Please Don't Be Broken, And A Story Of SPAM

I think my camera broke. Shoot. I have projects to share, things I want to show off, stories I want to tell....

But my camera won't work. Maybe it's time to just throw in the towel and get a new one, but I hate that idea. I've only had this camera for 6 yrs or so. *sigh* I suppose that does make it a dinosaur in the world of tech. I will keep fussing around with the camera I have, and hope that I can revive it.

Until then, would you like to hear the story of my Sprouts and their first SPAM? lol... I thought you did.

photo source 

Now, you have to realize that I grew up with a father who believes that if you can't hack your protein off a recognizable carcass, you really aren't eating meat. I can't say that I disagree with him on that one. My mom had a can of ham in the back of the fridge for years. My brother and I looked at it as a bit of a science experiment, really. I remember digging to the very back of the fridge every couple of months, just to see if it was still there. One day, mom let us open it, just to see what canned meat looked like. 

We were not impressed. The slimy, gelatinous mess that slipped out of that can with a slurp and a splat was NOT what we had been raised to think of as meat. hehe. That was the last time I thought about canned meat for 20 years.

same photo credit as above

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when I was talking to Mr. Barefoot about our food storage. I was mentioning that I was thinking about adding some SPAM to our cupboards, just in case we lose power again and aren't able to save our freezer full of meat. I wasn't really sold on the idea, but Mr. Barefoot was arguing strongly for the addition. Yeah, I married a SPAM-lover. Go figure.

Big Sprout looked confused, asking what SPAM was. I tried to explain, but it quickly became apparent that she just wasn't getting the concept. You have to admit that, to a child raised around hunting and butcher shops, the idea of chopped and pressed meat must seem really strange.

Being the odd mom I am, I immediately decided that it was my moral duty to officially  introduce my Sprouts to SPAM. After all, SPAM is a big part of American history, right?

On my next trip to the store, I made a point of picking up some SPAM, and I was completely shocked by all the varieties they have! Bacon SPAM, Jalapeno SPAM, SPAM with cheese, SPAM Lite... Whoda thunk, right? I picked up a couple cans and headed home, excited to see the Sprouts' reactions to the new food item.

After a quick consult with Mr. Barefoot, it was decided that we would fry the SPAM and add it to fried rice. Both the Sprouts love fried rice, and I thought it might make the SPAM  a bit more acceptable if it was served as part of something they are already used to eating.

Reviews were mixed. Little Sprout adored it, and immediately picked out all the bits of SPAM to eat first. She started begging for more before she had even finished what was on her plate! Big Sprout was not as enthusiastic. She ate it all (she always eats what is offered), but I think her nose got permanently wrinkled in the process. She told me she just kept repeating to herself that it was hot dogs to choke it down. I wish I would have gotten a picture of her face when I told her that there IS  such a thing as canned hot dogs.

Poor Big Sprout. I think I messed up her entire view on life. ;-D

So will SPAM and other canned meats become part of our diet? I guess the answer is maybe. Little Sprout and Mr. Barefoot are big fans, and Big Sprout and I can eat it if we have to. I will probably add a few cans of different meats to our pantry, but I'm more interested in learning to can my own meat.

~And that's all I have to say about that....~

The Ants Are Lookin' Good!

Too often, I allow my hurry (or my exhaustion) to keep me from really enjoying my time with the Sprouts. They are young (and annoying) right now, but they won't be forever. The days will fly by, turning into weeks and years while I am busy taking care of other things, and before I know it they will be grown and gone.

Today, a chance comment while out with Grandpa revealed that Little Sprout had never had Ants on a Log. Oh, the horror! To live your whole life ~ all five years of it ~ and never taste that marvelous childhood treat is just.... awful. As a mother, I could not let the situation continue. So.... 

On the way home, we swung by the grocery store. I gave Little Sprout some money, and she bought her very own package of raisins. Then we hurried back to Barefoot Manor, and I let her have at it.

It was a blast! She ended up with peanut butter all over her hands, face, and hair. She sang while she worked (I didn't recognize the song). She licked peanut butter off her fingers, then stuck them back on the celery and raisins with no concern that mommy might want just one without the slobber.

I loved it. And so did she.

And, ya know? They tasted pretty good. Even with the slobber.

