Summer in a Jar Salsa

This summer has proven to be the best tomato year in a long while!  It has been so wonderful, especially after the extreme disappointment of last year.  Our garden soil is much more dependable now, with our rich chicken-made compost.  The Summer temps have been unusually mild, as well, following a long, productive Spring.  We were able to produce vigorous plants, capable enough to support a bumper crop of fruit while surviving the inevitable Summer heat that we are just now, in late July, experiencing.

There is no better way to capture the taste of Summer than by canning salsa.  We eat fresh salsa all year, but nothing beats the taste of fresh garden salsa in the middle of winter.  My recipes vary a bit, as I use what I am able to produce in the garden.  But, I am careful to follow official canning recommendations (available online) for water bath canning, and always follow a recommended formula for balancing the non-acidic add-ins (such as onions and chiles) with the amount of acid in the recipe to make the salsa safe.

What I did differently this year: I broiled my tomatoes, to peel them and to enrich the flavor.  Wow, Zowie!!

IMG_1527IMG_1528IMG_1529

This can be easily done under the broiler.  It only takes about 10 minutes to char the tomatoes.

 

Cool under a kitchen towel for about ten more minutes, and then peel.  The peels come right off, quite easily.  Then chop the tomato pulp and transfer it to a large pot, carefully including all the flavorful juices, as well.

This is the best trick ever!!  If you have never tried it, try it now.  Really.  Stop reading this and Go Try! Continue reading “Summer in a Jar Salsa”

Swiss Chard Smoothie

Ever since my husband and I succumbed to an infomercial and bought a super-duper blender, we have been in love with smoothies!  I think you can put nearly anything in them and, as long as you add a frozen banana and/or a handful of fruit, the taste will be delicious.

My daughter Emily gave me the winning formula: greens on the bottom, fruit(s) of your choice, some kind of liquid, maybe some ice and any other healthy stuff you want, and blend it all up nice and cold and smooth!  We win, win, win by buying berries at the local Farmers’ Market, when they are in season, and freezing them.  I believe we paid $5 for 3 pints!  You can’t beat that!  We divide them up — smoothie serving size — and put them in small bags and, then, in large bags to freeze.  We also freeze over-ripe bananas (who doesn’t do this??). Continue reading “Swiss Chard Smoothie”

Sassy Swiss Chard Pasta

Swiss chard really is the gift that keeps on giving.  Even when I think I have nothing in the house to eat, I can pull together a delicious meal with just a few leaves of chard and a few pantry items.  We usually always have some type of pasta on hand.  As there are only two of us in the house, one package makes several meals quite easily.  Tonight, it was whole wheat fusilli.  I love this, as the curly shape helps to hug whatever sauce there is to the pasta dish. Continue reading “Sassy Swiss Chard Pasta”

A Most Remarkable, Magickal Blue Moon!

Few things surprise this old Crone, especially when it comes to greeting new visitors to my backyard.  Over the years, we’ve entertained — and often adopted — dozens of feral cats & litters of kittens, lost dogs, scores of lizards, a swimming crustacean, a runaway iguana and several non-flying, unidentifiable large birds.  One hearty little bunny took up residence in the garden and stayed for years, and a pair of mallard ducks spent several days, pool-side (to the chagrin of two very concerned dogs), enjoying countless dips in the pool before flying off to wherever they came from.  They returned each summer, for several years, before presumably moving on to a new “vacation time share”.

Last Friday afternoon, on the day of the Blue Moon, I was in the kitchen, busily finishing some preparations for an annual weekend-long party that was taking place in our home in a few hours.  I had noticed some bird activity outside the kitchen window, noting that the mockingbirds were very annoyed at something on the roof above.  My husband and our friend, both of whom had just returned home after running some errands, called to me to, “Come outside!  Hurry!”

It was then that I met the most remarkable creature. Continue reading “A Most Remarkable, Magickal Blue Moon!”

A Garden Tea Party

 “You have a regrettably large head!
I would very much like to hat it!”

—– The Mad Hatter

Our Dinner Party Group held a special tea party to kick off the season. We hosted, so I took the opportunity to put up some appropriate sweet treats to add to the menu.  I decided to make a marmalade cake and had plenty of fresh oranges and lemons on my trees to accomplish the task.  I used one of Ina Garten’s recipes for the marmalade.

