Friday, August 28, 2009

It's been hard to write with the family things that are going on. Today is the first day that I haven't cried at least part of the day in about a week and feel a bit human again. This may change tomorrow. We'll perhaps all eventually find our balance in this situation and maybe we'll have to find it again and again.

I don't feel at liberty to say much more than that. I gotta drop the subject as well because it has been so consuming and overwhelming and I want a few minutes to touch on other things in my life and remember those things which I love.


FOODS
The first of these, of course, is food. I need to stop checking out cookbooks from the library because I keep ending up purchasing more and more. I'm working my way through parts of "Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan" and I'm afraid I'll have to purchase that one as well. That brings me up to 3 vegan/vegetarian cookbooks. I gotta stop.

I have to say, I was a little nervous about trying anything from this cookbook because I was totally unenthused by a different cookbook that the author did (I think it was Viva La Vegan). This one? I've gone through about 6 recipies and have really loved all of them.

I gotta admit, except for dinners...I'm now almost 100% vegan and now most dinners are vegetarian. It hasn't been a difficult transition. I just allowed myself to stop thinking of meals in the typical Midwestern-American diet where the meat is the main thing with small sides of fruits and grains . Now that fruits and vegetables are in the center and meat is the side, it just makes my body feel like this makes much more sense. I'm probably eating a lot more nutrient-dense/vitamins that I've been craving.

Speaking of food, the heirloom summer squash and tomatoes and goodies are at the Greenwood Market. I've never had heirloom summer squash so I wasn't sure what to expect. Uh, yeah...I think I'm not going to be growing regular zuchs anymore (that is, if I could ever successfully grow a zucchini). All it needed was a little garlic, olive oil, and basil and it was heavenly.

CLASSES
Tomorrow I take a 4-hour canning class. It won't include pressure canning, which is good since I don't actually have a pressure canner. I'll be making the following:

Bread and Butter Zucchini Pickles
BBQ sauce
Plum Preserves
Pickled Carrot Zucchini Strips
Corn Relish
Tomato Bruschetta

Really, I just care about canning tomatoes. I don't think I'm getting a bumper crop this year, but will be hunting down lots of Roma tomatoes as I really do want to see how much tomato sauce, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, etc. I can put up for the winter.

Garden
It might be time for me to start lookin' at my tomatoes to try to push them to fruit and bloom. The season is starting to come to a close.

I think that when I pull my zucchini plant, I'll save that space and throw in some garlic. I can't harvest garlic until July, so I might think otherwise in a little while. That space definitely can't be unused. Kale, perhaps?

Molly the eggplant has 6 eggplants on her and is going strong. It looks like I'm going to have to bring her back inside. Unfortunately, she is really, REALLY big for the greenhouse windows.

I absolutely must plant the last of the carrots, parsnips, etc. THIS WEEKEND.

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-E.B. White

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