93 Things Grandma Loved - #8 Egg Custard

Grandma used to make her own custard. I didn't really like it very much, because it was made from eggs, which I wasn't too fond of as a child. Well, actually I loved egg yolks, but egg whites made me gag. I could barely tolerate them in scrambled eggs, if the eggs were blended to remove any trace of white, and were softly scrambled - completely done, but not tough and browned.

I still don't care too much for egg whites, but I'm less phobic if a morsel of cooked egg white should happen to wind up in mouth - you know like I can actually eat potato salad with egg whites in it and not get grossed out.

Sorry, this was supposed to be a post about Grandma's egg custard! When we started having chickens and goats, the occasional abundance of eggs and milk prompted me to test out egg custard. Just to see if I could stand it at all. As it turns out, I actually like it quite a bit.

Thanks for introducing custard to me, Grandma, I finally love it!

Until next time.

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This is TOO creepy

I wish I'd made the blog post I intended to make last week, but you'll just have to believe me when I say I was looking on the Internet for Taco Flavored Doritos.

They were my favorite when I was growing up. My clearest memories of Taco Flavored Doritos were from 1970 when I was in the 2nd grade. Two boys had a crush on me. One boy was Hispanic and his name was Buddy. The other boy was Caucasian - I don't remember his name. The Caucasian boy would frequently buy me Doritos from the school cafeteria and give them to me. I remember one occasion he slid them across the floor to my desk. He gave me other gifts, like one time he gave me a man's wedding band, and another was a piece of woman's jewelry.

Anyway, Taco Flavored Doritos were my favorite, but I haven't seen them in stores for years. During my search on the Internet I found there was a petition to bring them back, they are available for sale by the case on eBay and many, many people lament that they are no longer available; still others say they are available in limited areas.

I found a "recipe" from someone named raindog on this page for Taco Flavored Doritos.

Anyway, you can make something that sort of tastes like taco flavored Doritos by taking a bagful of Tostitos (or other oily unflavored tortilla chip), putting them in a baking dish, sticking them in the oven at 350 for a couple minutes, then dumping them into a bag in which you've placed some Old El Paso (or maybe Ortega, but not Taco Bell, it's all wrong - I mention Old El Paso because they sell theirs in a shaker now as if they know what we're doing with it) taco seasoning powder - add a little cheddar cheese powder or even the orange stuff from "EZ Mac" if you preferred the "Taco Bell" branded chips, shake vigorously, and then dump back into the Tostitos bag for eventual consumption.

Imagine my surprise when today I found these at Walmart:


I concur with others who have complained that this is not the original recipe for Taco Flavored Doritos. Others have said the collision packages that contain Zesty Taco tastes more like the original. I bought a bag of those last night, and I think they do taste more like the original flavor than the new bag I got today.

Notice the bag says at the bottom, "They're back by popular demand" which I think is code for "we're testing this area to see if Taco Flavored Doritos will sell here."

Until next time.

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Nine Eleven Two Thousand Eight

I was at work when it happened. We still lived in the city.

What I remember most of all is in the days following, the airport was shut down and it was so quiet. It was very obvious since we lived near the airport and could hear the planes warming up and taking off throughout the day and night.

I went to the zoo and took four photos with my company's camera (that is all the high resolution photos it could hold). I took them specifically so I could turn them into vision loss simulation photos to illustrate to others what different types of vision loss might look like.

I also remember in the days following that everyone put flags up everywhere.

I pray for the families that lost loved ones.

Until next time.

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Garden News!

There was a dust storm on the way home today, and to the west of us it was pouring rain. No rain for us though.

I went out to check the garden after I got home and discovered one bird flying around in there. I believe it was a Curve-Billed Thrasher.

Dh helped me rescue the poor thing. Bad news though, that means there is a way into the garden for birds. Also, one of our cats was in there, hunting the bird.

I also discovered some seeds have germinated! An edible weed, and radishes. I posted a similar post in October 2006! Check out this link on Little Mallow, with a few recipes for using it!

