In the Kitchen

49°f/9.4°C, mostly clear. Full moon last night, foggy during the night and heavy dew this morning.

It's been a busy day in the kitchen, and it only 2:00 pm as I sit down to rest.

It started early, with breakfast. I made one of our favorites: English muffins with mashed avocado, a slice of ham, and slice of tomato, topped off with a fried egg. I fry my eggs in very little oil, turning the heat low and putting the lid on the skillet so that the tops cook at the same time as the bottoms. We sometimes top this stack up with sour cream. 

Next was stove-cleaning. Canning makes a mess of my stove no matter how carefully I am. The burner tray on my old Tappan get especially bad with cooked on whatever. They are stainless steel, fortunately, so I can scrub away! It was good to get it clean; even though i clean it between canning sessions, I don't always get to those burner trays. But now I am canning more green beans, so more scrubbing is in my future. Never-ending,  folks, just never-ending.

Before getting into the beans, I put together a batch of spaghetti sauce, to use up an accumulation of tomatoes--too many to eat, not enough to can, so spaghetti it is. That meant chopping up lots of stuff--peppers, onions, garlic,  celery, and a jar of canned COW mushrooms. I sautéed all that, and browned the ground venison while the tomatoes cooked.  Then I used the immersion blender to puree the tomatoes,skins and all, and added my herbs and spices. Now everything is together and simmering away. I used up the rest of the celery, cutting it into sticks for Larry's snacks, and put the basil I had dried last month into a jar for storage.  

Next was green beans. I got the canner ready for another 8 pints, then put a pot on to cook, to go with the spaghetti.  I added chicken bouillon and garlic, and let that cook on low while I washed dishes and cleaned up the counters, then came in here to my chair to put my feet up a few minutes and write.

Now the canner is calling me back to the kitchen. And the dried kaundry needs to brought in and the next load hung out. And so it goes in this little house in the hills.

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