think that will be the window. I hope.

This was last year's mannequin:

We added a red wig later. She was quite a hit at the store. We named her Miranda. Her dress was also an auction find, also $1. 

I forgot to check the temperature this morning, but it's been in the 70's all day, with high humidity after another very stormy night and morning. More flooding, unfortunately,  this time getting into some homes and businesses. This was in Sandyville, not far from us, this morning:

Unfortunately,  it got worse before it finally receded. Here on our hill, water is just standing on top of the saturated ground. Larry had to spray for mosquitoes today, first time we have ever had any issue with them. Even our poor dogs don't want to go outside!

It has been an odd few days. Saturday I thought we had auction pickup, so off we went. Then about 10 miles from home I realized the pickup was Sunday! They never do that, always have it on Friday or Saturday. Since we were out and had no other plans, I said, "Let's go get a TV." We have been meaning to do that since Larry broke ours back in January, just never took the time. So off we went to Wally World and after some dithering I picked a 4e" Samsung---the size because of our limited space, the brand because it's the same as our phones and I thought that might make it easier to set up.

It turns out I was right. I unpacked and set it up all by myself in less than an hour. I was so pleased with myself, because last time my oldest son helped me and it took several hours and many headaches to get the thing working. I ween got the DVD player working. So that's one thing off the to-do list. 

Yesterday was taken up with picking up our wins at the auction; nothing too great this time except an exceptionally fine Ka-Bar military knife from World War II, 

and 150 antique Christmas and Valentine's day post cards. We had a late breakfast and took our time since there was still a lot of water on the roads. Nothing dangerous, but who wants to hydroplane?

I had planned to can some peaches on Sunday I had picked up Friday, so that had to be put off until today. And just as I was cleaning up from breakfast, the power went off. On to Plan B, pricing things for our booths.  I did a little work on planning the upcoming open mics, called our car insurance to get set up to replace our (very expensive) windshield, and then put Grimm together.  The electricity came back on around 6, and once again I sent up heartfelt thanks for those crews who get out there and slog through who knows what to do the repairs.

Speaking of the open mics, Corey Hager, who started them, just won a Song of the Year award in his category at the Josie Awards at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville! These awards are for independent artists; they had over 100,000 entries, and Corey was nominated in 2 categories, best new male vocalist and song of the year. You can hear his winning song here.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

More Photos from Colorado

69°f/50.6°C, rainy afternoon big storms overnight.

More flooding today, after some heavy rain last night. We are on our way to auction pickup, and water was right at the edge of Trace Fork, our usual route from home when going north. Apparently it had been over the road recently. More rain is expected, and some places are already flooding, including one church. Fingers crossed that the rain lets up for a while!

I still have more Colorado photos to share, so here goes.

Seen on the way to Boulder, in the casinos area.

Granddaughter Ashley, who live in Denver, came out to visit, and brought her younger half-sister with her. It was wonderful to see Ashley, as we rarely get the opportunity.  She is in IT,  and stays pretty busy. Of course we played the rock game from Petra Mons.! This game is made by Sarah's neighbor. He collects rock from the lake bed nearby, cuts them into 6 different shapes and polishes them. Each shape gas a number. The rocks are just beautiful,  so many different colors and textures. The game is played like this: each player gets 6 rocks to start. You roll the dice and then add your rocks together to make that number. For example, if you rolled 8, you could use you 5 and 3 or 6 and 2. The rocks are stacked on a provided rock base. If any fall in the process, you have to keep them. That's the basics; there are more rules for when you get down to 3 rocks or less, etc. I would love to have a set for home, but at $95+, it's out of my budget. Worth it, of course, because the rocks are works of art in themselves. Ah, to be rich!

Larry and I took the girls to lunch at Blue River Bistro, where I had this delicious beet salad.

The others had some good food too, including truffle fries. Oh. My.

In, Georgetown, which has the most per capita Victorian houses of any town in the US.

Hard to see, but a tractor trailer had to make use of the runaway truck ramp coming down the Continental Divide.  Made the local news! I cannot imagine what his trip down that long, steep mountain must have been like. As you might be able to see, he went up to the very end of the ramp. Terrifying.

Another Georgetown house, I think. There were so many cute ones!

Sadly neglected museum in Georgetown. 

Andy, his daughter, and Sarah, ready to go into the silver mine.

Wee little flowers.

Sarah's friend Nina was thrilled to win the rock game! She came here a couple years ago to do West Virginia's Great Greenbrier River Race,  a triathlon, with Sarah and our guys. Such a fun lady, and a county commissioner too. She came to Sarah's bearing the most delicious pastries for breakfast.

Andy and his daughter first thing in the morning playing---you guessed it---the rock game. We were all obsessed with it!

For a mere $3000, you can rent the very haunted Hotel Brown in Breckenridge.  It sleeps 14, so just $215 each! I would love to spend a night there!

These lovely flowers were everywhere. I think they were asters.

So many beautiful views. 

Flowers were everywhere in the towns but of course only survive with constant watering. And water is a scarce commodity there. I took this photo because i want to look up that flower. It was not familiar.

Enough for today! I may have more from our trip as I get them sorted out.

Sarah continues to do well, and awaits next steps in her road to recovery. She amazes me!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.