A fun afternoon

The dogs have been really getting on my nerves lately. They are so needy. After a nice long phone call with my mummy this afternoon, I tried to take a nap. After lying comfortably in bed with my eyes closed for a few minutes, Tux decided to come looking for me, but went straight to Henry's room, bashed his way through the door, which loudly hit the wall. This, of course, woke Henry up, just 1.5 hours after he had gone to bed. ugh. No nap for me then. But we had a lovely afternoon, so it made up for no nap, I guess!

We saddled up the circus and walked the dogs to the square. Henry played on the steps of the court house for about an hour. He loves to climb up the steps then run down the ramp. We ate our afternoon snacks, I chased him around, he screamed running around with his hands in the air. Good times! It must have been fun because after we had walked home, he wandered into the play room and played while I prepared dinner, an unheard of anomaly (I usually cook holding him). Annoyingly, I had already made dinner but it enabled me to clean up some dishes to make post-dinner clean up easier. He came back into the kitchen and played with pots and pants while I did other things. Who stole my baby and replaced him with a self-sufficient little man! Thank you! Just kidding, but it was nice to be able to do things without either someone tugging at your shirt or jeans crying, or holding said someone to prevent aforementioned activities. Henry's Uncle J-J came over for dinner with a friend and Henry was a little angel, eating lots of dinner, then some banana, then his cookie and some milk. After a long bath and a demonstration of his roly poly (somersault) capabilities, we retired to bed to read our three new Boynton books.

Henry at a recent gathering in Lana's neighbourhood...

Annual check up...

One week its the baby, the next week the dog. We always debate Mojo's age but he is probably around 10 or 11 years old. And boy did the vet keep going on about his getting on in age, so I guess poor old Mojo is officially an old dog.

Things wrong with growing old:

His hair is starting to shed and not grow back, resulting in bald patches.

He has cataracts and may very well go blind. On the upside, it will only be partial blindness. How the vet knows this, I dont know.

He has a degenerative bone disorder with his hips and arthritis and needs two full strength aspirin a day.

Somehow he still has heartworm, despite the other vet telling us it was all gone. Due to his age, the only thing to do to rid him of heart worm is to keep giving him the Inteceptor and hope it goes away.

As a result of the heartworm, or possibly sinus issues (vet didnt know the answer to this one) he has a hacking cough, for which nothing can be done. It sounds like he is going to vomit every hour or so. Though it is worse in the mornings I suppose, so it could very well be a sinus issue.

On the positive side of things, perhaps, he will apparently live a long time. Perhaps, because I hate for him to suffer. Though he seems spritely now, so hopefully his hips arent hurting him too much in general.

Makes me not want to grow old. I already have sore knees and a bad neck and shoulders...

Victory!

Let's hold our breaths until we actually see some form of outcome... but I got an email from PetSmart today! I might be getting reimbursed, just got to pop to the store and find out how much all the stuff is that I threw away!

Awesome...

Dear Lauren,

Thank you for contacting PetSmart regarding an infested purchase of Milk Bone product. We are very sorry for the inconvenience you have experienced.

Occasionally pet food, because it is grain based can become contaminated by insects in the product shipping and handling process, especially if the product packaging is not robust. We are restricted as to the use of chemicals in our store, because we operate in a sensitive environment with the foods we sell and the animals that are in our care. We do have pest control measures in place to guard against this, but occasionally a problem will occur.

I researched this incident with our store and our management team advised that they offered you a 36 lb bag of food at a discounted price of 50%, as well as the offer to bring your pets in for an exam at the Banfield Clinic if your dogs became ill. How are your pets doing? Did you need us to arrange a home visit by Orkin for pest control?

Can you provide me a list of the items you threw away in the cleaning process - tin foil, cling film and Ziploc bags - and their approximate cost?

Upon receiving this information, I would be glad to continue my research. Again we do apologize for your unsatisfactory experience. I'd also like to extend best wishes on the new addition to your family.

Stay away... I smell

Well, our water went out again sometime during the night Saturday. Thankfully we had a saucepan of water from Saturday evening which Danny collected before cleaning the carpets. This was very useful as we had about ten people for roast dinner and games Sunday night. The saucepan of water was enough to par-boil my potatoes, boil my carrots and steam my broccoli. I carefully drained the potato water into another saucepan and re-used this water to cook the cabbage. I have kept this water again and will use it to boil my turkey left-overs this evening to make a stock. Now that's resourceful!

