Thursday, October 27, 2011

Weed day and dinner

 Today I did a job that I have been putting off for quite a while. Cleaning out the raised beds in the garden.
As you can see, they were over grown with weeds and wire grass! But there were still some plants growing in there too!
The peppers are still dong fine, with lots of flowers and I picked another 13 sweet peppers (2.5 lbs worth).

As you can see, some of them were changing color and just asking to be picked!

And the "Rosemary plants are still in the land of the living.(more about them in a bit!)

And flowers were still blooming. But as can be seen, the weeds pretty well had them hemmed in.
One of the beds have been used to grow tomatoes and as a way to keep the birds out of the bed, I had placed 1/2 inch PVC pipe in the bed and covered that with bird netting. As I pulled that out of the bed, A black snake came with it! He was tangled up in the netting and it took me 30 minutes to cut him loose! As I held him behind the head, I used the other hand to cut the netting. He was pretty calm throughout the whole thing, But I think he was pretty cold and just wanted to get out into the sun. After that, each time I reached into grab a hand full of weeds, my mind kept telling me "There was a snake in there!"

Now about the Rosemary. As today was my day off from the "JOB", and Terri was in school most of the day. Its my day to cook.
I put a pot roast in the crock pot early on and added a onion, beef broth and two can of mushroom soup and let it cook all day. Along with that I decided to roast spuds, onion, carrots, sweet potatoes and summer squash. After chopping everything and getting it into a bowl, I added fresh Rosemary and Olive oil, salt and pepper. Roasted at 400 for 40 minutes in the oven.
And desert was a "French Caramel Apple Cake"! This one was not from a box, but from scratch! Really easy and so good with cool whip and extra caramel sauce drizzled over!!!!
Think I will go get another slice!
See ya!
Tom

Monday, October 24, 2011

Apple Sauce - Canning

As promised, Last Thursday I spent the day canning apple sauce and did some baking. Terri was at school in Greenville and I had the whole day to work at her house.







The start of the process. Peel, core and slice the apples and pears. I placed the peels and cores in a bucket on the floor (WORM FOOD!) and the apples went into the big pot that had a water/lemon juice mix to keep the apples from browning and to add a little tartness.

This is my version of a double boiler. The apples are placed into a 4 cup heavy duty  cup and  placed into the Microwave on high for 3 min. This cooks them a bit and pulls a lot of juice from them.
Kept peeling, coring and slicing with this hand crank tool and placed the peels and cores in a bucket on the floor (WORM FOOD!).

Where did this come from? Its what's  for desert.
6 Quarts and 16 pints was the final count. O' that's dinner prep's in the background. Manderin orange french toast with eggs and bacon. Sounds like brekfast for dinner to me! YUM!
Double chocolate "Tuxcedo Cake" Talk about YUM!?

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Grave's Mountain Apple Festival

I took a vacation day off work and we went to the Apple Festival at Grave' mountain inn and apple farm. This the 47 time the festival has been held and this time it was held over 3 week-ends. The picture above is of the Inn set on the hill side above the farm.

There are two streams that run through the farm and this one is at the base of the hill side below the Inn.

There were a lot of people out this year and there were a lot of vendors there as well. You can pick your own from the tree's or select what you want form the 9 varieties they have from big wooden bins set around the festival area.

 "Gala's", we took 2 boxes. And at $14.00 a box we got quite a few. We also got a box of "Grimes Golden! So later this week, it's apple sauce time!

Of course there were lots of apple treats to try and even apple butter to make!

The way they use to do it "Back in the Day"!
After we left the festival, we took a drive along the "Sky line Drive" a top the "Blue Ridge Mountains"

  The tree's are just starting to change and the yellows are the most prevalent right now, with a few reds and browns.






I sure wish that I could live in a place like this. The farms and ranches are located in such a pretty place and it would be a joy to work outside with this to look at each day!
 Thursday will be apple sauce day and I will write a post after we get the jars out and on the counter!

So where do you get your apples and which do you like to use for apple sauce?
Tom