born to be wild

This is what seven pounds of feral plums look like. There is a small tree wedged between the back of my shed and the cyclone fence. I love Italian prune plums, not only are they delicious for fresh eating, and trouble free to grow, but they are a snap to process for freezing: cut in half, push pit away, set on cookie sheet... Once frozen, they can be stored for future cooking or thawed and processed for shelf stable jam, sweet or savory sauce, or whatever you like. Not sure what these will eventually become, other than that there is a shortage of plum sauce* on the pantry shelves, and I also hear a crisp calling, maybe mixed in with the last three Akane apples, now that would be a most seasonal treat!

*"plum sauce" is not like applesauce, but more like a homemade version of Hoisin Sauce, being thick and brown and full of spicy garlicky salty savory sweet delectable flavor!

(hot)pepper sauce to the rescue

in which our plucky heroine swears: "this cold willn't get the better of me..."

As part of my arsenal, I now have added this brilliant orange sauce. There are Nardello peppers growing in the side yard here; planted this year, they have actually grown to maturity, and now are ready to give their lives to the cause!

This was a fairly easy recipe to make, took a bit of time but made far more than what I would call "two servings", I put half the sauce in the freezer and still had enough left to serve several more folks. The immersion stick-blender worked just fine, yielding a sauce with just a bit of texture. Rather than over pasta, a bowlful of roasted cauliflower worked well. It might be interesting to make this sauce with some added sausage crumbles, and without hot pepper, for a different flavor profile, one of the sweeter apple chicken ones might really bring out the sweetness in the peppers.

Changes I made from the original recipe: left out the oregano (I pretty much always do that, not a happy flavor for me), and substituted cayenne for pepper flakes. Next time I make this, I'll be careful to add just a pinch of cayenne, I was a little more enthusiastic this time, and it came out pretty spicy! All to the good though, I have been chasing the rhino(virus) with hot pepper in my soup, rhinos hates hot pepper, so a spicy sauce is just the thing...

mucky Monday, with music

In which our plucky heroine is laid low, and rambles with only minimal coherence...

Alas, I am now down with a cold... and it is a turrible awful one! I tend to catch viruses when there is an overload of unavoidable stress in my life. My take on it is that when the season changes, it adds additional stress to our body; it's gotta be hard on the system to keep jumping from mid-80's to low 60's so suddenly. Goodness knows that there has been stress aplenty currently. Mostly counterbalanced and antidoted by Good Things, for which I'm extremely grateful. But still, stress aplenty, enough to keep me from sleeping some nights, which makes it much more likely that fighting off a dread rhinovirus will not be as easy.

I do have hope of finding a new doctor (after the debacle of last month) but the effort involved in sorting through the lists of theoretical options is grueling. Lots of calls end in finding out that they do not, in fact, accept OHP Standard. Have finally found a few clinics that do, but how to make a reasoned choice of the potential actual doctors??? I'd not take a road trip with someone, or hire an employee, or start a new job, without some kind of mutual interviewing process to see if working together was feasible. Why then is it expected to allow someone access to the inside of our bodies on strictly a piece of paper and if lucky a website blurb? (sorry, I would prefer to be living in the best of all possible worlds, which is currently fragmented and this kind of sensible option is only available to those with far more dosh than I) It should not be unreasonable to want to have the person on the other end of the speculum and the scalpel be someone who is willing to accept me as a partner in my healthcare. (end of grumpful rant)

Grateful for cooler damp weather, the heat and humidity on Saturday darn near did me in... if there is a break in the rain this week, will try to snag some of the remaining plums, have lost most of them to squirrels. The kale and chard are still looking good though, and there are still three apples left on the Akane. Also grateful for the fairly well stashed pantry; I have been living on chicken broth in a box, mixed with awesome sauce (chili jam). thinking about getting some ginger, and cilantro, and lime, and maybe some noodles, could make a Thai style soup... hmmm use up some of the older cans of cocoanut milk in storage, and some of the dried mushrooms, and a box of tofu... this is a great opportunity to come up with creative and tasty pantry meals. I do want to get some polenta chubs, and maybe some of the pre-cooked rice, to add to the earthquake shelf. Am also grateful to be currently on hiatus from work, so that being sick is not causing me to lose otherwise essential income. The universe is telling me to rest now, so I will do that, and trust that the turn of the wheel will bring both healing and help as needed...

"The Wheel"


"A Place in the World for a Gambler"

̿ ̿ ̿̿'̿̿\̵͇̿̿\=[^_^]=/̵͇̿̿/̿̿'̿ ̿ ̿
dog is dreaming,
sleeping barks sound as whimpers;
the hunt goes on