Homemade Tater Skins

There is nothing I love quite so much as homemade tater skins. I found a recipe for them in an old cookbook (wow! You can get them cheap!) my mom got when I was a young teen, and drove my mom nuts baking up all the potatoes in the house to make 'em. These are seasoned with dill, onion, and garlic. Yummy!!! Luckily for me, tater skins are the one thing I have never ruined while cooking. I don't take the time to make these often enough!

I have long since given up following the recipe, but the general process is so simple it's hard to mess it up.

Step 1: Bake potatoes. As many as you think you want to bake. I usually fill my cookie sheet half full. You'll see why in a minute.

Step 2: Let potatoes cool enough to handle. Cut in half the long way. Scoop out the innards, leaving a thin (1/4 inch?) shell of potato around the edge. (use the parts you scrape out to make mashed potatoes or potato cakes, or something equally yummy)

Step 3: Melt butter (about 1 stick for every 4 potatoes (or 8 halves)). Mix in desired seasonings (keep the total amount of seasonings to around 2 tsp for every 4 taters).

Step 4: Dip tater skins in butter/seasoning mix. Put them back on the cookie sheet. See? This is why you only wanna half fill it the first time. This way you know you can fit them all back on!

Step 5: Bake at 400deg F for about 20-30 min, depending on how crunchy you like them.

Serve with whatever toppings make you happy! Sour cream is a standby at Barefoot Manor, but I bet you creative folks could come up with a bunch of things to put on those babies!

My favorite seasonings are dill, garlic and onion, but I know some folks who love to make taco flavored ones, or super spicy ones with hot pepper flakes. I am thinking about trying some with ground mustard, too. I have found that I prefer to salt them (if I choose to use salt at all) AFTER I am done cooking them. Some coarse salt sprinkled on the top looks pretty, and I find I need less salt to get the flavor I want.

Big Sprout likes these for an afternoon snack, and Little Sprout just likes to eat the sour cream. I am thinking they would probably freeze well, for quick snacks later or even an evening meal of taco skins, complete with taco meat, lettuce, 'maters, and chopped onions on top! Ooooh, yummy!

Just thought I would share ~ ;-)

Apple Issues

I definitely need more practice with this preserving thing. For years, my preserving skills have been limited to blanching and freezing. Just last season I overcame my fear of the pressure canner, and started doing some basic canning of plain vegetables. This year, I tried to be brave and branch out into apple pie filling in a jar and juicing apples, as well as canning the basics.

Oh, goodness.

I am going to blame my work schedule and the chronic extreme sleep deprivation I suffer from for the chaos that ensued.

I suppose I could blame a complete lack of planning, as well. And the general crowded condition of my kitchen (which is strange, cuz it's a big kitchen).

Anyway.

Imagine, if you will, a tired, cranky Barefoot standing among bags of apples in her crowded kitchen. Kids are running in and out, Mr. Barefoot is calling out requests for apple crisp and apple pie from the dining room. That Damn Cat is crying and whining for treats. The stove top is covered. The steam juicer is steaming, jars are sterilizing, pie filling is bubbling, and apples are softening for apple butter.

So there I was, in this barely controlled craziness. I was dashing between pots and pans, food mill, and apple peeler. Space considerations in the fridge required that I peel/slice/core only as many apples as I could manage to process and can at one time. A few hours into it, things just started to go wrong.

Really wrong.

I knocked over the food mill, ruining my recipe book that was sitting on the counter next to it with juicy apple pulp. I burned myself more times than I could count. I (somehow, still trying to figure this out) turned up the heat on the steam juicer, boiling it dry and causing some SERIOUS blackening on the bottom pan. Did I mention that the juicer was borrowed? And less than a year old? I spilled the pie filling - sticky, nasty pie filling - all over the stove top and counter. My apple butter ended up more spiced apple sauce. Tasty, but not what I was looking for.

Ugh.

End result? I got mad. I got frustrated. I am done, for now, with apples. I have picked out the best of the picked apples to keep fresh for Little Sprout, but the rest of them are either getting composted or given to Grandma (who has much more experience dealing with this stuff).

And I will spend the rest of the year figuring out how I could make sure this doesn't happen next year.

