Things that have annoyed me today.

In no particular order.

• Children who drive like shit, cut you off and laugh about it.
• National pharmacy chains that buy out other ones but can't seem to train their staff AT ALL for the transition.
• Drive through pharmacists who don't acknowledge you.
• Pharmacy lines.
• Insurance companies: this time it's how stupid they are. I take one med monthly that costs ~$90 full price. I pay $50 copay for it. Meanwhile, the $314 drug I take costs $25. I'm not complaining (now), but WTF?
• People who ramble off topic in meetings when you're supposed to be coming up with some results.
• People who try to turn every conversation you have with them into therapy*
• People who show up late for appointments.
• People who think that being in control of a group means yelling at them and "showing them who's in charge."
• Dump trucks who cut you off and speed, listing dangerously.
• Religious people who are perky while calling your peeps sinners.
• Not having a roommate yet.
• It being a few days before my one-year quit date and not having the funds to get myself a new computer like I promised. See above.
• Having native Spanish speakers be surprised that an AMERICAN can speak another language.
• Having native Spanish speakers (from Spain, even) say that the crap I'm speaking these days is SO SO SO GOOD! (It's all relative, I suppose. Perfectionism? Pshaw!!)
• Recognizing that I realllllllly need to get a handle on my fitness/eating quantities, but not doing much about it yet.
• Realizing that I'm being a perfectionist.
• Mulling over the WHY behind my recent non-compliance of the cig ban, though only when having drunk too much beer.
• Old "friends" who get in touch with you out of the blue after vanishing over a year ago. Two years? Dunno. Bad memory here. ("friends" in this case indicates some extra friendly [ahem] behavior having been attached)
• People who know you're in a hurry and working hard and yet say "I know you're really busy, but can you help me with this personal project?" (and they have a degree of power over you and so you can't say no)
• People who come to you to bitch about other people.
• Having to tell people to talk to the hand.
• Varmints that are NOT AFRAID OF BLOW-UP OWLS OR SNAKES! AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!
• Mold
• Sneezing.
• Home Owner's Associations
• New construction
• Not having time for lunch until 3 p.m.
(I keep coming back and adding more)
• People who deal with conflict by refusing to return phone calls. In a professional situation.

*I may be guilty of this at times. Not all times. This person CANNOT have a conversation with resorting to self-analysis and AMIRITE? validation queries.

Funny, that. OLS week 6 again.

I thought I was sick of tomatoes after that 60 lbs I processed this weekend. Apparently all it took for me to crave them again was day of sleeping and feeling vaguely oogy.

Dinner tonight was also local, and a little more impressive than yesterday's. So if you want, count this one as the One Local Summer meal #6.

Cream of tomato soup is one of those extreme comfort foods, and I went for it today. Lunch AND dinner. I improved on the recipe for dinner, so I'll give you that one.

--1/2 cup reduced tomato sauce. (Basically this is just pure tomatoes in their juice, reduced to about half of their original volume. Concentrated happiness, I think of it)
--one pinch of baking soda. (you heard me. Tomatoes are acidic. Acid plus milk=curdle. Curdle is vomit-inducing in the wrong context.)
-- 1 cup milk
--salt to taste

Stir together the tomatoes and baking soda in a microwavable, one-serving bowl. Add salt. 1/4 tsp, maybe? When the mixture stops fizzing (totally fun!), stir in 1 cup of good quality milk. I used Mapleview Farm (warning: moo) whole milk.

Heat through in the microwave.

YUM.

This really showcases good tomatoes. There are essentially two ingredients plus salt and an anti-curdling agent.

Extra good with grilled cheese.

For Jerry

No bobble head, though.

I'm sick. I slept from 10 a.m to 1 and then from 2-6 this afternoon. I hope I can sleep tonight.

One Local Summer Week Six

We're halfway through, huh?

It's the top of the summer, and so there's lots to be had out there for local eats. I've noticed that I'm eating much better food and more local than not. This is just the level of non-stressful goal that I succeed with, this One Local Summer project.

My foray into canning tomatoes today has left me, oh, limp as a rag. So no fancy several course meals are on the horizon this week.

I'm too exhausted even to have taken pictures. Here. Enjoy the Maola logo instead.

This is a Sunday Dinner meal. Did you have those? They're mid-afternoon and usually the only meal of the day? Yeah. That's what I did today. Only it wasn't organized.

(Can you tell I'm hungover? I make no sense.)

