Oh! Gross!

So, I love home canning.  You make have gathered that.  And for tougher/more complicated projects, I won't attempt them without a helper buddy, just in case my kitchen explodes or something.  Which is why I was very pleased to find out when we made Garlic Jelly back in April that Mikey is a pretty good canning buddy.

But, sometimes the canning bug bites and no one's available to help, so I pick an easier project.  Or in this case, the enormous amount of garlic I purchase a while ago, desperately need to be used and everybody had plans already.

I made this really simple Pickled Garlic from Serious Eats a while back, and I really liked it for salad dressing and Dave pretty much ate it straight from the jar.  So, all in all, it was a hit.  And keeping all that in mind, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and pickle at least the bulk of the remaining garlic.

Good news:  It was just as super easy as I remembered and I didn't catch anything on fire or do anything else stupid.
Bad news: I have now had my first, ever, canning jar that didn't seal properly.  In fact, I'm pretty sure it didn't seal at all.  So I only have 5 jars of garlic, instead of 6.
Really Bad news:  Since the jar didn't seal, the garlic was basically fermenting for the last two days, rather than pickling.  You cannot imagine how bad rotten pickled garlic smells, especially after how hot it's been the last few day.  So, nasty!

Making, fixing, cooking, doing.

This hippy is happiest when kept busy.  I'm not always that good at prioritizing what I NEED to do over what I WANT to do, fun often wins out over responsibility until the last possible minute, but I'm getting stuff done.

One of the things I've been trying to do, since I need to do some serious downsizing in the next few months, has been to pare down the things I've accumulated in the kitchen.  Dry goods that I rarely use, but somehow have 3 tubs of, spices that I have duplicates of, more frozen fruit than I could eat in a month, that kind of stuff.

My close friend, and fellow hippy, Mikey has been enjoying the fruits of this quite a bit, sometimes literally. Like right now, I'm making a berry topping for when have breakfast for dinner on Friday.  He's gotten most of my duplicate spices, and we've cooked a couple of meals from stuff I just happened to have laying around.

Tonight, after painting a bit, and taking the orange cat for a walk in the park, I used some leftover blackberries that I froze after a trip to Trader Joe's last month, and the last of the dried jalapenos that Carl didn't want, even though they were his, and made Blackberry Jalapeno Sauce.

Yesterday, I made raisin bark with some millet that needed to be used, leftover semi-sweet chips from a batch of my Miracle Max's Death Pills, and a little bit of cayenne and most of the Himalayan Pink Salt I had laying around.

Tomorrow there will likely be no cooking because I have plans for a bike ride with my mom, but you never know!

Hippy Kitchen Magic

So, forever ago, I started writing a cookbook.  No one was particularly encouraging about it, and I understand some of it.  My mom didn't want to help me taste test desserts, she was trying to eat healthy.  No one wanted to try pasta dishes because everyone was eating low carb.

Well, I've got a friend who wants to learn to cook, and another friend who can't believe the way that I cook ahead for a week of breakfasts at a time, so I think it's time I pulled this project back off the back burner.  It's actually a two-fold project, probably going to end up as two cookbooks, but I feel like I may as well work on the recipes together because I can't just eat cake and biscuits, and even if I could I like a lot of variety in my food.

So one of the books is going to be super easy recipes made, in part from boxes mixes and ready to go items,  for people who don't like to cook for hours and the other is going to be single serve and easy to freeze make ahead goodies so simplify packing lunches and breakfast on the go.  If you have an idea you'd like to see me try, let me know, I plan on crediting where the suggestions came from.

Happy cooking!

Wish me luck!

Miracle Max's Death Pill

1/2 cup Peanut Butter
1/2 cup Flax Meal
1/2 cup Hull Hempseeds
2 Tbsp Chia Seeds
1/2 Tbsp Hawaiian Spirulina

Optional: Baking chocolate or candy melts for coating (about 9 oz.)

Mix everything but the chocolate until it's an even consistency and weird green color!

Roll into balls and dip in melted chocolate (follow instructions on the package for melting)

Makes about 20.

Keep refrigerated because of the flax meal and hempseeds.

Enjoy!

(I'm not such a) Tough Mudder!

So, yesterday I participated in the Philadelphia Tough Mudder!  (Go, ME!)

And I have to admit, I use the phrase participate very loosely.  I only made it 1 mile!  I had to pack it in really early because of my knee.  I twisted it on Thursday, climbing this:

So it's not like I'm just a total wimp.

All in all, it was a good experience.  I learned a lot.  I had fun.  I spent some time with dear friends (who spent much more time with each other, because they actually finished).

I had a lot of trouble with my asthma in the humidity yesterday, which is new for me, and I think related to the pneumonia I had over the winter.

I made the first obstacle with no trouble, but by the time I got to the second one, my knee was already starting to protest the uneven ground and I couldn't adjust my brace because of all the mud on it.  So, rather than risking a serious injury, or preventing the boys from finishing, I bowed out gracefully and waited for them to finish.

They had a blast and now we all know the things we need to be better prepared for to do it next year.

I also noticed that I was, by far, the heaviest girl I saw all day who was a participant.  In a way, I'm proud of that, of the fact that despite my size, I tried anyway.  But mostly, I'm sad.  I'm sad that more bigger girls don't just get out there and try.  And closer to my heart, I'm sad that I let someone I should have been able to trust, affect me, my health and my self-worth in as negative a way as I have in the last few years.

But every day is new day, and a new chance to make a change, and change I will!  I'm already less lonely and more social than I've been in ages.  I'm spending time with more people who are better influences on me and I'm already seeing the positive impact on my health. (and my waistline!)  I'm eating better and keeping up around the house.  I'm getting art projects finished.

And most importantly, I'm really, truly happy for the first time in a long while!