Saturday, April 20, 2019

A LOT Of Pictures


When your carrot needs to pee

Well, it has been a day. I didn't really get rolling very early because hey! I had all day! Right? No plans whatsoever other than getting things ready for tomorrow. The food prep for sure and maybe some clearing and cleaning in the kitchen, sweep the porches. That kind of thing. The king and queen aren't coming over. My kids are. And with five grandchildren, the house is going to look like five drunken rock stars decided to trash a hotel room about five minutes after they get here. 
So...I decided to go out and pick up some of the many, many branches which fell yesterday. Big branches, little branches, medium sized branches. And then I decided while doing that that I should get rid of some of the crocosmia choking the hydrangea and also, perhaps, trim up a few more palms. These things were done. And more branches were picked up and hauled to the burn pile. 
Bamboo was kicked. 


The Rubber Maid cart was employed over and over again. Before it was all over, the burn pile had grown considerably and yet, there were still many branches I had not picked up. But that was enough of that. 
On to the hen house where I needed to clean out the nest boxes. I was delighted to see Maurice peeking in to make sure I was doing it right. 


She's such a curious familiar. She follows me around the yard and watches what I do with the stealth of a Ninja. 

By the time I'd worn myself out in the yard and had lunch it was after three. 
Ooh boy. 
I picked carrots. 


That's just a few of them. Aren't they pretty?

I hosed off the topsoil and then brought them into the kitchen where I scrubbed them fiercely in lieu of peeling them and cut them up and cooked them. Then I made the magical tomato soup elixir and chopped up an onion and a green pepper. Here's what it looked like when it was all mixed up together. 


This may taste like hell but it sure is pretty. They're marinating in the refrigerator right now. 

Then on to the greens! I went back out to the garden and picked a huge bag of mustards, collards, and kale. The mustards have bolted and are in full glorious yellow-bloom. 


Time to pull them. 

I brought in the greens and put them all in the sink which I filled with water. 


After a bit of a soak, I ran each leaf under running water to get all the dirt and grit off them (mustards especially are notorious for holding on to sand) and laid them out a dozen or so at a time on the cutting board to remove the biggest, toughest stems and cut the greens into bite-sized pieces and put them into the pot. 
This is, as you may imagine, rather time-consuming. 
Here's the pot of cut-up greens. 


I poured in one of those containers of vegetable broth (I'm making these vegetarian and in fact, vegan) along with a can of chopped tomatoes. I cut up another onion and added that and then soy sauce, Braggs liquid aminos, balsamic vinegar, rice wine vinegar, and apple cider vinegar. And a little bit of sugar. 


Oh! And some olive oil. 
And...two beautiful pickled red peppers and some of the liquid from a jar of these:


Because that shit is delicious. I put these okras in my martinis these days and I just can't imagine anything better. 

I've now tasted the greens and they are pretty all right. I turned them off and I'll let them sit overnight in the refrigerator and do the final seasonings tomorrow. 

AND THEN! Time to make the angel biscuit dough. I decided to make up a batch of that because it, too, can sit in the refrigerator and wait until needed. I may or may not make a few loaves of Challah tomorrow. That will depend on what time I get up. 
Anyway, because I've taken pictures of everything today, here's the angel biscuit dough. 


Oh, y'all. That dough. It's so yeasty and lovely that you just desperately want to flour a surface, turn it out, give it a tiny kneading and then roll it and cut it out into trays and trays of beautiful biscuits. 
If we ate nothing tomorrow but ham and angel biscuits it would be a fine Easter. 

So that's what I did today. I did not sweep a porch, I did not get the kitchen in the sort of order I want it to be in. I did get rid of a few things in the refrigerator in order to make more room and here's a picture of happy chickens pecking away at plain yogurt that had become a color that plain yogurt should not be and some hummus which was never going to get finished. 


Chickens love moldy yogurt and hummus beyond all reason. 
Very little goes to waste with chickens around. 

I think I better get to bed early tonight. I have a lot to do tomorrow before the Easter bunny gets here to hide the eggs. AND my husband is coming home tomorrow. It feels like he's been gone for months. I kinda miss that tall guy. 
A lot. 

Love...Ms. Moon


11 comments:

  1. It's time for the women of the (lapsed or otherwise) Christian world to be busybusy, and do unusual cleaning and have sore feet. Of for a foot rub, Ms Moon.

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  2. the photo of Maurice is utterly prize worthy, Hallmark card, cloying greeting worthy! The eggs too! Beautiful gentle color. Well, sounds like your easter feast will be very good- jesus and all of the bunnies applaud you. Great looking carrots.

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  3. It sounds like you had IGAD (I've Got All Day) syndrome, which i get frequently. As in "Eegad! How did it get to be almost 5pm and dinner isn't even thought about, much less cooked!"

    As you've noted, though, you are only having family over and if they are upset about any dust and dirty i'm sure they would be welcome to pick up the dustpan and broom and help themselves. Not that your family would worry about it anyway.

    Hope you all have a wonderful day tomorrow.

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  4. Liquid Aminos....please explain.

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  5. sounds to me like you are pretty much ready for tomorrow....... you'll be busy...but you got a good head start! and your family will kick in where needed That marinated carrot tomato dish looks wonderful..... glad Mr Moon will be coming home to pitch in ;-) and that Maurice photo is great! Happy Day to you all tomorrow!
    Susan M

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  6. My first house owning house neighbor's name was Maurice, a lovely engineer, native of Ecuador, and I always called him Mauricio, because that was his name. He was a caretaker, like your Maurice.

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  7. Funny....I saw a jar of the Wickles Okra yesterday at the grocery store and I thought of you immediately! And then you post about them later! :) I almost bought them to try but ended up buying a jar of spicy mixed olives instead.

    I want to come eat a holiday meal with you one day. All of your cooking looks so delicious! I'd even bring a dish or two to contribute to the feast. :)

    Love the photo of Maurice and the eggs. I showed it to my husband and it made him smile.

    Happy Easter to you and all of the Moon clan!

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  8. oh those greens! the only thing the cook here does is boil them. I'd take my inedible edibles over to my neighbor's chickens like I used to except I pissed them off by refusing to apologize for calling him a gun nut on my blog. anybody who feels the need to be armed 24/7 especially in this quiet country neighborhood is a gun nut. Happy Dead Jesus Disappeared Day.

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  9. You will have the best kind of Easter, the family all together, eating angel biscuits and ham with miniature rock stars. I look forward to the pictures!

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