I have to say, the turkey was delicious! Thanks Mr Brandon at Zion Farms, Pontotoc, for the free-range beauty! And thanks mum for the Delia Smith baking directions. Oh and thanks Danny for the meat thermometer I got for Christmas. You all helped me bake the most delicious, moist turkey I have ever eaten! I was quite chuffed with myself actually (seriously, who says chuffed in this day and age!), because other than the turkey and the gravy, everything else in my meal was vegan. We had roasted potatoes and parsnips, carrots and broccoli, cabbage, stuffing and Hubbard squash bake. mmmmmm! Thanks to Kevser and Megan for bringing a dessert, I just didnt have that in me! The only hard thing about not having water, was that when I took the turkey out of its bag I got raw poultry juices all over my hands; so I had to use drinking water in a little bowl to clean my hands. Oh and shaping the stuffing balls left my hands kinda sticky too! Thanks also to those that brought water over. Its funny the little things that you dont think about, like drinking water for the dogs; those guys went through almost two of the soda sized bottles of water that Megan brought over. And then there is water for after dinner tea. All in all, we have done well though, to have survived pretty well on just a few gallons of water since saturday!

Today it should get up to 43F, so hopefully there will be water dripping out of our taps when we go home for lunch! With temperatures that warm, I was even able to put the dogs outside as they were getting pretty stir crazy sitting in the house.

Mr Mojo is feeling a little better. Enough to play and use his leg, unless he feels that Tux is getting more attention than him, then he comes hobbling over to me. Seriously, how do dogs learn to play up to their mummy like that!

Part-way home, sort of!

Where have I been, I hear you cry! Middle of bloody nowhere is the answer, for the most part at least! There are still parts of the civilised world where the hotels have no internet, you have to sleep in a single bed (first time since 2001) and its freezing cold in August.

I flew to Edinburgh, Scotland, Saturday August 15th, arriving the following morning. I was unable to check in to my hotel until the afternoon, but they did fortunately store my luggage. I changed into some clean clothes and wandered around Edinburgh for several hours, walking briskly and with purpose, so as not to appear as a tourist. The best part of my day was spent in the Botanical Gardens, which should be missed by none! Great great gardens.

I undertook some semblance of work for the next week, although since I didnt get to chose the sites, I didnt actually do that much work; the sites were mostly inappropriate. I spent the weekend with my parents strolling along the beach, taking afternoon tea and cake and hiking through the rolling hills of Northern England. The best thing about the entire trip was meeting Mrs Goudie and spending a peaceful afternoon alone with her talking the talk and looking at pictures of her family when it was young. We then spent a lovely evening at a wonderful fish restaurant called The Ship on the Shore, where David was so very kind as to buy us all dinner. Wonderful wonderful evening, probably helped by the fact that Dave and I polished of a bottle of delicious Rioja between the two of us, oh and the Clams appetiser, Haddock over stir-fry veggies and apple and rhubarb crumble with custard that I consumed, not to mention the amazing company! The only good meal that I ate in the U.K. was an out-standing one!

I left Edinburgh Thursday August 27th, departing my hotel room at 830am and arriving at a Sheraton in downtown Sacremento, California, twenty two hours later, exhausted yet unable to sleep more than a few hours. Thankfully the field chief was rather lenient on me as I was incapable of anything resembling work friday and he didnt even seem to mind that much that I woke him up at 530am in the morning. I mean, come on, I had laid there waiting to get him up for about 2 hours already!

This trip would be inconceivable should I not have been meeting my love, but here we are together in California, and they call this work! My trips are usually excruciatingly painful on the body, even a young one like mine! The hours tend to be over the 12 mark and I constantly long for my love; but here we are, together, sitting on a boat for 8 hours a day armed with nothing more than paper, pencil and a GPS, then strolling down to Paesanoes for a revitalising Sangria in the early evening. So usually I would be complaining like a trooper in my third week away from home, but Im sitting back (in my life jacket, of course) and enjoying the hot Californian sun on my face.

I do miss my boys, but I hear they are behaving themselves so much that even I would be proud of them! So to you my lovelies, Ill be home Saturday and I promise you a walk Monday morning!

