My Brother asked me for this Recipe

I start by sauteing a couple of cloves of garlic,
some celery and a couple of carrots. I add carrots to any tomato dishes like this because it takes the sharpness of the tomatoes down a notch or two. Then I add herbs from the garden,
in season, and spices to those ingredients.

Except that it is not a recipe. It is sort of a framework for soups, stews, and other sauce or liquid based foods.

Today I chopped sweet basil, orange mint, top onions and
oregano into the mix. In summer more herbs are available;
in winter jarred ones, such as below, are the best I can do. At this time in the process
you can change direction from the tomato based soup or sauce, and head toward a traditional meat and vegetable stew, by adding other vegetables
and directing your efforts toward gravy rather than tomato sauce.

I chopped some of these into the sauce, 
just because I have them. 
They add a little bit of fresh, summery flavor
but you can get along without them

I put grated parmesan both in the sauce itself and into the meatballs
Don't be afraid of it; it adds a lot of flavor. The jars contain sauce I make in summer, from roasted tomatoes, herbs and seasonings. I freeze it for use in winter.
The first year I tried it I used the glass pints, but now we have freezer safe plastic quart sized deli containers

Some of both of these go into the meatballs
Along with a little milk, an egg, or even a bit of mayo to moisten

My favorite meats for meatballs
I have also used straight venison, beef, or added lamb
or bulk sausage to them. Depends on
what is in the freezer

Fennel seed goes in anything with Italian sausage 
but not in the meatballs.

We took his family some Italian Sausage soup I made from it last week. This time I am making meatballs in sauce. The boss can't eat much in the way of carbs, so we will not be having them with spaghetti.  

Simmering now.
I like to simmer it for a good while but you can serve it as soon
as the meatballs temp
165 or so

Cheat code
I usually add a jar of this, along with whatever water
it takes to rinse it out good.
It extends the homemade stuff and smooths out the edges.
You don't really need it though.

One Ring

 

I am a lot like Gollum with rings. They fall off my fingers and such. I lost my wedding ring in a McDonald's latrine, one of my much loved Irish rings in the parking lot at the boat launch, and the other while throwing hay to the sheep a couple of years ago.

My dear brother stopped at the Irish shop in Durham and picked up a replacement Irish ring for me and I struggle to keep that puppy on my finger too.

A couple of years ago Becky got some trinket or object of interest delivered to the house from someplace like Temu, and as a bonus a little ring of fish line and tiny blue beads was also in the package. She gave it to me as a joke. I put it on below my Irish ring, as a sort of a keeper, or warning that I was about to lose them.

And it worked.

Until yesterday.

I was letting the water out of a sink full of soaking dishes so I could wash them.

Swoosh. The little bead ring vanished from my finger. I was heartbroken all out of proportion to its value...maybe five cents on the current market...and hunted through the sink for it.

Nope. Gone. Down the drain.

And sadly my Irish ring is really loose right now too.

Dagnabbit.

I proceeded to do the chore I had lined up for. Coffee cups and frying pans, bowls and milk glasses, down to the silverware in the bottom of the sink. I picked up a fork to give it a scrub and there, caught in the tines, was my tiny dark blue bead ring.

Ralph thought something was wrong with me as I cried out for joy. (Actually, something probably IS wrong with me but we won't talk about that.)

Anyhow, I guess I am a pretty cheap date. It doesn't take a whole lot to make me happy.

First Frost

 

We hit 31 a week or so ago, but nothing but the sweet basil was bothered. However, last night it got down to 30 degrees. Brrr....the car is covered with ice.

Impending cold weather sends me into a dither every fall. Which plants should come inside? Which don't winter well and should be sacrificed to the ice?

The decisions are always gradual. Heritage plants first. The Ida Hollenbeck Memorial spider plants and anything that belonged to my mom or Ralph's mama come in first. They have their traditional hibernacula and are well situated long before frost.

Then come the regular geraniums. This year I cut them back with a vengeance, well before frost, and they look the better for it. Many of them I started from purchased seeds several years ago and are colors that would be hard to purchase locally. They go upstairs on an old radio/phonograph thing where they sit in big east windows.

Then come the ones that give me pause. I have successfully wintered things that shouldn't survive indoor life. One pretty bronze petunia made the winter of 24 and was spectacular the following summer. It croaked as soon as I brought it in last year though.

 In 25 I bought a pretty hanging basket from an Amish lady up on Logtown Road. It had pale purple lobelia, dark pansies and babies breath in it. It was so nice that I chopped it back and brought in last winter. The babies breath and pansies vanished but the verbena struggled through. Last spring I trimmed it up and put it on the sitting porch. The verbena flourished and the babies breath came up from seed. I stuck a couple of pansy plants in and it was...

Very nice.

However this fall it was pretty bedraggled and I debated....

Same with several others. It simply kills me to let anything freeze. I stuffed all the petunias into the little portable green house on the porch and zipped it shut. I dragged a gigantic elephant ear that I had decided to let go into the kitchen well after dark last night. The deciding factor was the thick white roots I discovered when I tried to pull it up and a teeny tiny foxtail fern seedling in the same pot. I vaguely remember picking a red berry off Peg's old plant last spring and looking for some place to tuck it in. Guess it decided to grow. 

And then I was out with my headlamp picking the last tomatoes before bed last night as well. You would almost think I hadn't been processing tomato sauce and foisting tomatoes on friends and family for the past couple of months or something.

And, yes, I dragged that tired old verbena upstairs and set it in the east bedroom.

Now I will have to dig the cannas. That is a miserable job, but they are worth the bother in terms of hummingbirds which visit the big red flowers all day long once they bloom.

At least I will have the winter long comfort of lots of greenery from all the plants I have dragged indoors. 

Undue Diligence

I made Grape Jelly.

It took two days.

My feet hurt. 

Mack the Dog A Locked Room Mystery

 

The setting-an 8X10X6' high chain link dog run with a concrete floor.

Cast of characters: Mack the Dog, Jack Russell Terrier extraordinaire. The thief or thieves.

The missing object-a stainless steel dog dish used to give him his kibble breakfast each morning out there in the dark, where I deposit him each morning in summer and from whence he is extracted at eventide to come into the house to continue his marauding ways.

The puzzle-about three days ago, even though the kennel is closed and the gate solidly latched at night so the deer don't go in and drink all Mack's water, said dish vanished. 

There has been an extensive search, but so far no sign has been found.

Did a night prowling owl take a liking to it, thinking to use it as a mirror in her tree hollow abode?

Did a bevvy of errant raccoons climb the fence and take it home to employ it as a wash basin in their humble hollow tree?

Was it Colonel Mustard in the library with a candlestick? 

Or...dum da dum dum....did Mack bury it so deep in the straw in his Dogloo that no one can find it?

Only the Shadow knows.