Continue reading “A Garden Tea Party”

Patsy: April 20, 2015-September 2, 2018

Oh, my!  Such controversy surrounding one little chick!  When we ordered our chicks through Wagon Train Feed & Tack in Orange, we decided to include one Ameraucana in our little clutch.  We thought it would be fun to have pretty blue or green eggs among the brown, and the markings on the little chicks reminded me of fluffy, little chipmunks. You can see her little dark head and chipmunk-like markings on her back, right, middle.

 

 

Here’s Patsy (named for Patsy Cline) at two weeks old (5/7/2015).  She has the most precious little face, her eyes dramatically outlined.

Shes’ so cute in this photo, standing up on her tiptoes! She stayed very tiny for quite awhile, then shot up to be nearly the same size as the older three chicks in the clutch at around 5 weeks of age.

At 3-4 weeks, above, Patsy was showing some really remarkable feathers and beautiful slate colored legs.  I wasn’t seeing any signs of a beard or muff feathers, to speak of, at this point.

Here she is, below, at 5 weeks (5/27/2015).

At six weeks of age, Patsy has continued her rapid growth.  She has calmed down a lot, abandoning her previous nervous, flighty behavior when we wanted to handle her.  She is going to be a beautiful hen!

In my research concerning All Things Chicken, I have been reading a lot of posts and perusing photos on the internet, especially in a Facebook group of CA Poultry People.  There seems to be some confusion regarding the breeds Araucana, Ameraucana and Easter Eggers.  Here’s what I found out:

Araucana is a very rare breed.  They lay blue eggs.  They also have two distinguishing characteristics that differentiate them from the other breeds.  They are rumpless (they have no tail and no tail bone) and they have tufts (which are also called earrings) which grow from a protuberance, called a peduncle, around the earlobes or neck.  Patsy is definitely not an Araucana.

Ameraucana is another breed that lays blue eggs.  Ameraucanas also:

  • have ‘pea’ combs
  • are bearded and muffed (they appear to have a beard of feathers)
  • do not have ear tufts
  • have slate blue legs
  • males have red ear lobes
  • Colours include: Black, Blue, Blue Wheaten, Brown Red, Buff, Silver, Wheaten, White
They also have curved beaks, large expressive eyes, absent or small wattles, full hackle, a well spread tail carried at an angle and 4 toes. Patsy may be an Ameraucana, as represented by the seller.

An Easter Egger is not a recognized breed, but rather a cross between any other chicken and either and Ameraucana or an Araucana. Breeding with so many different breeds opens them up to all sorts of variations! They usually have muffs and pea combs, but come in nearly every variety and color.  Some Easter Eggers even have ear tufts and some are rumpless.  They usually are smaller in size, and may lay pink, green or blue eggs.  They are normally friendly and calm, and have become quite popular in backyard flocks.  Patsy very likely may be an Easter Egger.

It seems that only time will tell what breed Patsy really is.  The truth is, I absolutely do not care if she is a true Ameraucana or an Easter Egger — We will be watching, with great anticipation, for her eggs, just as we watch for eggs from her clutch sisters.  Eggs mean HENS!
Shared from my Facebook page:
30 November 2016

Joe Duval is my hero! He discovered, early morning, that one of our hens was egg-bound. We asked for help from the Chicken People here on FB. We brought her in, gave her a good soak in a warm bath with Epson salts and tended her all day. She finally passed her egg (she broke it after laying it)! She ate & drank, took in a lot of calcium and is now back in the coop asleep on her roost. That was one scary day! But, I think Patsy will be okay. 

 

Image may contain: food
Image may contain: Joe Duval, bird

Patsy: April 20, 2015-September 2, 2018

Today was a sad day in the chicken yard.  When my husband opened up the hen house in the morning, he found Patsy, dead, laying on the floor underneath the roost.  It appeared as if she had fallen from the roost in the night, hit her head on the roost below, and broken her neck.  She had no sign of illness or discomfort the day before, and there was no other sign of injury.

RIP, little one.   We will miss your sweet little blue eggs, your beautiful, perky tail of black feathers, and your habit of running around the chicken run every night before you would go inside.  Thank you for being part of our family!

Cha Cha: the First Six Weeks

Here’s 2 day old Cha Cha, the day she came home (4/24/2015).  What a sweet little red puff she was! She is seen below, front, with Tuppence and Violet behind.
Developed in Rhode Island and Massacchusetts in the 1840’s, the Rhode Island Red is one of the oldest know breeds of chicken.  Bred to withstand the harsh New England winters, they are very hardy and good egg producers.

Continue reading “Cha Cha: the First Six Weeks”