Friday, November 6, 2015

some gentle domesticity for a change...




 Well again.  I managed to accomplish two projects in my kitchen today -- first I stemmed, seeded, and halved about a half-dozen small jalapenos for the freezer.  Double rubber-gloves, with talcum, so it appears I got the gloves on and off without transferring any pepper juice to my skin.  Not sure whether it was aerosolized pepper juice or flying talcum that made me cough, though.  Never mind, that chore's out of the way.  I cut the peppers in half lengthways and then later on I can pull out a chunk and mince it up fiercely while it's still frozen and relatively helpless...

Second job was a bit more complex; all "free gratis," I had come by some lovely fresh local dark red beets, about golf ball sized or a wee bit larger, as pictured above.  So I Harvard'ed them, just now, in memory of a Great Treat of my childhood.  The recipe (from the ancient Purity Flour cookbook)(that's the Canadiana part) calls for a double-boiler, which I haven't had for years, but I do have a serviceable steel bowl which fits tightly in my largest Paderno steel saucepan, and that did just fine.  I had enough beets for a small "non-Harvard" serving as part of my supper...the rest went into the recipe which claims to create 6 or 8 servings.  I'll bag single servings in Ziploc bags and freeze them.  Along with the sugar, vinegar, and flour in the sauce, instant minced onion was called for.  I used onion powder instead -- and looking for it in the cupboard, I found my jar of granulated lime zest, so the beets got a shot of that as well.  Doesn't seem to have done any harm!

The noon meal was DINNER, today -- and supper will be a sequence of small veggie nibbles.  I find I sleep better that way...and I am going to bed very early and then waking up between 2 and 5...This morning I sat up and finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society before breakfast...having picked it up for practically nothing in a thrift shop some time back; a very satisfying read, indeed.

So I don't believe there is anything in the fridge at this point requiring urgent processing -- a comfortable feeling.  I'll assemble some salads-in-jars for the weekend; then perhaps I can turn my flagging attention to something else.

The sermon is done.  LOVE-love-love the RCL readings for this Sunday...so the sermon is a revision of one I preached -- at least six years ago, maybe nine!  I was content with it then, and I'm content with it now (and I have a 'new' congregation, praise be--"fresh ears! fresh ears!").  

Snow threatening...glad to have winter tires already installed.  The 'new' congregation is 120 km away -- 75 miles as near as makes no difference -- with the likelihood of "black ice" here and there, it behooves me to leave betimes, between 7:30 and 8 a.m. for the 10 am service.  Coffee in my big mug, a couple of muffins and some fruit for a rolling breakfast.  And I'll be driving into the sunrise; need to sit up Very Tall behind the visor for a few miles anyway. 

 


2 comments:

Amy+ said...

When you use the previously frozen jalepenos, do you cook them in something or use them as the thaw? I sometimes forget to buy a jalepeno when I am making guacamole and I am wondering if this could be an answer: to keep some frozen. I usually chop a raw one into the guacamole just to add the slightest after burner.

Crimson Rambler said...

Amy+, I just chop them up more or less finely and fling them into whatever I'm making without warming them up or waiting for them to thaw...and that seems to be fine. I put Tabasco in my guacamole so haven't tried the jalapenos. Mostly at this house they wind up in an omelet or frittata.