I'm anxious for the other seeds to begin germinating and poking their seed leaves above the ground. We need to carefully examine the garden and find out where the weak spots are to keep the birds out. It is a bit of a vicious cycle, since birds are attracted into the garden because of the baby plants, then the dogs get wind of the birds in the garden and begin racing around and around trying to catch the bird (or birds) which are flying back and forth inside. If the dogs get in, it can be bad, they have no respect for my garden beds and will trample everything. I hope it will be okay until I can get to it on the weekend.

Until next time.

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September Gardening!

First off, the list of vegetables we can plant right now:

September 1st to September 14th

• Beans, Snap
• Bok Choy
• Broccoli
• Brussel Sprouts TS
• Cabbage
• Cabbage, Chinese
• Carrots
• Cauliflower TS
• Celery
• Collard Greens
• Cucumbers
• Endive
• Kale
• Kohlrabi
• Lettuce, Head
• Lettuce, Leaf
• Leek
• Mustard
• Onions, Green
• Radishes
• Turnips

I am so proud of myself! I had planned to get my seeds planted yesterday, and as I was milking I started thinking about what needed to be done in order to succeed. I have a lot of seeds to plant but I didn't want to get myself overwhelmed with too much. I know I have a tendency to try to do too much and end up quitting because I get discouraged. So I told myself I could pick four types of seeds to plant. I decided on leaf lettuce, radishes, kale and Swiss Chard.

Then I realized I have to plant beets, too. Especially since they take a long time to mature into nice sized beets. Okay, even though they aren't on the list to plant NOW, they will be starting September 15th. So I'm just a few days early (I'm early on the spinach and chard, too). After I sat down and looked at my seeds, I realized I want to also plant bunching onions, and spinach.

My favorite place to buy seeds is from Pinetree Seeds. I just went to visit their site today and they have a brand new shopping cart, which is awesome and actually shows pictures of the vegetables! It used to be text only. I have been ordering from them for over a dozen years. They have good prices and the shipping is reasonable. Of course when I first started ordering from them, their seeds were fifty cents or sixty cents. They've gone up, like everything else.

You should go right now to Pinetree's site and request a catalog. I love when mine arrive and I can just spend hours looking at all the different vegetables and flowers they offer. Oh, and about ordering with them - they put the planting seasons on the packets for their area, which is Maine. So we have to plant our seeds when it's time for us. For example, we start planting things like lettuce now, but in Maine their gardens could be under snow by the time their lettuce was ready to harvest.

Here are the seeds I'm planting. Click on the link to see the information at Pinetree.

#332 Space Spinach
# W468 Bunching Forest Onion
#203 Pinetree Lettuce Mix (A collection of sweet leaf lettuces for continuous harvest)
#94 Bright Lights Swiss Chard
#W239 Chioggia Beets (Bright red exterior w/rings of pink & white inside)
#301 Cherry Belle Radish
#19101 Konserva Kale

After I made breakfast for myself, Kev and dh, I set out to get my garden ready. I showed you what it looked like a few days ago, so unfortunately it wasn't just a matter of going out and planting seeds.

I headed out just after 9am. I took the wheelbarrow over to the goat's pen and began shoveling from the outside of the fence. Hay and berries get kicked out of the yard onto the outside, and then that outside debris matures over time. It bakes in the sun, gets rained on and turns it into great composted material perfect for gardening. The goats of course had to have a look and see what I was doing, and make sure I didn't bring any yummy treats for them.

Here's the area where I was shoveling from.

And here's my beautiful compost.



I dumped it into the garden bed. Dh dug the ground up in the garden in one section about 6 feet square last weekend so I could at least get one bed started this weekend.

In a perfect world, I'd plant new seeds every two weeks. Some of the vegetables I'm planting will grow until next summer when it is too hot and they will die off, but other things have to be planted again and again to have a constant supply throughout the season.

For example, with Swiss Chard and leaf lettuce, you never harvest the entire plant. Instead you pick the outer leaves. You can pick all the leaves right down to leaving only the very center of the plant, and one or two small outer leaves. I've never planted kale before, but it's Kev's favorite green leafy vegetable, and I'm assuming it will be the same. Spinach can be harvested the same way.

