Today's Update - 22 Jun 2015

Oh my gosh!  My house is a mess!!  And yes the exclamation points are absolutely fitting.  I can't remember my house ever being this big of a mess.  I'm going nuts.  I love my parents.  I love my parents.  I love my parents.  But honestly trying to keep up with the mess they've gotten used to making is making me twitch.

Now some of the mess is ok and to be expected; you can't add two grown people to a household without expecting some extra mess.  But add in that my parents simply aren't able to do for themselves the way they used to plus the fact that they've gotten out of the habit of cleaning up after themselves as they make the mess plus all of the extra produce and canning equipment sitting around on my kitchen counter tops and dining room table and ... it really is an oh my gosh worthy situation.

I'll live of course but I swear having a house this messy is making me itch.  Literally.  And nothing is getting done out in the yard.  Nothing.  The yard is turning into a jungle.  And in Florida that is not the exaggeration that some people think it is.  On the plus size one of my papayas has started to fruit.

 

 

I've probably mentioned that I've been canning.  Below are some pictures of just a little bit of what I've been doing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What isn't showing is the seven quarts of green beans thus far processed.  We have about another ten or eleven to go and Mom wants to get some more beans when Sav-a-lot gets a new batch in.  Sav-a-lot is where I got the pineapples for 99 cents each.  We have about fifteen now to work with.  Tonight I cored two of the ripest.  I love my pineapple corer.  It makes the job sooooo much easier.  Below is what I got off of just two of the pineapples ... and I have two pineapple tops to plant once I get the right growing medium for them.  One gallon of flesh/pulp, skins to go in the compost, and two pineapples top for planting not bad for less than ten minutes of work.  Tomorrow I'll core a couple of more and get at least a few pints canned up using unsweetened pineapple juice.

 

 

 

I was a little give out or I planned on making Dutch Apple Pie Jam and Maple Apple Preserves.  I also need to make some Strawberry Pineapple Conserve but that is going to have to wait until tomorrow as well.  Tonight I have some business filing and data entry to take care of and I also want to try and get some more writing and editing done.  I may be up until something A.M. but I'm having one of those "too much caffeine" kinda days.

 

Thus far I have the following posted:

Up On Hartford Ridge
A Bunch of Wild Thyme
Dark Days
Emi on the Caloosahatchee
Zombies Aren't Real ... Are They?!
A Girl Called Jack

 

Tonight's vids continue the theme of preserving food.  I'll be doing that a lot this summer ... or that is the plan.  I really need to get ahead of the game and since I'm rotating out a lot of my pantry I need to rotate back in some good stuff.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPsPH1DowAs

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y48BQetYpy4

I actually prefer my method of canning pineapple.  You can find the method in the latest Ball Blue Book cookbook.  All it contains is fresh pineapple and unsweetened pineapple juice.  You can it in pints.  The other thing I do different is I cut the top off so that I can grow it and then use a pineapple corer that gives me nice neat rings.  You can cut the rings if you want to make chunks or tidbits, that's up to you.  My corer came from wallyworld for less that five bucks.  Easy peezy lemon squeezy.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KGV9SZtoIU

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGh-pJvwivg