On goat health

You can check out my goat post here.

Pride Goeth Before the Fall

So our planned meat preservation experiment was on track and ready. We had made a list and checked it, did some errands, and checked it again. Salt, yup. Sugar, two kinds. Fresh thyme, lots. Bay, juniper berries, fresh nutmeg. Right on. Plastic bags, uh huh. Lots of storage space, done. Clean counter tops, recipe book, note taking equipment. All there.

The only problem was that our hog jowls were sliced and not whole. DAMMIT. But we went on anyway and figured we would just be flavoring the jowls and not trying to air dry the bastards.

Needless to say I have requested whole jowls from my pig farming friend. Along with some pork belly. We remain undaunted. The SB fried up some jowl samples last night and was so excited he had to bring them upstairs with him when he came to wake me up and tell me how yummy they were. We chatted some about what the other 8.75 pounds of them might be good in and he trundled off to his basement lair to dream of hog jowl flavored pasta, etc. Some of this is most definitely going back in the freezer.

In other projects this weekend, I was working on another sun dress for a small friend (one really has to get through the winter some how and this is my chosen method for this year apparently.... cheaper than ordering seeds and plants from every catalog that arrives in the mail box....) The fabric has an embroidered pattern on it. I realized that one of the front side bodice pieces didn't have embroidery on it. After I stitched it into the bodice. So in a rare showing of concern for this sort of thing, I ripped the piece out and re-cut it. Backwards. CRAP. Then had to re-cut it AGAIN. Then I put the whole thing together realizing that I should have put the zipper in the back panel before I sewed it to the front. I didn't have to tear it apart, but it was considerably more tricky while it was attached. This is why you really should make multiples of any given pattern. It takes the first 2 or 3 to work out all the kinks. We'll see if there are any more sun dresses of this nature to be seen before the spring sets in. I am actually planning winter coats for some of the little ones. Though I find it significantly less exciting to sew wool in summer than I do to sew linen in winter....

Because I don't want to blow all the suspense of my new year's resolutions in one go, I decided to do a little blogging with each one as the subject arises.... And on the sewing scene, I have decided to sew some things for myself. They are simple but I know the pattern will require some alterations because my figure is, um, let's call it non standard. Anywhoo.... I want to make a few things that actually go together. No really. Things that MATCH. Here is the pattern I have selected.... Probably something linen-y for summer. It should be fun. Then I hope to work up to things a little more complicated. So you see, the real reason for the sun dresses, besides getting me through the winter by planning wardrobes for small children, is revving up the sewing skills for a bigger project.... you notice I say this like I planned it this way? HA!

So. There is resolution number 1. Now you gotta hold my feet to the fire.

Cooking Chez Moi

With the SB in the burg, I don't cook much for myself. And when I do, it is generally on the weekend and generally something in a vat that I can feed from all week (though my interest usually flags by Wednesday or Thursday.) This weekend, I made chicken soup, which I absolutely love (breakfast, lunch and dinner until it is gone). I like it broth-y. This means that if I use a whole chicken to make the broth, I have too much chicken for soup. To avoid having leftover boiled chicken cluttering up the fridge, I found a recipe I cut out of Cooking Light for enchiladas verde. Perfect.

I needed supplies, so I stopped at my local Hispanic market on the way home from work to pick up tomatillo salsa and corn tortillas and a teeny can of red salsa. Of course, they didn't have the other thing I needed, which was low fat cream cheese. So, once home, I popped in the car and motor up to my other local spot, C'ville Market, where in addition to full fat cream cheese, I purchased an avocado, two chocolate bars and a bag of malted milk balls. (One should NEVER shop when one is hungry.) Home again home again jiggity jig.

I chopped a small onion and a couple cloves of garlic and sauteed them in a little olive oil (the recipe says to spin them around in the food processor, but it is too complicated to clean and I don't really like raw onion that much). I added the half bottle of green salsa after the garlic/onion mixture sauteed for a bit. I used approximately 3 oz of the 1 cup of cream cheese I had to purchase and mixed it with 80% of the leftover chicken (about 2 cups if you are following this for the recipe). I simmered the corn tortillas in salsa verde for half a minute on each side and filled them with chicken & cream cheese mixture. I have approximately 95% of this stack of corn tortillas left, because they only sell corn tortillas by the bale at the Hispanic grocery. The tortillas went seam side down in a baking dish and got sprinkled with more salsa and some cheddar cheese. They baked at 425 for about 15 minutes. Then they got plopped on a plate, with half an avocado and some red salsa. Now, these things are passable tasty, though they have very little resemblance to the good for you items in the magazine (which is probably half the reason they are tasty). And now, instead of having 2 leftover chicken breasts in my fridge, I have:
1/2 chicken breast, cooked
4/5 of a can of red salsa
1/3 of a bottle of green salsa
346 corn tortillas
3/4 cup of cream cheese
1/2 avocado
6 not so low fat enchiladas verde

Um. Yeah. I suspect I missed something in home ec.

Oof.

Do you ever have moments when you feel like the world has caught up to you. No more bobbing and weaving. No more happy go lucky. Everything is due today. Or yesterday. The stuff you knew about and procrastinated on and the stuff that you didn't know about and is a huge emergency. All due. Today. Or yesterday. And. You. Are. Screwed.

Ever have that happen?

This is my week. And it is only Tuesday. I am afraid to look at my email.

This is the price I pay for a nice week off with the SB. Who is now gone. Back to Maryland to work on the lighting project with H & D. I can only imagine the debauchery.

But while the SB was home, he rearranged our yard. He moves shrubbery like most people move furniture. But maybe more often.

I can't wait for more warm weather to get back out and put flowers in. We have hundreds, nay thousands, of black-eyed Susans that reseed like crazy. They always come up in the vegetable garden and I hate to throw them out, but there is a limit on how many of this things one can use. Did I mention the birds love the seeds? Do you want some? Just holler. There are.... well let's just say that I have enough to share.

I am frothing to start seeds. I did get my leek seeds, so I may start those this weekend. I am hoping the deer and groundhogs mistake them for those yard onions and leave them alone. Hope springs eternal.

Old Dogs

So I learned something today. It seems rare that I actually ever learn anything that changes my day to day life, but today, I did. Actually, perhaps it was just today that I internalized it. I had learned of it more than ten years ago. I had just never tried it.

What is it? Beeswax on sewing thread to keep it from tangling. I even had the beeswax from a million years ago but had never pulled it out. Today was the day. What a difference. No tangled thread. No accidental knotting. Um, remind me why I ignore all this advice from people who sew much more than I do... I think it is because I am an idiot.

I think how much pain and suffering this could have saved on the Stinking Dress Project. I weep to think of it.

CANNOT Believe This

How many times must one make the same mistake before one learns one's lesson? I cannot tell you how many times I have done this particular thing. The fact that it is simply more than one is mortifying enough. If I gave you the actual number you would laugh. Unless you had done it too. Then you would shake your head and say "Yeah, I did that once" and tactfully not stress the ONCE.

Once AGAIN, I have assembled a pair of pants I am making incorrectly. Sewing front leg to front leg, back leg to back leg down the inside seam. This is no big deal, other than I have made this particular annoying mistake soooooo many times. I will begin ripping as soon as I have a glass of wine.