In spite of the seed packet directions for planting the Swiss Chard, lettuce, kale and spinach, we planted each seed 2 to 4 inches apart (usually they tell you to plant 6 inches or a foot apart). This will be great for mature plants, but in the meantime we can be using that space to grow more plants. In a few weeks, we will "space" the seedlings to the correct distance. We can then have an awesome salad made of baby greens. Have you ever checked to see how much "baby greens" cost in the store? Upwards of six dollars a pound the times I've checked!

Radishes, being a root crop, need to be planted frequently in order to keep your supply constant. Radishes grow fast, so we'll probably be able to harvest our first crop within 30 days. Pinetree says they have harvested seeds by 21 days.

The beets, although the packages says 55 days, will probably not be ready for harvesting for at least three months.

BTW, in case you ever wondered, the number of days on the package means from the time the seed germinates. We planted the seeds on the 6th, and it will take 3-5 days for the beet cotyledons to emerge. So let's say the cotyledon emerges by the 11th. The 30th of October will be 56 days, and according to Pinetree they harvested beets starting on the 55th day. Well, I've never been able to get my beets to produce that early. I wonder if I'm missing something in my soil.

But my goodness, I digress! On with preparing the bed!

Here you might be able to see the color difference between the fresher compost, which is close to the goat pen, and compost from the "north forty" which has been aging out there for a few years. A nice hill of it, and it smells just like compost you buy from the store. Only it's free, all mine for the taking! I could never use all of it if I tried! :-)

After I got three wheelbarrow's full of compost mixed into the soil and got the bed somewhat level, I had to go inside for a while. I was burning up, I had to lay on the bed and let the fan blow on me. My feet were steaming hot inside my shoes, and they were killing me.

I think I was close to having heat exhaustion. Whew.

I stayed inside for about an hour, getting cooled off. Then Kev came out of his room and said he was able to come help me in the garden, so we went back out around 11:30.

Kev helped by repairing the garden in areas where the dogs had torn their way in a couple of years ago. It is hopefully safe now, since Hannah, the one that went the most psycho over birds in the garden passed away a couple of months ago.

I also hope the gophers have forgotten about my garden for a little while. They invaded two years ago, I hope they have moved on to greener pastures.

While Kev did the repairs to the outer fencing, I started getting the watering system in place. I had to check each soaker hose to make sure water was actually coming through the pinholes. I had to replace one. It is a tedious process, and sure I could have just popped them all off, thrown them away and used the new roll of soaker hose I have inside the house, (which I actually know where it's located!) but that's not how I roll. If the old Dig Laser Drilled Soaker Hose is still in working condition, then I'll use it.

The tedious process consisted of connecting each section of hose to the water source and examine carefully to see if water was dripping from each pinhole.

Kev helped me by putting the pieces together and taking them apart. You have to press the hose onto the connectors and it is sometimes hard to do.

Then it was time to plant! If you click on the photo you can see a larger image and you can see where we planted the different seeds.

Here's Kev for a garden photo after we were all finished.



So the first thing we can expect to harvest, barring any catastrophes (birds finding a way in and eating all the cotyledons as soon as they emerge, gophers digging under the fence and eating all the new baby plants, the dogs breaking in because a bird got in and is flying around) will be baby leaf lettuce, baby beets, baby Swiss Chard and radishes.

I have a lot more seeds to plant, and I hope I can get another bed prepared by the 20th. I would like to get my crucifers planted within the month. Falstaff Brussels Sprouts, Bubbles Brussels Sprouts, Cheddar Cauliflower, Gonzales Mini Cabbage, Silver Cup 40 Cauliflower, Graffiti Cauliflower, Cabbage Krautman.

I like to try to plant some heirlooms along with the hybrids. If I were ambitious enough, and could find the time and energy, I would save my own seeds for the next year's crop. I still find it a very good price to pay $0.80 for a packet of 300 seeds. Imagine that. A small bunch of radishes in the store sell for $0.89 a bunch. But with a packet of seeds that cost than a dollar, I could grow 30 bunches. That is some kind of savings! I sure hope I can stay up with my garden this time, and keep it growing throughout the season.

