Salsa!

It's late summer, and the harvest is building. Yesterday we picked several pounds of figs. I have a Black Turkey Fig, it's about 8 years old, and this year it's absolutely full of figs. I covered it with netting to keep the birds from taking everything. I don't mind sharing a few with them, but they've been taking every ripe fig!

There were enough tomatoes last week to make salsa. Well, I have to admit that I used two gallon bags of frozen tomatoes from last fall. I had a great harvest last summer, but also my son's wedding, the illness, death and memorial for my Mother-in-law and a whole lot of other things that kept me from canning. So I took the frozen ones, added fresh tomatoes and peppers from the garden, and made a nice batch of salsa. I ended up with 8 pints of salsa to can for the winter. It isn't much, and cooking salsa down takes most of the day. But it's still satisfying to know I have more homemade sauce ready, and can enjoy it all winter long.

The sunflowers are looking so wonderful! I'll post some more pics, I just have really enjoyed them in the garden. I have to admit that typically I only plant vegetables, trying to get as much yield out of the garden as possible. But last year and this one I added easy-growing flowers, like sunflowers. One of them is over 12 feet tall, with a huge flower that is now turning into a seed machine. The rest are smaller, but with lots of flowers on each stalk. They've pollinized each other, so I have one that is a hybrid from the maroon and a yellow- it has the most beautiful flowers! they are maroon at the center, turning to orange and then a blazing yellow on the outer edges of the petals. Fabulous! I hope to save some of the seeds, maybe I can get more that color next year. No guarantee though, it may have bred with the yellows this year, and all the flowers will be yellow next year, who knows.

Sun again

We've had 3 weeks of cloudy, humid, rainy weather. In Arizona, that's really a good thing, but frankly, I'm a desert rat and a few days at a time is plenty. Normal for us is clear in the morning, heat building up to 100-110 degrees, growing humidity to the point of insanity, then comes the cloudburst. Pelting rain, either for a few minutes to an hour, that's typical Arizona monsoon weather. This one is more like a winter storm, it's been cloudy, no sun for days, and drizzling, depressing rain every day for 2 weeks. Isn't that New England summers? Anyhow, we need the moisture, so I feel a little guilty for complaining, but I'm really done with that crap! Today was more typical- nice cool morning, heat, now the clouds are piling up over Mingus Mountain, waiting to attack.

I took pictures of the sunflowers, they are a little battered from all the rain, but still pretty. The bees were all over them, and I tried to take a picture of a big black bumble bee, but it was too fuzzy to print, darn it. The rain has been great for the green beans and cucumbers especially, they are growing like crazy. The poor tomatoes have had a worse time. We didn't get them into cages, so I put straw under them, but with so much rain and warm muggy weather, some of them are moldy. They are ripening up nicely though, I want to make more salsa tomorrow. The peppers are doing great, we picked our first bells yesterday. Pretty late, but they taste really good.

I'm still reading the biography on Benjamen Franklin, what a fascinating guy! I tend to read the best of his colloquialisms when I'm laying down, and too lazy to get up and write them down, so I haven't shared them yet. All in all a good week!

Salsa for dinner, homemade lotion

It's still cloudy, no rain yet today though. Just enough change in barometer to kick my b__t. I picked tomatoes and peppers from the garden, and combined with some store bought ingredients made some marvelous salsa! I don't like really hot salsa, but nice and spicy is good. Here's my recipe:

1/2 lb. tomatoes, roma's preferably
3-4 teaspoons chile mix
2 poblano peppers
2 tsp. salt
2-4 New Mexico peppers
2 tsp black pepper
1-2 Bell peppers
2 tsp onion salt or powder
2 onions
2-3 cloves garlic
1 bunch cilantro
2 stalks celery

Blend garlic and onions in a food processor until chopped but not pureed. Move into large bowl. Remove veins and seeds from all peppers, cut into large pieces, then chop in food processor with celery, add to bowl. Cut and seed tomatoes, chop in processor along with cilantro. Add tomatoes to the bowl, blend all vegetables together while adding spices. You can add more or less spices and hot peppers to taste. I like to serve this fresh, but you can cook it over the stove if you choose.
Just be aware, that I rarely use a formal recipe and this is a taste-as-you-go project.