On the bright side, I found a fabulous recipe for jarred pie filling. I found out that if you boil 50/50 vinegar/water, let it cool just enough that you can get your hand in it, and gently scrub, you can clean even the nastiest blackened mess out of the bottom of stainless steel. And I managed to put up quite a few jars of apple goodness for munching over the winter. And I gotta say, that spiced apple butter/sauce is going to be FABULOUS over pancakes.

Salvaging the Season

I have already confessed how poorly the garden did for us (and how poorly we did for the garden) this year. Still, with cooler temperatures, and my new journey back to the land of light, I have been trying to salvage what I can of the growing season. Since it is autumn in MN, that means apples.

Monday was picking day, and I so wish I had pictures to share with you of Little Sprout helping me pick. Dad has an apple tree in his back yard with wonderful apples, so we headed there after I got home from work in the morning. Dad brought a chair out so he could sit and watch while I took my first try - ever - with the apple picker. It's actually a little late in the season for these apples, I should have gotten to them a few weeks ago. With Dad in the hospital, I was a little busy.

Since it is so late in the year, many apples had already fallen, and I stood in apple mush, with hundreds of bees, hornets, flies, and other flying sugar lovers happily buzzing around my ankles. Little Sprout had an issue with this, despite my reassurances, so she opted out of helping me hand pick the lower apples. She was all for helping once the picker came out, though!

Photocredit

This isn't our picker, but ours is about the same. So imagine me, threading this up into the branches of Dad's overgrown and much loved apple tree, hooking around an apple, and then engaging in a strange version of tug-o-war with the tree in an attempt to get the apples without either snagging and breaking branches or shaking the tree so much that other apples fell to the ground.

I would fill the basket, and then lower it to where she was standing. She would carefully count how many apples I had managed to "catch" as she took them out, and then carefully carried them over to the grocery bags and gently set them inside. She was so sweet, chanting to herself "gotta be gentle, gotta be careful, four apples this time, gotta be careful".

After filling 4 grocery bags of apples, I started working on cleaning up the garden for the fall. I was too tired to do much, though, and I gave it up. Promising to come back later this week and work on the garden more, I took my apples and headed home.

Today, Mr. Barefoot got me an apple peeler/corer/slicer for an early anniversary gift. Thank you, honey! Eager to start processing the apples, I set things up and started playing with the new toy. Before I knew it, I had every spare corner in the fridge full of beautifully peeled and sliced apples. There were apples in bowls on the counters. I had peelings and cores and juices all over the counter and the floor and myself. Most importantly, I still had pounds of apples sitting on my floor, untouched.

I think I should have planned that a little better.

So I decided that I needed to start making things with all those apples, just to get them dealt with.

Did I mention that in the middle of all this I had to drop off and pick up Little Sprout from Preschool?

Furthermore, did I mention that we were flat out of any ingredients that might possibly be used to make anything good with said apples. Well, there was stuff for apple crisp. One. One lonely apple crisp. That didn't make the slightest dent in my huge pile of apples.

Ugh.

So I went to the store. Covered in flour and apple peelings. I bought ingredients. I made pie filling. And I canned it.

And I still have 2 gallon bags of apples in the fridge, and 3 grocery bags of apples on the floor. And two bags of peelings/cores for juicing later.

Oh, help.

First, Last, and First Again...

Wednesday was Little Sprout's first AWANA award ceremony. She sang, she danced, she recited bible verses. It was fun to watch her doing something she enjoys so much. She is very proud of her certificate and little bear pin indicating she worked her way through the first book. I am glad she had so much fun this year, and hope that she doesn't have too much of a fit on Wed when she realizes there will be no more AWANA till fall.

It was also Big Sprout's last AWANA award ceremony. She is now old enough to be a part of the church youth group. She seems glad to be moving up and on, but I can't help feel a little twinge over my "baby" growing up. AWANA has been a great experience for her over the years. She has made some great friends and been introduced to some fun activities she otherwise would have missed out on.

And today I baked my first ever loaf of homemade bread. I used a bread machine (thanks, mom!), and the bread was ready when I got home from the Traditional Friday Lunch with my father. The smell of fresh baked bread when I walked in the door was WONDERFUL. The bread itself is a little dense, so next time I will be fiddling with the recipe a bit, but overall I think it was pretty good for a first timer! I am so excited to overcome my fear of the bread machine (silly, I know). Now that I know that I CAN make bread without poisoning anyone, I am very much looking forward to trying all sorts of breads....