Saturday Salsa Queen

Well, I kinda disobeyed my promise. Not Kinda, I did. I promised to make another (better) tomato soup today, but I haven't. I thought there was not much point since I have a delicious looking one made by she who is formerly known as Ms. Ermin, so I thought I would eat that later. Instead I made salsa with my 10 lbs of tomatoes from the farmers market. Ive provided the recipe below, before I forget it! It might just be the best salsa to date. I was rather worried about making salsa since I didnt write the recipe down last year, but it worked out wonderfully, with some minor tweaking, so I thoroughly recommend it. I would also like to point out that the whole process took just 2 hours, compared to last year when each batch of salsa would take me an entire afternoon. The reason why, now I have a fantastic food processor. So please, if you dont have one, make sure you put it on your birthday list (thats how I got mine!) it has saved me hours and hours of tedious chopping and shredding this harvesting season. I have the largest Kitchen Aid food processor there is, and I recommend it to everyone!

Before you get distressed that I used a canned good in my salsa, I have not done this before but was worried about my onion to tomato ratio, if you dont want to use anything canned (as I usually dont) then please half the amount of onions suggested. Last year I did not use hot peppers, but I have tons from Summer's Grandfathers pepper plant so I thought I'd throw them in! Summer lovingly grew it from a seed from one of his peppers and gave that seedling to me, so now I lovingly feed and water it each year, its like a little bush now!

Awesomeness Fresh Tomato Salsa

Ingredients:

Approximately 10 lbs fresh tomatoes

1 1/2 large onions

2 green bell peppers

6 cloves of garlic (increase or decrease depending on your tastes)

3 hot peppers (optional and amount negotiable!)

1/2 c dried Parsley ( if you want to use fresh, you will just have to use twice as much)

Lemon juice

Lime juice

Apple Cider Vinegar

6oz can of tomato paste

Cumin

Salt

Black Pepper

1. Place jars and lids in water bath canner and fill with water until jars are covered. Set on highest temperature, your aim is to boil the jars at least 10 minutes before filling and it takes a really long time to boil that much water!

2. Skin the tomatoes; if you want to blanch them, thats fine, but I find that takes forever and this method is much more time efficient.

Cut all tomatoes in half, through stem. Place cut side down on baking dish and grill (English), broil (American), for 8 minutes. Tops of tomato skins should turn black. Remove tomatoes from tray and fill tray with next lot of tomato halves. When tomatoes have cooled, skins should peel off easily.

3. Remove outer layer from onions and inner layer of bell peppers, chop into quarters. Using shredder applicator of food processor, shred onions and green peppers in a matter of seconds. Failing this, spend the next 15 minutes chopping the onions and peppers into little tiny pieces. Place in large, heavy bottom saucepan.

4. Remove skins from garlic cloves and seeds from hot peppers and whiz around food processor with blade applicator. Failing this, don rubber gloves and chop garlic and hot peppers into little tiny pieces. Add to saucepan with onions and green peppers.

5. Place skinned tomato halves in food processor a few at a time and pulse with blade. Failing this, chop tomatoes into small cubes and get tomato juice all of you, your work surface and the floor. Dont worry, the dogs will probably lick it up. Add to saucepan.

Time to date, if you have a food processor: 30-45 minutes

Time to date, if you do not have a food processor: 1.5-2 hours

Go buy a food processor!

6. Add remaining ingredients to saucepan. By now you are probably cursing me for forgetting to type how much of all the liquids and spices I used. Well I didn't exactly forgot to type it in, I just forgot to pay attention to how much I used. So here are some estimates, but just remember that you should keep a bag of chips handy at all times for continual taste testing!

1/2 c lime juice

1/2-1 c lemon juice (concentrate)

1 c apple cider vinegar

I shook the tub of salt over the pan three times distributing salt, maybe adding a tablespoon or so each time.

2 tbs black pepper, although this is definitely a preference thing

2 tbs cumin, but that really is a guess, sorry!

Bring to the boil and simmer. The length of time you simmer will depend on a) how thick you want your salsa b) how much tweaking of spice and liquid quantities you have to do and c) how much time you spend eating it out of the pan! I would say I probably simmered it about 20-30 minutes from start to finish, but I added the tomatoes a bit at a time as I whizzed them round my hand-dandy food processor! Shame Im not sponsored by Kitchen Aid really, although I totally could be, I love their products!

Since it was really hot, we ended up putting a spoonful into a bowl and letting it cool down before we could taste it, which is probably why I simmered it so long. That and I was doing the washing up in between so that there wouldn't be that much mess at the end!

