Freshness Rings

 I am sure there are many, if not most, that have not heard about Freshness Rings.  This is one of my newest additions to my kitchen supplies.  These rings are awesome.  I use half a lemon every morning and I used to get a piece of plastic wrap to put on the other half.  This ring keeps the cut edge moist and almost as good as the first morning.  The membrane that the fruit sits on is quite flexible and the size of the lemon makes no difference, including when there is a pointy stem end.  They are like little drums.  

The apple in this picture has been in the fridge for a couple days without rubbing any lemon on it to stop it from browning.  My avocados do start to turn a little brown after a couple of days, but none of the fruit appears to dry out.  Of course I don't usually leave an avocado in there more than the next day.  

This is the 4th ring... it is orange and it currently has an onion in it that I forgot was in the fridge.  The onion looks like I just put it in there yesterday.

I bought my Freshness Rings on Amazon

This is Butters

This is Butters, she is my shadow, especially if I go upstairs to my sewing room where there are many treasures to be found.  The sewing room is the place where she can literally get in my face.  I have to keep the sewing room door shut when I am not up there because there is no telling what treasure she might want to bring downstairs to me.  She is a very happy kitty most of the time, and her buddy is Sugar.  Butters and Sugar came to live with us a little more than two years ago when they were fairly young kitties.  I think Sugar was about 4 months old and Butters was probably 2 months.  They were together in the foster home they came from and it seemed a good idea to get two kitties that already had bonded.   Since they have been here the only time they have seen other animals, especially kitties, is through the windows.

Well, a phenomena occurred the other day.  Z stopped by and she had her kitty with her... in a carrier, they had just come from the vet. Butters sat next to the carrier and sniffed and appeared to be very interested in what was in that cage.  It was only when Z was leaving that Butters growled at Cabbage.  Sugar observed from a distance and seemed unphased by it all.  After they were gone is when the crazy Butters appeared.  She went ballistic with hissing and growling if Sugar came anywhere close to her.  Sugar kind of backed off and looked at us as if to say, I don't know what is wrong with her.  Sugar and Butters are best buddies and they roll and tussle and chase each other, then they stop and start grooming each other before they lay down next to each other.  This second picture is back when they were first here, but it is still not uncommon to see them cuddled together.  Butters continued the whole rest of the day to hiss and growl at Sugar.  Then during the night when I woke briefly, they were both down by my ankles, so I assumed they had resolved their differences.

Turns out I was wrong, once we got up in the morning Butters was right at her growling and hissing again.  Sugar just tried to ignore her.  It wasn't until late evening on the second day that Butters finally settled down and started playing with Sugar again, and the hissing and growling ceased.

Something stirred up a memory... although she was so young, it is hard to know just what would have stuck in the background for so long.  

 

Pathway blocks in place

My pathway is now complete, well I destroyed any grass that was there, but maybe in a couple weeks I will go buy some more sod from the roadside guy.  The sod I picked up a couple of weeks ago seems to be taking hold pretty good.

Hardest part was getting those blocks in place.  I would have preferred using all red blocks, but they are not easy to find in the 12 x12 size right now.  I'm going to let everyone think it was intentional to alternate the colors. 

With any luck I can get some Fall plants going pretty soon.  Still pretty hot out there

Time for another change

 I have made numerous changes in my side yard garden in the past couple of months.  I started this phase of my garden when I removed the wooden gate, or half of it anyhow, and replaced it with an arbor gate.  My raised beds are having a hard time with plants at the moment with the heat, but I'm expecting to make some new additions in another couple of weeks, possibly when it isn't so persistently hot out there. 

Meanwhile I am finding my pathway blocks are too close to the raised beds under the gazebo type awning we put up last year... I keep hitting my head on the protruding cross members at the top.  As a result I am not using the blocks to walk on, and what little grass I did have is slowly disappearing.  My next project will be to move the blocks more towards the middle.  I have a problem right now with the window of opportunity, which is very narrow before it gets too hot to work outside.  I have about 2 hours in the morning, if I start at 7.  I'm thinking this a job that will definitely not get done in 2 hours... after 9 forget being out there.  I know that will change a little if the temps start to come down some, but I really don't like hitting my head, but I really do like being out there puttering around.

I added a new plant to my front porch, it's called a Purple Flash Pepper... I do not think they are edible.  I have never seen one before, so not sure if it is really suited to reside in its current location.  It is in a big clay pot, so it is moveable

Meet Frankie

Who would have thought we would find a monkey at a garden center. I discovered a new garden center yesterday, well new to me anyhow.  It's not one you are just going to happen to drive by... you need to know it's there as it's about a mile off the main road, on the way to LaVernia.  I had the address in my phone, which I used to confirm I was heading in the right direction.

The Front Porch Garden Center I discovered through a post on Facebook.  Samantha the owner of the garden center posted some plants I thought I needed to check out.  I got Zoé to go with me this morning, and boy were we impressed.  There was a good variety of plants and trees and succulents too.  She also is a dealer for FoxFarm soils.  It was so much more than I expected, and I was very pleased that I thought of Zoé  to go with me.

