Bread and Butter Pickles

Similar to the whole I’ll-never-love-another-relish-more-than-this-one thing, I made two kinds of pickles last year and I will now make bread and butter pickles EVERY YEAR. Yes, that deserves caps. Also from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving (I have no affiliation with them, but if they ever want to send me free stuff I'm totally OK with that), their classic bread and butter pickles rock. my. world.

(As an aside, the dill pickles I did last year were… meh. Too salty for my taste, and not “dilly” enough. Perhaps my spices were too lackluster, or I may have screwed up the recipe, but either way I’m not bothering with that recipe again)

I use a variation on their original recipe bread and butter, where I use cider vinegar instead of white. They offer the “English” variation which uses brown sugar instead of white, and cider vinegar instead of white – but since I'm low on brown sugar I used white. I don’t remember what I did last year, but I have a feeling it was the same thing since I generally don’t have a lot of brown sugar hanging around.

BTW – yellowed cukes are great for relish and pickles. Just peel them and I suggest seeding them as well. Keep in mind that the skins and seeds do not become more tender with the pickling/relishing process. I got mine ½ price at a local organic farm. They were going to rip them up and compost them the very day that I was there. Bonus for me!

I Relish This One

The best relish in the world – Cucumber Relish via the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. That’s it. That’s the one, right there. I made a batch last year and decided I don’t need to bother with another. Or bother with sharing it, except for with my parents. And possibly my in-laws, but they live farther away (not hard when my parents live 1.4 miles away) so it’s easier to hide relish from them.

Since I plan on eating all of this in-house (aka, I’m not sharing except with those who live in my house) I reused jars.

<gasp>

Yes, I reused jars. Jars from salsa, spaghetti sauce, olives, and pickles. Like the ones I got from the store with stuff in them, and instead of recycling the jars I’m reusing them. As long as I sterilize them and they still seal just fine, I see no problem with this. I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again.

But, back to the relish. It uses cucumbers, red and green peppers, onions, celery, and spices. Hubby, who usually won’t eat peppers or onions, has declared this relish the best ever and will eat copious amounts of it. Even after I told him it contains the evil peppers and onions.

I chopped, salted, waited, rinsed, added the brine, stirred it all up, and canned. I like a chunky relish, otherwise I would have considered running the veggies through the meat grinder like I did with the tomato sauce.

The waiting phase...

I have my eye on the Hotdog Relish as well, which uses green tomatoes. I have a feeling I’ll have lots of green tomatoes to put to use… I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Potty Training??!!??!!

Apparently no one ever told Max that he's 14 1/2 months old and that he's a bit young to potty train. Because he totally pee-peed on the potty 4 times last night and once this morning! Woot!

He's been taking his diaper off a lot lately, and really doesn't like wearing one anymore. We were at my parent's last night for dinner (after his Grammy day) and he had undone one side of his diaper so it was slipping down his pant leg. Instead of just putting it back on him, I asked if he needed to potty. He said, "Yeah!" gave me a big smile, and went right to the bathroom (I followed him, btw). So I held him over the potty like we've been doing every now and then... and then he peed! I'm so proud! I squealed, my mom squealed, we both sang the potty song several times (even Grampy [my dad] joined in a round), and it's now his thing. I'll ask him if he wants to potty (which I've been doing off and on for a month or so) and he'll say, "Yeah," then we'll go potty. And then he gets pissed when I put his diaper back on.

So much for the new set of cloth diapers I just ordered - but I'm ok with that! I have a feeling it'll be a little while before he's ready for big-boy undies.

Today I put in an order for one of those two-in-one toilet seats and a little step stool. Yay!

Saucy Tomatoes

Crazy week last week. Not just with the baby being sick stuff – it’s also a crazy time at work. Which is why I’m in the office today. Yuppers, at work on a holiday. <sigh>

But – I have been productive at home as well as at work. I’ve been doing a lot of canning/preserving over the last few weeks. I’ll try to cover that in posts this week… provided I don’t get sidetracked by sickness or crazy schedules (again).

Check out that pretty, pretty tomato sauce. I picked 42 lbs in one shot from my home garden. Yes, 42 pounds. I chopped the tomatoes into large chunks, ran it all through the meat grinder attachment of my stand mixer (I love that thing) skin, seeds and all (though my tomatoes don’t have many seeds and are mostly meat), and put the pot right under the output. Then I put the raw tomato sauce on the stove on med/low heat to reduce for a while, put it in old Chinese take-out soup containers, and popped them in the freezer. Done. (yeah,  yeah, the containers have BPA, and are not officially freezer approved, blah blah blah, but it works and it’s essentially free)

I love having just plain old tomato sauce on hand for soups, pasta sauce, etc, that I can take out and flavor the way I want when I want. I know a lot of people prefer to have their tomatoes canned as sauces (and salsas, etc) but I like the versatility of the plain. And it’s easier to do now, when it’s hot and I’m busy.