Julie, her mom Barb and I made olive oil, lavender and oatmeal soap last Wednesday. Julie's been wanting to learn how to make soap, so they came over for the day. We made 18 pounds of soap! It's more time consuming than difficult, but it's so much easier when I have help with the process. While we were waiting for it too cool and thicken, we also made lotion with coconut, shea, cocoa butters, almond oil and glycerin. It turned out really good! It's thinner than I planned; I thought it would be more like body butter, but it's really yummy and I put some in a lotion bottle with pump and it worked great.

Body Cream

7 ozs. Shea butter
3 ozs. Cocoa butter
6 ozs. Almond oil
7 ozs. Coconut butter
5 tsp. grated Beeswax
6 ozs. Vegetable glycerin
21 ozs. distilled water
1 tsp Cornstarch
40 grams Stearic Acid
1/4 oz. mint or lavender essential oil- or scent of your choice

Have 3 separate mixing containers, 2 that are microwave safe. In the larger container, #1, add the shea butter, cocoa butter, coconut oil, stearic acid and almond oil. Melt them using 1 minute increments, stirring between minutes. Stir until everything is melted, including the granules of stearic acid. In a small separate bowl melt the beeswax in 1 minute increments. Once melted, quickly blend into the other oils. In container #3 blend distilled water, corn starch and glycerin, then slowly blend everything into the deepest container, using stick blender or regular mixer. Make sure the container has deep sides and wear an apron! It helps to set the container in a bowl 1/2 full of ice, and blend constantly until it is blended and thickened. Pour into bottles or jars, allow to set.

The stearic acid is actually a palm vegetable product, it isn't a chemical, so this whole lotion is chemical-free lotion that is just yummy. I use it on my face as well as a body lotion.

Monsoon madness

The old adage "careful what you wish for" comes into play today. The rain clouds crawled down Mingus mountain today, pushing inexorably toward us. Behind them was a solid black sheet, the mountains were invisible behind the mayhem heading our way. Suddenly the winds burst upon the yard; trash cans blew apart, spewing their recycling contents across the driveway. The rain pushed hard from the south, hitting the windows in our bedroom with such force that it was raining inside! The windows are old- from the 1970's, but still, the rain blew in from the top of the windows, as well as the sides and the middle, where the two windows meet.

As I looked out the onto the back porch, there was nearly a solid sheet of water blowing wildly; things were blowing up into the air, but also the rain was pushing into the porch under the eaves as if there was no roof at all. So- our prayers have been answered, we are receiving lots of rain from the summer monsoons. It's not surprising that some of them come with great force and little regard for my comfy home and yard. At least the rains are coming, and with any luck this terrible drought is finally easing!

HOT HOT HOT!!

I know, I live in Arizona- heat in the summer is a given. But blast, it's been 105 or higher, with 45% humidity or higher!!!! Oh, did I mention we don't have AC? Yea, just a really good Swamp Cooler, but in this humidity and heat, it's functionality sucks. Despite most Interior Decorators disgust with the modern ceiling fan, they are very functional and make life bearable- so luckily I have 3 of them, plus fans in almost every other room in the house.

We are surviving, but these are the days I long for an air conditioned office again! Most of the time I enjoy my job-free existence. I won't say work-free, because there are always the requirements of hearth and home, plus hubby, chickens, dogs and gardens. At least I can manage the time and energy of household stuff. Adding a 40 hour work week to that would kill me, I'm afraid. Maybe literally-who knows?

I only spend time in the garden in the early morning, which leaves me time to sew a bit. I'm posting pictures of the couch cover and baby blanket I finished. Given the weather, I am reading a lot- plenty of time that I can't move much allows for more reading. Right now it's 'The First American- the Life and Times of Benjamen Franklin' by HW Brands. It's a really good biography, well researched and pretty easy to read. What an amazing man Franklin was! This bio is honest about his shortcomings as well as his achievements, which presents a much more human viewpoint than we got in school. Granted, in the 60' and 70's history was pretty 'glossy', and human foibles were ignored in great men, witness Jack Kennedy's indiscretions.... Anyhow, it was published in 2000, but I was working and not reading much then, so it's new to me!