Besides being a really neat garden center it was almost like a mini-zoo.  Well not really, but there was a fabulous monkey named Frankie. She was on a leash, but that was only to keep her from wandering off I think as she was super friendly and loved being picked up and cuddled.  You can see her long tail wrapped around me.  Behind us there was a hen house with several chickens.  Across the pathway there was another big cage... it had some birds, maybe doves.  There were a couple small poodles and another terrier type dog. 

Samantha is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to all the plants she has available as well as answers to questions about amending soil, etc.  Overall it was an awesome discovery.

Sewing Machines & a Kitty

 My sewing room is home to several sewing machines, but they all have a special purpose.  My current layout allows me to have 4 of my machines setup and ready to sew.  A couple have covers as I don't use them quite as often, but I would not want to part with any of them.  My kitty Butters can usually be found somewhere close by.  If I go up the stairs she is right behind me.  She wants to be on top of everything I do.  When not in use I have to keep the door closed to my sewing room because somehow she always seems to find another ball of yarn, or a multitude of other treasures she drags down the stairs to show me her new found prize.  Sometimes it is amazing the size of the treasures she can pull down the stairs, you can usually hear that she has something bigger coming down the stairs because she can make lots of noises.

My workhorse is my Juki TL2000.  It only does straight stitches, but it does them beautifully, and very quickly. I can usually find several tasks that I can compete better/faster using my serger, on the left.  In front of the other window, covered, is my Juki DX5 that does fancy stitches.  To the far right is my Juki Coverstitch... I forgot the # on that one.  I am still learning all its capabilities... I haven't had it too long.  It is a really cool machine with lots of possibilities, but sometimes I get too distracted with other things going on to take the time to really find this machine's full potential.

I have a couple antique sewing machines that still work.  Those are not typically setup all the time, but my Singer Featherweight gets pulled into service now and then when I want to use a ruffler because it has a really nice ruffler attachment.  I think that machine is older than I am.

Now I have a few other machines, but these are the ones I utilize most often.

Salmon is awesome

 I have skirted around salmon for a very long time.  I don't remember eating it before, but I never ventured into buying some to cook... because I also did not know how.  I didn't have the incentive to take a stab at it because Ron really did not want to eat fish.  He had an episode when he was young with a fish bone getting stuck in his throat, and he vowed to not eat fish again.

Recent events have required a new look at Ron's diet.  The doctor told him fish was good for him.  Now he would eat things like fish sticks or a fish sandwich at a fast food place... it was like eating hamburgers instead of a steak.  The fish was ground up and made into patties or whatever.  He thought those were pretty safe.  Well it probably doesn't have any fish bones, but I would not consider the process of getting them to your plate was all done safely from a health perspective.  I asked him if it was okay to give salmon a try for his new diet and he gave me the go-ahead.

This is the salmon I used.  I bought it at Walmart and the 2# pack was just under $20.  There were 6 fillets in the pack and each fillet was vacuum sealed individually.  I used a recipe that called for 2# of salmon, but there are only 2 of us here and neither of us like our portions too big... so that means if I only use 2 per meal, I will have a total of 3 meals for 2 at about $6.75 each meal... at least for the actual salmon.  There were a few spices, a lemon, garlic and olive oil to make the sauce.  I served asparagus on the side, so that would be probably a bit less than $10 for a totally awesome meal.

Getting into some of the details on the process.  I took the salmon out to thaw about 1 1/2 hour before I was to begin.  These are not terribly thick, so that was just about the right amount of time.  I first cut the recipe in half because I was using less than half the amount of salmon.  I zested my lemon, then juiced it.  I didn't want to waste another lemon to get a couple slices for presentation when it was done, so I straightened the lemon shell and got 4 slices... it was just for looks. 

The list of ingredients here is the recipe halved and I did not have any fresh parsley, so I just left it out.

The instructions said use foil to wrap the fillets in while baking to keep the steam in to enhance the cooking.  Well, I don't use foil in my cooking... I try to be sure aluminum does not come in contact with any of my food.  I used parchment paper that I painted all one side with olive oil before loading with the salmon. With the salmon in the parchment lined pan, I poured the sauce over the 2 fillets, and there seemed to be way more than needed, so I put half in a little jar to save for next time.  Meanwhile I folded the parchment paper over the salmon and tucked the ends under and put it in the over for 13 minutes.  I also opened it and put it on a flat pan to go under the broiler for the final 3 minutes.  A note here is parchment paper can catch on fire if it is too close under the broiler, so should you go this route, be sure to flatten the parchment good before putting it back under the heat... and watch it close.

I steamed the asparagus, and put the 4 slices of lemon in the bowl before I put the asparagus in and added a couple tablespoons of butter.  After that was all melted, I plated the salmon and spooned the asparagus on the side and put 2 slices on each fillet for an awesome presentation.  

If anyone wants the link to the whole recipe, let me know in the comments and I will get it to you.