7. Having boiled jars and lids for at least 10 minutes, remove from water bath canner and stand mouth side down for a minute to make sure all of the water is out. Then put 1/2 to 1 tsp of lemon juice in each jar. Fill jars with salsa, leaving at least 0.5 inches head room (I probably left a little more than this). Wipe jar mouth clean and firmly place lids on jars. Immerse jars in water bath canner ensuring 2 inches of water above jars (its ok to lay them down if you have room and dont want to use as much water). Boil for 40 minutes.

8. Remove jars of salsa from canner and check seals. Leave to cool, returning to check they have all 'popped'. If not, this just means you have some eating to do! Salsa in jars that have not popped need to be refrigerated (when cool) and eaten within the week. Label them up and put them in the pantry for your next party!

Since I have a fantastic food processor, I was not making salsa all day! I also walked my dogs at 630am, went to the farmers market for a mooch around (didnt really need any food since we go away next weekend). Went for tea with my girlies. Did the grocery shopping. Picked up my dry cleaning that I dropped off in June and forgot about. Went to the pool with my wonderful husband, read my book and swam 30 laps. Got ice cream at Sonic. Shaved the dogs, again. Cleaned the kitchen and mopped the floor. You know you have a sad existence when the highlight of your saturday night is changing out the mop head for a new one. c'est la vie.

So that was my saturday!

I have been wondering lately, why I have been so incredibly tired. But when you write down everything you do in a day and it takes an entire paragraph to include achievements prior to 7pm, I suppose its no wonder that you might be exhausted on a regular basis!

My most handsome husband is out shooting a wedding this evening and is then taking himself off 'to the boats', which translates into, "Im going to go waste a bunch of money at a casino". The conversation was rather funny actually:

"Honey, Timmy says Amanda wants to go to the casinos for her birthday tonight"

"Yes dear, why are you telling me this?"

"Well, what do you think?"

"Let me ask you this; will you be able to have a good time without me? Will you feel like Im abandoning you if I don't come? Is it rude for me not to come out for Amanda's birthday?"

"Well, I could probably have fun if you weren't there, even though Id like it if you were, and no, I don't think it would be rude for you not to come. But would you mind terribly if I did go without you?"

"My love, you will be leaving town at 10pm, arriving at the casinos close to midnight, I will stand behind you not speaking to you, since you will be focusing on the card game, you will be increasingly aware of my tired eyes despite me not showing you how tired I really am, and eventually you will feel so guilty that we will come home, even though you will want to stay. The alternative to that is that I sit here and watch tv, do a little ironing or crocheting and go to bed around 10pm. Which do you think sounds like my preferred option!?"

Needless to say, Im going to have a wonderful night in with the pups and go to bed early! Then Ill probably get up early and go out on my bike whilst he sleeps of his sleep hangover! I think Ill be waking him up by 1pm though, mark my words!

How did your tomato soup making antics go?

Have you an answer to the question; what is the difference between marinara and tomato soup?

An ode to my boys

I am home alone with nobody but my furkids to keep me company. I tried to snap some pictures of them earlier, the light was low and my photographer is away right now so please forgive the terrible photos. Infact upon closer inspection, my pictures are terrible but here is one of them together and one of Mr Mojo's wonderful haircut. I promise to get better pictures at the weekend when Danny comes home. They have been good to me this week, my babies!




Oh, and his ears arent always up like this, its just that the camera made a funny noise when focusing without a flash and his ears perked up every time!


I made another amazing discovery tonight! If you are busy one evening but want a delicious dinner, you must try making this, its a cinch! This makes enough for two. Erm, what shall we call it, Butternut squash and fig spaghetti, not a very original name eh!

Preheat oven to 400F
Peel and thinly slice half a butternut squash (my slices were about 0.5 cm wide)
Slice half an onion
Place in baking dish with some vegetable oil and honey and bake for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile get a saucepan ready with water for wholewheat spaghetti and cook according to package directions.
Add a handful of halved figs to baking dish and bake a further 8-10 minutes.
Toss the baked food with the spaghetti and if you like, throw in some feta, blue or gorganzola cheese. Absolutely delicious and oh so simple! I can tell this is going to be a household favourite in the fall!

Collected some more tomatoes today, some of the big ones! Might make marinara for my love at the weekend! Or some tomato basil soup for myself!