~...and that's all I have to say about that...~

Venison!

It's that time of year again. Hunting season is coming up, and everyone who hunts is busy eating up as much of last year's deer as they can to make room for the NEW deer they plan to kill this year.

I love it.

Not too long ago, Wolfie brought over two 10lb chubs of venison burger. Ooooh, yummy! It was a lot of meat, and one chub has already been used in several recipes. The best was last night, when I made meatballs and a stroganoff-like sauce and we snarfed that over mashed potatoes (I went with the egg noodles, cuz that's how I roll). Today, for the Traditional Friday Lunch, Mom cooked up all the venison steaks she had in the freezer with a ton of onions and green peppers, and we all gorged ourselves on that. She even gave me the leftovers. My Mom is so awesome.

So here I am, feeling so stuffed full of venison that I could very possibly wake up tomorrow with a flashing white tail and some antler buds. Seriously, it is a good thing.

Big Sprout is all excited because Wolfie is planning on getting some piglets this coming spring to raise for meat. Big Sprout is to help with the care and butchering of said animals. I am so proud, it brings a little tear to my eye to think of my baby girl being able to provide for her Barefoot Mommy like that. She is going to grow up to be a hunting, butchering, foraging, gardening fool. Isn't that just a beautiful thought? *sniff* Today at the Traditional Friday Lunch, I charged her Barefoot Grandpa and Uncle with the task of taking her out and teaching her the joys of pheasant, duck, rabbit, and squirrel hunting.

I'm not greedy, or anything.

Bro laughed a little and said he could feel his wallet getting lighter the more I talked. hmpf. You would think that he would be excited that his wonderful niece is all pumped to learn about hunting and butchering. I mean, this is the next generation! We are going to count on her to provide for us in our old age, and I really like the idea of not having to give up game when I am old.

*sigh* Life is good when your kids wanna kill things....

Tomatoes, Basil, Cabbage and Zukes

Something has happened to me between last year and this. Maybe it is a grown-up thing that I am just catching on to.

Last year, I had lots of produce from my garden. I managed to preserve some of it, but the whole thing seemed like so much WORK. I have felt that way for as far back as I can remember. I loved to eat my veggies right out of the garden, but if I had to take them into the house to deal with them I was pretty much sunk.

This year, I have had quite a huge crop from my little garden, despite it being neglected for much of the season. Right now I am dealing with more tomatoes than any one woman in a family of non-tomato eaters should ever have to. The kids like raw 'maters and we eat tomato soup and salsa, but that is about it. No spaghetti, lasagna, or other dishes of that type.

In an effort to not waste the bounty I had been gifted with, I sent a few bags of 'maters up to my Uncle Wire and his wife Wire-essa a couple weeks ago. They sent back zukes and fresh herbs. Oh, yum!

Well, for the first time in forever I have been actually cooking with these items. The first thing was Mr. Barefoot requesting a Tomato~Basil soup. I started with a recipe, truly I did, but before long following the recipe became too much work. They wanted me to peel and seed all the 'maters before I even started on the recipe. Well, I decided that it was easier to just chop them up cook them, and then put them through a sieve. I was going to have to strain the soup later anyway....why not do it all at once?

Anyway, long and short of it is that I have made two HUGE batches of soup. Mr. Barefoot and his boss both love it. I offered to make as much of the soup as boss could eat if he would give Mr. Barefoot a raise big enough that I could stay home, but so far no luck.

While we were having the soup along with grilled cheeses today (it is a chilly day here in MN), I got the craving for Cabbage Rolls. So I (sans recipe) whipped up two pans of those delicious treats, using the soup as the base for the sauce. They just came out of the oven, and they are TASTY. So now I have a pan of Cabbage Rolls in the freezer and two big bowls of Tomato Basil Soup frozen as well. I have also been making fresh salsa every other day or so, and we have been eating that with all our meals (with chips, of course). It is good, but I am about salsa~d out. I am going to have to get over my fear of my pressure canner and get that salsa canned up. There is nothing I crave more in the dead of winter than salsa.

So, that is what my life has become....cooking in bulk and freezing it up. I love it. Of course, I am doing these things when I am supposed to be sleeping, but everything worth doing comes with a price.

That said, I am off to bed!