Sunday Dinner, One Local Summer Style:

Baba Ganoush made from blackened local eggplants (I didn't pay attention to which farm I used!), local garlic, non-local tahini, and salt and a teense of citric acid (leftover from canning).
I ate it hot and straight from the blender. Holy shit was it good. Num Num.
Tomatoes. I ate these as I canned. Lots of them.
Maola chocolate ice-cream from the container. Just enough to satisfy my sweets craving.

Time for a nap. Yawn.

Title goes here

Maybe just maybe you can help me understand why I thought that third 20-lb box of tomatoes was a good idea.

Here are some pictures of the process involved with putting up 18 quarts of tomatoes with approximately 15 lbs left to boil down for sauce. Which I think I'll freeze. I am VERY sick of canning.

Below: 60 lbs in the boxes. The plate has my tomatoes and two eggplants that will soon be baba ganoush. Outside the window you can see the scary snake that is going to eat any birds that DARE to approach the tomatoes.



Next: The first batch that came out of the canner had some issues. Half the jars didn't seal, which typically corresponded with the ones that seemed to lose 1/3 of their contents during the time spent processing in the canner. In reality, I messed up by not squishing the tomatoes in tight enough with this first round. I reprocessed the ones I needed to. By the way, 85 minutes is a LONG time to boil, but that's what the instructions I came up with said.

After the third round of quarts went into the canner, I still had loads of tomatoes left. They barely all fit in the large, enormous, vast slow-cooker Marianne so graciously gave me last fall. I use it All. The. Time.


Ok, I've got to take the last set of jars out of the canner and hope they seal. If not, I'll just make some more sauce or something. Cause I am truly sick of canning. Whew.

Oh, it's also time to scoop out the smoky eggplant.

Glad I'm not going directly home today....

$40 for ~35 lbs.

Tomorrow in the early a.m. I go to the farmer's market and pick up my 1/2 price bulk tomatoes suitable for canning.

Then I'll come home and proceed to warm up my house all day (and possibly the next day, too) socking away my access to local tomatoes all winter. It won't be the same as the fresh tomatoes of summer, but considering my first foray into canned tomatoes, I'm pretty sure they'll be better than store-canned. They'll definitely use fewer resources, support local farmers and possibly kill me if I don't do things right. Botulism, baby.

So lemme link to the guidelines I'll be using (warning: PDF). Have I mentioned how much I love cooperative extensions?

What I'm hoping to do with this particular entry is to map out a plan for tomorrow so that I don't get really sick of canning within the first hour. It's likely to be a pretty lengthy process, what with sterilizing jars, blanching and peeling the 'maters, adding citric acid to get the PH in the right range, stuffing the jars, adding boiling water and processing the filled quarts.

I have four burners. During the canning process I'll need:

1. One burner to heat the blanching water with.
2. One burner to boil water on to fill up the space not taken up by tomato solids. Ideally, two burners for this, but hey, I only have four total.
   
3. One burner for keeping the lids in warm but not boiling water (making the rubber most pliable, I suppose.
4. One burner for the canner
   

The canner is enormous and infringes on the burner in front of (or behind) it.

Here are the detailed steps I'll take. I've tried to make this as streamlined as possible without sacrificing food safety in the least.

Steps:

1. Sterilize jars in the dishwasher.
   
2. Get water in the canner boiling. It takes forever.
3. Boil the water in my pasta pot with the strainer.
   
4. Get out a BIG bowl of cold water with ice in it.
   
5. Get water boiling in the tea kettle.
   
6. Put lids and rings into hot water. Keep hot but not boiling.
   
7. When pasta pot water is boiling, lower several tomatoes into it and blanch for a few minutes, until the skin is loosened (notch the end with a knife first. Makes for easier peeling.
   
8. Dump tomatoes into cold water to stop them from cooking.
9. Add 1/2 tsp citric acid to quart jars.
   
10. Peel and stuff into quart jars after cutting out the top cores and any bad/unripe spots.
    
11. Repeat steps 6-9 until you have ~5 quarts (or however many fit into the canner at once) filled as much as possible with tomatoes
12. Pour boiling water into the quart jars leaving 1/2 inch headspace.
    
13. Wipe jar rims.
    
14. Put lids on (adjust so it looks like they'll get a good seal)
15. Put rings on.
16. Lower the quarts into the canner with the jar-lowerer-tool.
    
17. Bring water back to a boil and let the jars boil for 45-50 minutes.
    
18. Carefully set the quarts on a towel. Do not touch or nudge for 24 hours.
    
19. Listen for the pop.
20. Start again at step one. Repeat as necessary until your tomatoes are all processed.
    

Enjoy all winter.