A Plethora of Peppers

Ta da, I am now a Texan, I am making jalapeno jam!  It is super duper easy to make, so I will put the recipe at the end of the post.  Let me just say that when you decide to start canning at 0330 in the morning, please make sure you have all the ingredients.  I had everything ready, I am talking jalapenos pureed, lids and jars heated on the stove, and lo and behold I had no sugar.  This recipe calls for 6 cups and I had about one, it made me sad.  After grumbling and cursing the lack of sugar at such a crucial juncture, I decided I had to do a Walmart run. Did I get a normal 5lb bag of sugar? Nope, I got a 25 lb bag of sugar that will ensure I won't run out for a long long long long time, I was irritated and vindictive what can I say.  I even had a delightfully awkward moment at Walmart. The check out lady commented, 'thats a big bag of sugar'. Now usually the employees at Walmart at night don't really talk or make eye contact, so naturally this caught me off guard. My verbal and social skills were in their finest form, and after a too long pause while my brain frantically tried to think of something witty, clever or just non weird to say. I blurted out a comment about how much of a bummer it is being in the middle of canning and running out of sugar. I am pretty sure that just made me seem more weird. Seriously who buys a 25 lbs bag of sugar at 0400 in the morning because they are canning? I do, that is who...

Chop Chop

Aren't my pink gloves awesome?  I did not want to be seeding and slicing jalapenos without proper protection in place, nothing like rubbing your eye after cutting peppers.

Jalapeno jam going to its new home

Can't believe I actual had the right # of jars ready

It looks good, hopefully tastes good too

Now if I can only muster up the energy to make some crackers.

To make Jalapeno jam:

12 medium sized jalapenos seeded and de-veined.

6 cups of sugar

2 packages of the liquid pectin so a total of 6 oz.

2 cups cider vinegar

green food coloring if you want

1). Puree the jalapenos and one cup cider in a blender then put in a pot on the stove

2). Add all the sugar and the other cup of the cider

3). Stir over high heat until boiling.  Once you hit a boil keep it there for 10 minutes ( It will seem like forever)

4.) Add both packages of the liquid pectin and boil hard for one more minute

5). Add green food coloring if you want to make it super green

6). Do your canning, if you want to eat it within three weeks you can just put it in a clean jar in the fridge or freezer.  To keep it for up to a year you have to do the water bath thing.  I recommend just googling ball canning and they will tell you the appropriate times etc.  Really water bath canning is super easy don't be scared.

Memorial Day

We had a delightful memorial day weekend, and I also wanted to take a moment to thank all of the veterans of wars past and present.  I ended up eating brisket for every meal for three days.  I just can't get enough of brisket it makes my heart sing with happiness.  I don't even want to know what my cholesterol levels are.

Really? 

Best brisket in the world

The family

All Dressed up and Somehwere to

We made the drive to San Antonio last week to go watch Star Wars and other Space Odysseys as played by the San Antonio symphony.  It was a lot of fun.  The music was beautiful and we sat close enough to see everything.  I love watching the musicians, it seems like they are having such a great time.  The violinists were amazing.  It made me want to practice more (-:  I have been neglecting my playing, the one thing I want to buy is a damper for the violin so I can play at night time without disturbing anyone.

I am wearing heels (-:

After the show we went downtown to San Antonio and found a great little cantina that had a quiet relaxed atmosphere and a band playing some jazzy blues music, my kind of place.  Surprisingly it wasn't all that crowded, apparently most of the young night crowd prefers loud music, where you have to shout to be heard.  I for the record hate things that are loud, for example:  Popping balloons still make me grit my teeth and I can hardly stand fireworks because of the noise.  

Being a night nurse is wonderful because I get to be stealthy and quiet or creepy depends how you look at it.  The lights get turned off at the nurses station and even when we talk to each other it is more on a whisper level (for the record, no we never sleep while on duty).  My nursing shoes are chosen because they don't squeak, my scrub colors are black and blue,  I carry my trusty pen light into patient rooms to do late night checks and IV medication hanging.  I have to say that nursing at night makes it challenging sometimes to get things done.  On one hand you want to make sure you are doing everything you are supposed to, on the other hand you have to try to let your patients get some quality uninterrupted sleep which is vital for healing.  When vital signs checks have to be done every four hours, oral medications being given last at 2100, IV meds and breathing treatments being given at all hours of the night, blood sugars at 0300 and lab draws that are at 0500, being a patient in the hospital means that you will most likely be getting little uninterrupted sleep.  At the same time, you have to remember that the hospital isn't holiday inn and if you weren't sick and didn't need close monitoring you wouldn't need to be there.  At some point or another most of us will need to be hospitalized, please make sure to take a second and thank your nurse.  I have a few suggestions for all of you who will someday be in the hospital. Keep in mind that you are not the only sick person your nurse is taking care of, understand that many of them don't get a lunch breaks or any other breaks during a 12 hour shift, forgoing them in order to take care of you, understand that missing holidays, birthdays, and important events is an unavoidable condition of our career.  Cut us a little slack, being in the hospital does not give you an opportunity to abandon common courtesy and basic human politeness.  Just some thoughts from me, sorry about the soap box.   

