stuffed peppers

Well, I came home and picked a bunch of green peppers from the garden and started cleaning them to stuff. We took mom's recipe and made a few changes to it by adding a pint of our homemade kraut to a batch times 5. Yes, we stuffed about 30 peppers to freeze for the winter and still have more in the garden. Here is what they looked like after we stuffed them. of course there is also a pitcher of some tomato sauce to pour on them after they freeze and then add shredded mozzarella after they bake. The filling smelled so good with all the spices cookings away. It will taste so good this winter when it's cold outside.

Seattle

Well, I spent the last week in Seattle Wa., one of my favorite cities. In fact, if I had to live in a large city, it would be either Seattle, Vancouver BC, or Portland Or. I visited many of the great sights to see such as the famous waterfront market. This place is great, tons of fresh fish, flowers, food, crafts and more fish.





These guys at the market get crazy and throw the fish around. Any kind of seafood you want is here, clams, squid, trout, halibut, eel, you name it.





Of course there is all kinds of street entertainers working for tips. The clown and the silver man was cool. There is also plenty of beggars in the street asking you for change. It actually started to get under my skin being asked 5 different times in one block. I did think the city was safe as we walked all hours of the evening and never felt threatened.




Since I'm in the power industry we had a tour of one of the many hydro dam that generate power for the city of Seattle. This one was built in 1906 and still runs today with many of the old penstock and turbines still in use. Above the dam a beautiful lake and below it water falls.


Some of the places I ate at above. Left picture is the Tillicum village on Blake island where we had salmon cooked by the fire. Center picture is "The Fisherman" where I had some great Halibut and right is Pike Brewery where they serve an excellent spicy Salmon and great dark beer.


Of Course being a glass blower I had to stop at Seattle Glass Blowing Studio where I usually buy my glass color. I ended leaving with a few hundred dollars of color to use in my future work. I am a member of GAS ( Glass Artist Society) and the 2011 convention is going to be held in Seattle. Several of us local glass blowers are talking about attending next year. The following year it will be held here in Toledo where is all started ( the glass movement) in 1962 at the Toledo Art museum.


The other picture is the Seattle Art Museum where I didn't get the chance to visit, maybe next year.

Pasta Sauce

We still have tomatoes and Peppers left in the garden and ended up making some roasted garlic and pepper pasta sauce the other night. The peppers are coated with oil, roasted and the skins peeled. The Garlic has the bottom of the bud cut off and drizzed with oil and roasted. We add tomatoes, several cups of fresh Basil, parsley, oregano and a few other things.



Then it is all cooked down for some time and canned up into pint jars. We made a double batch (10 quarts) and of course had some extra left over to make a great spaghetti dinner with the next night. So the garden is about done with only carrots, a ton of hot and mild peppers and more tomatoes. We hope to can up some hot peppers in olive oil Friday night and Brenda is going to show her friend how to make Salsa next week.

More pears

As of this morning we have 45 quarts and (18) 1.5 pints of pears. We still have some left so this morning we canned some Brandied pears in pint jars. They have a slight golden color to them and have to sit for at least one month to soak the favor in. Bet they will taste great this winter next to a fire with ice cream.

While the pears were processing we canned another batch of tomato soup which makes about 9-10 quarts of soup. We cut up celery, skinned tomatoes, onion, parsley and a few bay leaves. Let it cook down for a bit and then run in through a food mill and sieve. Then is must cook down to thicken and then into the pressure canner.

Pears

What do you do with 4 bushel of pears? Process and can as many as you can tolerate. Dad had a bumper crop this year while we had little in the way of pears. So we have been canning pears for several days now and have about half of them done.






Here is half of the pears canned up along with our other canned goods. So far the list includes tomato soup, roasted garlic / pepper sauce, 3 kinds of salsa, beans, peaches, 2 kinds of beets, 3 kinds of pickles, 3 kinds of peppers, squash relish, salmon and I can't remember the rest. Still have more soup, beets, beans, and apple sauce and butter to do to finish up the season.

Favorite trout stream

Here we are after hiking up a 2 track road for a while with a picnic lunch and fishing poles in hand. The perfect spot for an afternoon to cast a few lines and relax.






If I had the money to buy this place on a little trout stream in Canada, I would. I could spend the summer and fall up there fishing and relaxing. It is one of the most beautiful spots in the
area where we spend each summer. I'm sure my Northernbliss friend knows where it is ,... don't you Janet?



That is a dream of mine is to have a small cabin similar to the one near these falls to unwind each summer , catch a few trout, work on some art, read or just sit and listen to the water falls 24 hours a day.

