Dyeing Easter Eggs with Onion Skins

The main ingredients...eggs, dried onion skins, stockings and pieces of plant

Wrap raw egg in stocking with bit of plant arranged snugly against the egg and fasten. You can use rubber bands or tie them like I did.

Next put all the onion skins and wrapped eggs (and plain if you like them that way) in a pot with a tablespoon of white vinegar. Then hard boil the eggs. I brought mine to a boil slowly then simmered for ten minutes and let them cool in the pan. Then I rinsed and dried them and coated them with just a touch of vegetable oil.

My mom happened to call when I was working on these and told me that her grandmother, Julia Lachmayer, used to bring mom and her brothers and sister eggs that had been dyed this way for Easter. It was a new bit of family knowledge for me, as I learned to make these years ago from a magazine article. I like these better than the gaudy, glittery sort that are more usual and start saving onion skins along about Christmas to make them. It is unfortunate that the selection of plant material for decoration is just a tad sparse at this time of year in the Great Northeast though

Another beef recall

The largest in history. Strangely there is nothing wrong with the meat. Makes me glad we grow our own though (see post below). We know everything possible about what is inside our freezers, right down to the first names (and last) of the guys at the slaughterhouse, what their kids do for fun (motocross), where they live, and who the inspector who stands watch over them is. We have known him for years and that channel runs both ways...he has known us too. We know that they take care of our animals and of us...and I am grateful for it. Can't say as I am a believer in organics, BST-free milk or any of that hoopla, but locally-grown (and home grown is as local as it gets) looks better and better every day,

The finest things in life

Are sometimes round and crunchy.
(Imagine, every bite a cold, crisp explosion of sweet, tangy juice)
(Imagine dozens of them)
(Mine all mine)
(Well, sort of)

We ran down to Pines yesterday, since Bellinger's is closed for the season (Alan says he heard that they ran out of apples), and bought a whole bushel of apples.
28 bucks! (Worth every penny, but, dang!)

This is an apple household, make no mistake about it. We love 'em. We eat 'em. The photo above is the already much marauded-upon basket of fruit that we bought. See all the empty spots? These apples only came home at noon yesterday and already they are vanishing like Houdini.

We chose a mixture of Golden Delicious, Ida Reds, and both red and green Northern Spies. We are making our way through the Delicious first as they are not the best keepers. I turned control of the green Spies over to Liz, as they are my favorite for pies and she is the best pie baker (cakes are Becky's thing). The hard, crisp winter keepers, the Spies and Ida Reds, will mostly find their way into Apple Snacks, my favorite winter breakfast (or lunch, as far as it goes.) I am having one now.....ahhh........

The recipe

Italian Venison Vegetable Soup

The soup below really starts as just your basic meat and vegetable soup...I make 8 quarts at a time as there are a lot of us and I want it to go extra meals.

First slowly brown the meat, in this case venison, with garlic and onion...to your taste. I use two cloves and one small respectively. I substitute stew beef, ground beef, or regular or Italian sausage or any combination thereof for the venison in this brew. We just happen to be out of all those things right now and down to eating deer or buying meat.


When the meat is well cooked, I add such vegetables as are available..canned, frozen or right out of the garden. This particular batch contained carrots, green beans, lots of cut up grape tomatoes, and yellow and green zucchini, all from the garden plus some frozen cauliflower and broccoli.Also a large can of corn and a can of garbanzo beans.


I usually add a couple of the large cans of crushed tomatoes and as many cans of water as it takes to fill up the pot.

For seasoning...well it varies. This time I added garlic and onion as listed above, commercially prepared Italian seasoning, fresh parsley (but frozen or dried is fine), a dash of Mrs. Dash, a couple leaves of lovage, (but if you have celery, that is better) and half a leaf of sweet basil. I also often include spearmint leaves and orange mint leaves, but mine are all buggy right now. If is a little too tangy a teaspoon of sugar is a good addition. So is thyme if you have time, which I didn't this time, although there is plenty of it out in the herb garden.


When everything is boiling nicely I toss in some pasta. We are fond of weird pasta...strange shapes and colors seem to taste better. Or rice...brown, white, wild or all of them. (you could put potatoes in the vegetable section as well).


In order to call it Italian soup, this time I dumped in about a quarter cup of grated Parmesan cheese, which adds a nice flavor and texture.