One batch (12 lbs or so) I did make into pasta sauce and canned. I didn’t do much special – added an onion, a bunch of garlic (both of which went through the meat grinder), basil, and oregano, put in a bit too much vinegar (hopefully the sour will calm down…) and canned as normal. In the winter it is really handy to have pasta sauce on hand ready to go, so I may do a few more jars of pasta sauce or plain sauce that I don’t have to thaw. The added effort now, though annoying, is probably going to be worth it later.

How’s your tomato preservation going?

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

Well, Max was not just a little sick. He was very sick. But he's better now.

I took him to his appointment on Monday to follow up on why he still had a high fever even though he'd been on antibiotics for his ear infection for four days. They did a little blood work and the doctor called me and said to tell me to go up to the ER at the other hospital since they're more equipped. Max's white blood cell count was through the roof. I packed us an overnight bag, had hubby rush home from the gym, and off we went.

Max's fever broke all on its own around 8pm, after we'd been at the ER for about an hour. He'd had some gastrointestinal distress and every time they pressed on his belly he screamed so they did a sonogram and found some fluid buildup around his appendix and it looked a little inflamed but wasn't giving off "heat" (as in, no extra blood flow). That night one of the surgical residents came through and Max was so tired he didn't scream when she touched his belly. The next morning the head pediatric surgeon came through (and he must be some sort of baby whisperer, because Max liked him immediately) and poked around his belly, and again no screaming. So, the screaming wasn't due to belly pain when they touched it but due to strangers touching his belly. Which is totally understandable. Fluid can apparently build up in the abdomen when there's an infection in the body, and it was just coincidence that it built up around his appendix. Thank goodness.

So, secondary infection is the official diagnosis (ear infection was the primary infection). He was dehydrated from the fever and lack of appetite (he didn't want to eat or drink for days, and trying to get him to do either was like pulling teeth) so they gave him an IV bag which did wonders. He fell asleep around midnight (during the sonogram) and hubby and I got to sleep around 4:15am. Of course nurses and residents were in and out constantly, so "sleep" is a relative term. Hubby was in the next room and I let him sleep so at least one of us would be functioning.

My mom came by the next morning to help us, which was a lifesaver. Max woke up in a fantastic mood, full of energy, he thought the crib was awesome (it has a plastic dome over the top so we called it a spaceship), he ate a late breakfast (and wanted to eat!) and played with noisy toys and yelled and acted like himself. He took a two hour nap on grammy's lap and they were able to examine him and remove the IV bag while he was asleep. After he woke up they declared him ready to go home and removed the IV tube. We got home around 4, just under 24 hours later.

Max had to go through every single toy and make sure they were all there. He was ecstatic to be home, that's for sure! Hubby and I were more subdued, but just as happy to be home with our little boy. Max is back at daycare for a short day today, I'm back at work for a short day, and his follow up at his doctor's is on Friday.

And let's hope that's the last of it.

Crappy Day

Today is a crappy day for many reasons.

Overall: Bridges and roads are out, people are without power, emergency crews were evacuated from their own buildings, telephone and computer services are out (including to hospital and doctor facilities), death and injury.

Me: Max has been sick since Thursday, on antibiotics since Friday, and still isn't eating which is bad considering he's such a peanut and can't afford to lose weight. Apparently it wasn't just an ear infection. He's been in bed with us for the last 3-4 nights and having to sleep on ice packs to keep his fever down enough that he can sleep semi-comfortably. This morning he was in a somewhat ok mood considering, we all overslept, the button on my pants broke so I'm wearing the next thing on the shelf (which is not a flattering combo with the shirt), I'm PMSing and hurting, Max's doctor's has no phone so I had to take my lunch break at 11am to drive over and talk to them and they gave me the professional poker face and said to bring him back in this afternoon, I got a really irritating email from someone in another department that is second guessing my actions for me because apparently it's their business, and the photocopier is on the fritz the day that I need to make packets.

I know that it could be so much worse (see first paragraph). Our home could have flooded or blown away. Max could be ER worthy instead of just persistent fever and lack of appetite. But I'm having trouble focusing on the good today.

I Pledge That I Will Not:
Throw the photocopier out the window
Kill or maim anyone
Eat cookies or other baked goods to console myself (I am, however, having bread and chips with my lunch)
Have a complete meltdown at the doctor's office if she says that Max needs tests

Wish me luck.

Funny Photo Shoot

Piggybacking off of Max's photo shoot that I posted yesterday, check out this series of engagement photos. They're right in line with my sense of humor! (As an earthquake rocked us a few days ago, and now a hurricane, I'm prepping our emergency zombie kit)

http://www.glamour.com/weddings/blogs/save-the-date/2011/08/the-funniest-engagement-photo.html