Isn't technology great..this is a test message from my BlackBerry to my blog.

Barn animals

Another temporary resident of our barn, a small possum. My daughter came in from taking care of the horse last night and said she saw a possum run into the lean to. We found him hiding in the wood pile where we left him hoping he would leave in the night.

Peaches

It's time to can peaches from our tree and a few that I bought from a local orchard. We normally have a ton of fruit but a late frost this year got the blooms. We have about 15 fruit trees from Peaches, Apples, Nectarines, Pears, Cherries and plums. Some years we do Cider or Apple Jack, and can the fruit. We also freeze blueberries, red and black raspberries and black berries. Then we have a large garden of vegetables we can and freeze.

Canada

This is the front of the rock slide I mentioned yesterday. Quite insane to climb the front of it but people do it. It is a wonderful sight and would love to have a cabin perched on the top of it.



While in Canada we fished a chute on the river one afternoon with no success. The beauty of the
river made up for the terrible fishing. We fished with everything, mostly worms on a bobbler but only got a couple small bass. I was hoping for a walleye, pike or even better a trout. The large pool of water looked like the perfect spot for fish but nothing except the wife losing several of my spoons and Rapalas. She promises to replace them but I'm still waiting.





The river at this point moves very swiftly in a narrow gorge and in fact appears to have quite an undertow. Several times my bobble would be pulled under as the current pulled my rig downward.







This is looking south downriver and is another beautiful view. We have been coming to this area for over 40 years and each time we find something new. Earlier this day we traveled down to north side of snowshoe creek to the river to fish. Another beautiful spot with the wide stony river banks. I was worried that when we drove down the hill covered in stone we wouldn't get out. Well, we didn't as the truck would spin halfway up the hill (no 4 wheel drive) so we jogged to the road and flagged down someone on the construction crew with a four wheeler to pull us out. We tried the south road but couldn't get past the sand ruts near the river. Next year we bring the four wheeler and an aluminum boat for the bush roads.

Rock Candy Mountain

We spent a week in Canada this summer and always climb Rock Candy Mountain near the camp. It is a wonderful view overlooking Cumming and Tunnel lake for miles. On the way up we found a huge mushroom growing out of a tree the size of a basketball.








Then on the climb up there was a party coming up the front of the mountain by way of the rock slide. Not too smart not only because of the rock slide but the area is full of poison ivy. You can see one of them right in the center of the picture.





Then the view from the top of the mountain, where I would love to have a cabin. In fact, shortly north of this place is a cabin high a top of the mountain that you access from the road back to Little pickerel lake. I wonder what an evening up there in a lightning storm is like. I bet you can see and hear it for miles.




Here is the gang at the top of the hill, now ready for ice cream at the trading post.

Hot Pepper time

So the garden has been very fruitful this year and it's time to start canning. I picked from a variety of peppers including Serrano, Jalapeno, Hungarian, Red Chili, Red Cherry and Tabasco. I made the mistake last week when we did Salsa to not wear gloves on only the Jalapeno, never again. My hands burned several hours afterward until I put cream on them.


Of course my wife had to do a little pepper humor.










And then we put it all on to cook with some other stuff in the pot and made some warm pepper relish which we love to put on a sandwich, meatloaf or use it in cooking. We ended up canning a double batch of this and of salsa the same day. Yesterday we did about a bushel of tomatoes into canned tomatoes. Later in the week we can peaches, tomato soup, tomato juice and maybe more beets. I will put a picture up of what we canned so far another time. We also froze blueberries, blackberries, red and black raspberries from the garden for my daughter to make pies this fall.

Barn Swallows

I have had barn swallows in my barn for many years now. In fact we have rescued several of them from the fly tape in the horse stalls. They became stuck on the tape and we would get them down, wash their wings with canola oil to remove the glue and leave them in a box with food and water for a day and let them go. I have since put up a mesh to try to keep them from flying into the horse area where the tape is and started using different fly traps.

I'm sure one of the babies we rescued is in this bunch here. The babies fly out during the morning all day and return at night crowding in the nest while the parents perch nearby. At what point do you think the babies are big enough the parents kick them out of the nest. It looks crowded now.

nothing here but space.

I just realized that I have never entered anything in my blog because I was maintaining a web site about my conversion. Of course that web site hasn't been updated in a while even though I have much more done on the vehicle and is close to running. So I promise to update that site in the very near future. Mea while I'll probably use this blog for my rants, raves and ramblings when I feel the urge to do so. I don't want to be one of those blogs that get updated once a year. All for my one follower, Lisa... thanks for the support Lisa. Although I do have many many more following Wattmotion.com