Then I set my oven to between 285 and 325 and go to work....temperature depends on how long I am going to be gone. If you can't watch soup or stew it will cook itself very nicely in the oven. (I have yet to meet an 8-quart slow cooker I'm afraid.) Anyhow when I am done milking cows the soup is done becoming dinner.


I really like this recipe because it is very forgiving. You can put darned near anything in it...and I do.

Venison vegetable soup

Italian style (I put in lots of zucchini and parmesan cheese and dump in some Italian seasoning.)

The end of summer

Brings good things to eat.


Special friends stop by bringing gifts from the garden. (Thanks Gordie...we do love corn.)



We freeze all afternoon. (Not freeze as in being cool, freeze as in putting up.)
Husk the corn.
Stack the corn.
Boil the corn.
Cool the corn.
Cut the corn off the cob.
Bag the corn.
Put the corn in the freezer.
Do it again.
And again.
And again.




It is 96 and icky humid. Not a good day for freezing anything in a kitchen billowing with steam...water bubbling loudly...keeping the doors closed to keep the head-banging bane of the heat outside. No breeze. No breath. There are sticky bits of corn everywhere. Sticky corn on the table. Sticky corn on the floor. (Happy dogs, happy dogs. How they love that sticky corn.There is no need to sweep or mop.) The counters and table are another story. No dogs allowed there and it would make good glue, I'll tell you. Still, you make hay when the sun shines and you freeze corn when the corn comes.


Many hands make light work. (And many kids have many hands.) The kitchen is full of teens and twenty-somethings armed with knives and bowls and baggies. There is much silliness and sibling competition. Many insults and near passing of drinks through nasal passages with all the nonsense that is being bandied about. (It is one of my most cherished goals as a parent...to make my kids pass food through their noses at things I say..{ask them about summer vegetables}.....this time they do it to each other though. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree and I guess the corn doesn't either.) We finish in under two hours and save out a dozen ears so we can have fresh corn on the cob for supper. This winter corn that brings the taste of summer right back to us will be a special treat for chowder or just for dinner. It is always worth the effort.


We make apple snacks in late summer too. Ginger gold apples are in, the first of the really hard, crisp, good-eatin' apples...not soft and mushy like Macs. They are so tart and tangy and delightful, just like the great late-fall apples like Spies and Ida Reds. I salute whoever invented the variety.

To make your own apple snack, core and cut up the best apple you can find.
Cut up the sharpest cheese you can find...just a bit.
Add raisins
Granola
Cheerios
Eat
(We often bag this stuff for a quick rake along snack...it will keep a few hours and is full of autumn goodness)

No phone, no 'Net, big news

Except for the subject of the news story that happened while we were without outside communication, that about describes the weekend. (Our phone went out Friday during a teeny, tiny storm that was barely noticeable. The phone company didn't exactly fall all over themselves getting it fixed...although I am wildly grateful to the phone man who finally came out -on Sunday no less- and got it done.)

I was able to weather the lack of access to the outside world, (other than TV, which is worse than nothing), until the big story broke in a crawl across the MSNBC news show the boss was watching. The discovery of a new case of foot and mouth disease in Great Britain is huge and sorrowful news for farmers there and for agriculture around the world. The dreaded disease of ruminants is so incredibly contagious that it is recommended that people who visit farms abroad where there are outbreaks avoid visiting farms at home for some time. This is because they can transmit the disease via clothing, footwear and even possibly carry it in their lungs. It spreads through contact. Birds cart the virus from farm to farm. It even moves on the wind. Tires. People. Wild animals, pets, almost anything can bring it to the doorstep of a previously healthy farm.


I hope this outbreak is contained before it causes the kind of economic damage and heartbreak that the one in 2001 caused. Thousands of animals were killed, even working border collies from farms that had to kill their cows and sheep. The farmers simply couldn't afford to feed dogs that no longer had jobs. That outbreak was caused by a pig farmer feeding improperly cooked food waste from an airline that had visited an infected country. Officials are hard at work tracing the source of this one. My heart goes out to British farmers who must be worried beyond belief right now.


***Update....after jumping online to write this, I started reading through my favorite blogs and found that Sarpy Sam has several detailed posts on the topic. If it turns out that the virus did indeed "escape" from a government laboratory, the story takes on an even more horrific aspect.

Finally....

Something with which I agree from the NY Times.