So, applebutter...

The applebutter experiment was a rousing success. I love that I was able to make it in the slow cooker. And the applebutter aficionado in the house says that it tastes like his favorite store-bought brand - a ringing endorsement, to be sure. Photos of the finished product need work, maybe the batch I do on Saturday will photograph better than this batch did.So, the recipe...

2.5 kilos apples, cored and finely chopped (I ran them through the food processor)

800 g raw sugar

1 1/2 Tbsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

Place the apples in a slow cooker. In a bowl, mix the sugar, spices and salt. Pour the mixture over the apples in the slow cooker and mix well. Cover and cook on high 1 hour. Reduce heat to low and cook 9 to 11 hours, (mine took about 10) stirring occasionally, until the mixture is thickened and dark brown. Uncover and continue cooking on low 1 hour. During the last hour, blend it smooth with an immersion blender. Ladle into sterilized jars. Boil filled jars for 15 min. Cool and store.

I used organic Gala apples, but I think Granny Smiths or Jonathans would work well, too.

It seems to me, too...

"It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it; and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied; and it is all one."M. F. K. Fisher, The Art of Eating

I have a new website - http://feeding-the-flock.com/

Come and visit!

Peaches!

Yay jam! My first attempt at peach jam appears to be a success. I used a super easy recipe from a food blogger, Orangette, called Italian Family Jam. I am very happy with how it turned out - though my normal tasters have not yet passed down their verdicts, so we shall see.

Watch it!

even if you already did, watch it again... this is history being made.

A few of the things on my plate this semester...- Classes - i am taking 9 graduate credits- Teaching - i teach 1010 every monday, wednesday and friday- Program for College Teaching - i am getting a teaching certificate- PRAXIS - so i am marketable on a high school level, in addition to college-Thesis - i need to have narrowed my topic by then end of the semester... a hard task for someone with such disparate interests...and that is just for school...

A few of the things on my plate this semester...

- Classes - i am taking 9 graduate credits
- Teaching - i teach 1010 every monday, wednesday and friday
- Program for College Teaching - i am getting a teaching certificate
- PRAXIS - so i am marketable on a high school level, in addition to college
-Thesis - i need to have narrowed my topic by then end of the semester... a hard task for someone with such disparate interests...

and that is just for school...

6 August 1945

Hiroshima... 8:15am... 90 percent of buildings either damaged or completely destroyed... 140,000 people dead - 70,000 instantly...

Our world changed...

I made pickles!!! This may only be exciting to me, but I have never done it before and it is an exciting kitchen accomplishment for me. They are Garlic Dill Refrigerator Pickles and when the 3 days is up and I know if they are good, I might post the recipe. Until then....

Squeee!

Some diesel sweeties

http://www.dieselsweeties.com

Almost makes you want a Big Mac...

Funny on Wonkette...

and also very sad...

Are you thinking yet?

Max brought this to my attention recently and I have to say that while it is somewhat shocking for anyone steeped in the Christian world views of the modern US, it is very thought provoking and pretty much spot on... in my opinion anyway...



Pat Condell has more good videos and you can get them here...

a rant...

I hate moving. I am not moving, but we are getting two new inmates at Flock Hall 2.0 and one of them will be taking up residence in my room, so even though I am not going any where, I am moving my stuff, cleaning out storage and making room for a bird cage. I don't suppose that I have a ton of stuff, renting kinda precludes it. But I am more of a collector than anyone at flock hall, and I have sort of sprawled out a little bit when I got some extra space. Now I am having to suck it back in, or trim it out. I don't like trimming, even when I like the results - more space and new companions. The process is at best tedious and at worst painful. Most of it is only out to the garage - more tedious than painful - and multiple moves have really pared down the collection urge, or at least prevented me form giving into the urge with any frequency. But there are still the boxes and totes that need to be sorted through and weeded out, or at least consolidated. It makes me want to run screaming in the opposite direction. Or go take a nap. But I wouldn't be able to sleep, because I would be thinking about all the stuff I need to do. Or I would fall asleep and dream about it and wake up more tired than I started...

Bah Humbug!

I think I will go cook something, food makes everything better...

Not so serene...

We have all heard it...

Lord,
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Well it seems that the guy who thought that he thought it up was wrong, or stealing, depending on the way you look at it...

the NYT article is here...

Astrophil and Stella

Sir Philip Sidney
1

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,

That she (dear She) might take some pleasure of my pain:

Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,

Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain;

I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,

Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain:

Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow

Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burn'd brain.

But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay,

Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows,

And others' feet still seem'd but strangers in my way.

Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,

Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite--

"Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart and write."

Survey says...

I know there are musical people out there in my sparse and nebulous readership, and I have a survey for you. What would you say my theme song is - a song that represents my personality, quirks, and interests? Please let me know...

When Candy Goes Wrong

I can't decide what is funnier the title, which sounds like something from a budget horror film, or the picture, which speaks for itself...

It is my passion.

Do you remember falling in love, discovering your passion - I was nine. We had free-time. I was laying on my stomach looking at the books on the bottom shelf of the classroom bookcase, books we never used in class. I have always had a fondness for things that involve never. There were lots of books i knew by then that i was supposed to be interested in, classics - Treasure Island, The Jungle Book, Black Beauty. The there was this old, faded blue book - you know that weird library-binding blue that is nothing like the author or publicist intended. There was a grainy, faded picture of a girl on the front with her yellow skirt and hair blowing out to the side - rather unrealistically, I now know - but completely wonderful to my rather overdeveloped imagination of the time. The Witch of Blackbird Pond. I started reading it. For people who know me now that may seem like no big deal, but let me assure you it was. I did not read. I was in Chapter 1 reading, not because I didn't know how, I was reading when I was three years old, but because I refused to do it. The power of my will to not do something I didn't want to was such that I almost failed out of school - before the 5th grade. So me reading, and right there in the middle of the classroom even, that was not normal behavior. But it was free-time and no one noticed. It was not the first book I had read, but for some reason I was pulled into that world. It was the first time I wanted to read. I took the book home with me. I finished it in two days. I read it again. And again. (I did eventually give it back - but only after I had acquired my own copy at a school book fair.) Then I went to the library to see if Elizabeth George Speare had written any other books. The Calico Captive, The Bronze Bow, and The Sign of the Beaver were all quickly devoured. And just like that I was a reader. It is my passion.

except it is so windy here that you can't feel that melting power... =(