Kimchee for the Ketchup Mouthed

I discovered two years ago, that making saurkraut was easy~~at least for me. I've had other remarks from friends and family when they tried out my recipes. 

SO, your mileage my vary.

Ever since I started reading about fermented vegetables I loved the idea of kimchee, cabbage, ginger, garlic, onion, hot peppers. What's not to love? Well, the hot peppers for one, I'm rather a devout ketchup mouth and my tummy is even more rigid in its rules. Too much heat and we're miserable together in one body. So I've never got past smelling commercial kimchees. After getting Wild Fermentation for Christmas I realized I could make kimchee at the mild end of the scale. 

But, we're out of cabbage, so the cabbage was bought along with the ginger and garlic. I forgot to buy a hot pepper that day, so used chile powder. 

1lb cole slaw mix in a bag

1medium onion finely chopped

1 tblsp grated ginger root

5 cloves garlic

1 tsp chile powder 

1 tblsp salt

Put the cole slaw mix in a mixing bowl. 

Peel and chop the onion, add to bowl. 

Peel and grate the ginger root, add to bowl. 

Peel and chop the garlic, add to bowl.

Add tsp of chile powder  and tblsp of salt to bowl.

Mix, then stuff mixture into wide mouth quart jar. 

Pound mixture till juice comes with a wooden spoon.

When the juice comes up over the vegetables, tuck a piece of plastic down on top of the vegetables to mostly exclude air. 

Lay the lid and ring on top of the jar.

Leave it on the kitchen counter and push the vegetables down under the juice every day. In about a week it will ferment and become kimchee. Sour, salty, aromatic, delicious. 

And beautiful.

Getting Ready for Summer

     

Two weeks ago Monday, Fay had me call back to Miller Tire Co. Finding tires for farm equipment isn't always possible locally, especially for the McCormick-Deering horse mower. We guess it was built 60 to 70 years ago. But in the Midwest there's enough Amish farmers to keep little parts businesses going. Mullet Machinery is another one that has made it possible to keep the old machine in good running condition. You can see that the old tire is not looking too good even on the rim.   

That split on the inside though, the old tire is done. Fay had no trouble getting the nuts off and the rim unbolted.

 
 

Then he rolled the rim and old tire out to the truck, I'd already loaded the new tire and tube.

 
 

  

After an hour and a half and two guys working on the change over at Les Schwab's, the rim was brushed free of rust and the new tire on. At least it wasn't like getting the leak in the hay wagon tire fixed. That took four guys to work on that antique. 

Fay installed the rim and new tire and the mower is ready to roll and mow.

 

Haven't done much this week.

We haven't done much for the last two weeks. I worked four twelves in a row and then caught the crud. Chills, a snot nose, the usual crud. He's just been doing chores waiting to be sure that his sciatic nerve is truly healed. No extra lifting or shoveling. 

Today's the first day I've felt better than a wrung out dishrag. He's got the crud today....but, he always gets over things like this sooner than I do. He's a tough old bird. 

But, all the garden seeds have come and we're already talking what goes where. There's hope for spring.

Lazy woman's scalloped potatoes.

Last Saturday was one of my birthday parties, with both of us being January birthdays and blessed with enough family to fill the house four times over, we celebrate with a multitude of small parties. Ada, my best step daughter and friend came over for our lunch of roast beef, scalloped potatoes, green beans and bacon, with blueberry buckle to follow. The scalloped potatoes were the hit of the meal. I had to explain that they were the lazy woman's recipe.

Have husband peel and slice potatoes. 


Fill the casserole with in an inch of the top, an onion chopped fine, layered in with the potatoes. 

Then pour on ranch dressing till the casserole is full. 

Cheese slices a quarter inch deep, cover and bake till done. 

I check every half an hour or so and if it still looks sloppy I take the cover off and let the excess moisture steam away. 

That's it, lazy woman's scalloped potatoes.

I was making conversation.

I was making conversation. 

In December, the story starts with a friend of mine. Pam had something wrong with her foot that turned out to be gout. Her old mare, Dancer, managed to step on a nail. So, two lame creatures and the little one has to give 40ml of penicillin to the big one. When Pam asked my husband and I to help with the ten days of shots, of course we went to help. Towards the end of the ten days, Pam's brother called to say that her inheritance from their Uncle Virgil was on its way from Alaska. There was going to be a lot of furniture, Pam asked if we needed any beds or dressers. Fay and I don't lack for furniture, that's what happens when you marry and put together two households. I passed it off saying we didn't help her to get something and really, the only thing that could do with replacing was the dining room set. 

God has the most marvelous sense of humor. There was a blond oak dining set in the load of furniture! 

 

There goes the old set. Amos is tying on farmer style with 

baling twine.

Here's the new set in the pieces it arrived in:

 

Next we set it up:

 

And now, with my birthday present on it:

God is so good, I never thought about actually there being table and chairs or that it would have anything to do with me. I just was making conversation. 

The Kubota goes to work

 

I worked a call in the day before yesterday. We'd had snow, so I took the truck, feeling better safe than sorry, but most of the roads were wet and bare. By 2:00pm, it'd snowed 5' to 6' inches and when I got home I couldn't open the gate.

Husband and canine cheering section to the rescue! The Kubota that was our Christmas present to ourselves came with a six and a half foot blade. That wet, sticky snow just rolled away, opening up the gate for me to come in.

 After he got the gate cleared, we needed to haul hay to the horses. My husband's middle son, is a bit of a tinkerer, he'd come down and built out of junk lumber a bucket extension so we can carry hay bales.

Not going to get any nicer than that. Fay goes out the front gate and around by road, a trip of about five blocks. I go on foot across the lots and get there ahead of him. 

 

 Our Fjord mare heard the tractor coming.

Reading

Fay doesn't read much, he prefers to be active. The only author he enjoys is Ben Green. For Christmas this year I found a copy of 'A Thousand Miles of Mustangin'. The only book by Ben Green that Fay didn't already own. 

What I'll do for next year I don't know.