Away We Go

I won't lie and say I have been busy, because truly I have not.  I feel like I have been working a lot which isn't true either because I am working the same number of shifts as always.  I am coming off my orientation period though which has me terrified, the security blanket is going away and baby bird is going to have to fly.

We went to San Antonio last night.....at two in the morning it really sounded like a good idea.  I just hadn't counted on how even a big city is totally dead at 2 in the morning on a Wednesday.  There is however a mexican restaurant called Mi Tierra that has never closed since it opened a couple decades ago.  We had chips, salsa, queso and delicious mexican food 3:45 a.m.  How is that for weird?  Surprisingly there were other people there, (other night shifters I presume) and a couple of cops.  

My original hens Agnes, Pearl, Camille, and Annalise turned on year old on the 16th.  I remember the day we got them I put their birthday in my phone.  I can't believe that a year has passed since we embarked on our journey of sustainability, farming, practicality, or whatever you want to call it.  Getting the chicks kicked off all of the craziness, before that it was just talking and dreaming.  I can't believe how much has changed since that fateful day when the husband said, "hey do you want to go to Kaneohe and get some chicks?" we have built a chicken coop, bought two goats and learned how to milk, had seven rabbits that we bred, and learned to process, had a compost pile, ate delicious eggs from our own hens, and grew our own garden.  I need to start putting more dates in my phone of firsts and new things.  It is nice to look back and see how far you have come.

Weena trying out to be the Grinch's dog

Behold the free fence

Sweet gate husband made

Our future food

Saber Tooth's war wound

P.S. Saber Tooth is MIA  I don't know where he is at, I am hoping he shows back up.  Hopefully he is just out wooing some lady cats.  

This Little Piggy Went to the Freezer

Luau! 


If you're hungry for hunk of fat and juicy meat,


Eat my buddie Pumbaa here cuz he is a treat! 

A hundred dollar dine, a tasty swine, all you gotta do is get in line. 

Are ya achin?

 

Yup Yup Yup



For some bacon?



Yup Yup Yup



He's a big pig, You can be a big pig too! Oy! 

So this picture is of a pig that was given to us by an accquaintance. The men folk killed the pig and butchered it in the yard. Yeehaw, I am definately in Texas, killin pigs in the yard. So far my mom in law has made chile verde, and tinga with it. I think tinga is my new favorite food. It is delicious, there is such a nice savory smokey spicy flavor to it that is hard to describe but delicious. Today my mom in law is making a posole again with the pig.  This pig has already given us about two dozen servings of food! It was also totally free, did I mention that? Free is always my favorite.  We also have two small piggies in in the pen we built for our future goats. They are only maybe twenty pounds each so we are feeding them and getting them fattened up for further delicious pig eating. Husband wants to name them something, which is fine. I think we should call them bacon and piglet or pork chop something food related to remind us that they are not pets.   It rained today and they are happy as well, pigs in mud. They are living the good life.

Butchering is an interesting thing, definately an art and science. It takes a special finesse and very sharp knives.  I didn't stay to watch because I am a whuss, I am still acclimating to the idea of live animal to food. It is hard.  I know that my grandparents didn't have such sentimental feelings.  My grandma used to live on a farm that raised pigs. Even though helping with the actual slaughter was outside my realm of comfort, I did however help wash the meat after it was cut into non pig looking hunks. You have to wash off all the blood and get all the clots off before it goes in the freezer, so that is what I helped with.    


The chickens are huge already, definately bigger than the barred rocks and americanas we had in Hawaii. I guess because these are production layers they get bigger faster and will hopefully lay sooner. I am guesstimating that we will have eggs in two months, maybe less. They are starting to get into that awkward stage where they chirp but occasionally make a cluck.