Until next time.

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DS1 Wears Size 14 Shoes

Yesterday I mentioned DS1 wearing his daddy's big shoes... I haven't gotten my scanner hooked up, so I took some pictures of pictures:



I added a label cloud to my blog. Check it out.

Until next time.

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I Don't Really Wear Size 14's

I was just kidding the other day when I said I wear size 14 shoes.

When I was a child, I would find the biggest clodhoppers I could and wear them around the house and laugh so hard I almost peed my pants. I don't know why it was so funny to me, but just imagining my feet being THAT big would put me into a giggling fit that could continue for hours. My sisters would do the same thing.

My mom tells me that we used to parade in front of the window outside where she had her sewing machine, doing things to make her laugh.

Ds1 used to wear his daddy's shoes when he was a baby, which would totally crack me up.

Until next time.

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My Poor Garden

I am hoping to plant my garden soon.

I am feeling better physically! I have been taking the adrenal support supplements for almost one month, and the thyroid supplements for almost three weeks.

I am feeling like I have more energy, and want to get my garden going again. I am so hungry for fresh picked Swiss Chard. We have been eating more vegetables and they are so expensive, not to mention they are not organic and probably covered with pesticides. It would be so wonderful to grow nearly everything we need for a salad, and spinach, and kale, Swiss chard. Mmmm. I have also done pretty good at growing cauliflower and broccoli.

But my garden is in very desperate need of attention. I haven't gardened since 2006. I also bought $40 worth of seeds from my favorite seed supplier and never planted even one seed! Horrible!

As a result of not gardening for two years, desert weeds and shrubbery has taken over.




What's this? Let's have a closer look:


Bullhead stickers!!!

I first blogged about bullhead stickers here. And then I bragged here, and said we don't have them on our property because I watch carefully for them. Well, apparently I wasn't watching too carefully, because the day after I bragged about how we don't have them, we found a BUNCH of them. Dozens, if not hundreds, and they had already produced and dropped HUNDREDS of thorns. Luckily I devised a method for harvesting a good deal of them. Just use a pair of flip-flops. Dh and Kev and I got out there and worked for a couple of hours to get them picked up. I wore my slip on tennies, and would put one foot into a flip-flop, then walk over the area. Dozens of stickers would attach to the bottom of the flip-flop, then I'd take it off and put on another one, while Kev scraped the stickers into a garbage can. Dh was using the flip-flops on his hands, doing the same thing. It is amazing how many stickers one plant can produce. And horrifying!

Last Saturday, when I took a look at what it is going to take to get the garden whipped into shape, I found that two MATURE bullhead sticker plants had taken over one of the beds.

I don't need to fix the whole garden at the same time. I really just need one bed to start with. I have plenty of fertilizer and mulch, thanks to the goats!! And I need help from my guys to get the fencing repaired. The dogs have broken through in a few places. The entire garden is fenced top and sides, to keep the birds out. But sometimes a tiny bird will find it can squeeze in between the 1" chicken wire and then it will be fluttering around inside trying to find its way out. The dogs go nuts, running around and around, attacking the fencing, trying to get to it. I have had to rescue several little birds. They get worn out and hot, and out of breath. One time one was so worn out it was just hanging by its feet and I was able to catch it to release it.

I am really hoping Dh and Kev can find some time in the next week to help me get the garden started. I am also hoping and praying that I'll find my watering timer!! I looked around a little for it today, and I've seen it SOMEWHERE recently, but only God knows where!

I also had planned to put up a list of what can be planted for each month and haven't done that since May. Yikes!

Here is a picture of my seeds.

They are two years old. I hope, hope, hope that most of the seeds are still viable. You can see the list of seeds at this post.

Wish me luck. At the VERY least I'm planting Swiss Chard, kale and lettuce. And radishes.

Until next time.

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Did You Know I Wear Size 14 Shoes?

Ever since I was a young girl. Clown feet are so attractive on a woman. Last Sunday I got ready for church and came out of the bedroom wearing these beauties.

Kev just said, "Good golly, Momma. Gosh."

Until next time.

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