Gator Pam

@Fishboysmom The Carcup Expandable Holder is an awesome idea. My landlords each have movie theater-style recliners with cup holders. These will be perfect for snacking during football games or streaming.

In order to keep the contest threads clean for entry purposes, I thought it might be nice to have a place to ask questions about or give feedback on the entries, whether a recipe one might have tried or inquiries about products, etc. @len_mullen I read your post about wireless thermometers in the Gift Ideas contest thread and I agree with you about Meater. However, I have yet to try Thermoworks new RFX wireless probe thermometer and am quite curious about it. I am definitely a fan of Thermoworks products, but am thinking Meater may be difficult to beat in this category.

I love this fan! Woozoo oscillating circulating fan Apparently this is now an older model, with a newer version available, but I can only attest to this model. It circulates the air in my bedroom efficiently and quietly. The light panel is a bit bright at night, but it doesn’t disturb me and is nice as a moving night light for those middle of the night needs. I did get mine at Costco several years ago, but if I’m recalling correctly, the price was pretty similar.

As a raised bed gardener, I have two ollas in each of my 3’x6’ beds. This was my first year using them, and other than hand watering every other week with water soluble fertilizer, I did not water my garden at all, other than refilling the ollas. During the height of summer, I did refill them every two to three days, but the soil remained evenly moist and all of my plants, i.e., tomatoes, herbs, salad greens, root vegetables, and corn thrived. I’m definitely sticking with this method of watering! I used four ollas I made myself, each consisting of two 7” terra cotta pots inverted and gorilla glued together. The hole in the bottom pot was plugged and covered with more gorilla glue to prevent the water from pouring straight through, and the top had a 4” terra cotta pot gorilla glued with the holes aligning to use as a fill spout. A standard tray for a 4” pot went on top to keep debris, slugs, and snails out. The homemade ollas curing. Here’s how two of them looked when first installed in the raised bed. During the height of season. As you can see, I was able to plant quite a bit around the ollas, and the plants seriously thrived. The homemade ollas cost me about $10/each, about a quarter the cost of this one on Amazon. A lid for it will need to be acquired as well. However, this is a solid piece, which if gently treated should last quite a few seasons. I suspect my homemade versions may need replacing every other year or so, we shall see. For those gardeners who don’t want to make their own ollas, this looks like a very good investment. 1.25 gallon terra cotta olla

Congratulations!

For our Canadian friends. Come share your menu in Festive Meals for the Holidays.

Precisely!

We are currently in the 10 Days of Awe, the time between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. While I’ve been making Jake Cohen’s Upside Down Apple Honey Cake for several years as a traditional dessert this time of year, I thought it was traditional because of the apple and honey for a sweet new year. I learned of this second tradition regarding it just this past year: Why ask for sweet honey cake before Yom Kippur? Upside Down Apple Honey Cake Nonstick cooking spray, for greasing 3 Honeycrisp apples, cored and sliced into 8 wedges each 3/4 cup (150g) granulated sugar 8 oz (2 sticks) unsalted butter 1 cup honey, plus more for garnish (optional) 3/4 cup buttermilk 2 large eggs 1/2 cup packed (100g) dark brown sugar 1 tsp vanilla extract 2 cups (270g) all-purpose flour 2 tsp kosher salt 1 tsp ground cinnamon 1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp baking soda Whipped cream, for garnish (optional) Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a high-sided 9-inch round cake pan with parchment paper cut to fit and grease with cooking spray. Line the bottom of the prepared pan with apples wedges, arranging them in concentric circles, then shingle any remaining slices in the center. In a medium saucepan, combine the granulated sugar with 3 tablespoons water. Cook over medium-high heat, shaking the pan as needed, until an amber caramel forms, 6 to 8 minutes. Immediately pour the caramel over the apples in an even layer. In another medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Cook, stirring continuously, until browned and nutty in aroma, 6 to 8 minutes. Pour the melted butter into a heatproof large bowl and let cool slightly, then whisk in the honey, buttermilk, eggs, brown sugar, and vanilla until smooth. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder, and baking soda to combine. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and fold until just incorporated. Pour the batter over the caramel-coated apples. Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes, until the top is golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then run a paring knife around the edge of the cake. Place a plate over the cake pan and invert them together, then lift off the pan and remove the parchment. Let the cake cool slightly, then serve warm. Top with whipped cream and drizzle with honey, if desired. I use an 8” high sided cake pan and bake for the hour and 10 minutes, as I like a taller cake. It is extremely important to turn the cake out of the pan after only 15 minutes of cooling, otherwise even with the parchment the glaze turns too sticky and crumbles the top.

I’m pretty sure I have shared my instructions for crockpot stuffing in the past, so this won’t be eligible for the contest. But, I guarantee this will give you the moist, cooked-in-the-bird texture your looking for, and it works with any stuffing/dressing recipe. Mix up your favorite stuffing or dressing recipe. Spray or grease the crockery insert. Put the mixture into the crockery. Cover the crockpot and cook on High for 45 minutes. Turn the crockpot to Low and cook for four to six hours. Serve. The bottom and edges will crisp up like the bit which would pop out of the bird as the stuffing expanded, but the rest will taste like it was infused with the drippings from the bird.

Huzzah! Thank you!

Received my prize. Looking forward to talking about it so I understand everything it can do.

Informed Delivery has been telling me all week that a package from WI was expected today. Today it has been updated to tomorrow, as the package arrived at the main Seattle distribution center around 4:30 am today. Hopefully it will be processed through and be at the Redmond post office in time for delivery tomorrow.

Two nights ago I attended the community festive meal for Erev Yom Tov Rosh HaShanah at Chabad of Kirkland, so last night we cut into the challah and honey cake I made for the holiday. We had a marinated flank steak, so it was a great opportunity to try the corn I grew in my raised beds as roasted corn on the cob for the first time. Four ears of my corn experiment, grown in my raised beds at Marymoor Community Gardens. I did hand pollinate, but still have gappy corn. However, the ear in front was nearly perfect! Buttered and seasoned with dill weed. I’m pretty pleased with the interior crumb of the challah. Here’s my first slice of the challah I made. The interior of the upside down apple honey cake. My slice of honey cake with homemade whipped cream. A very happy and holy Days of Awe to all!

Rabbit Rabbit! Rabbit!!

#1 “I don’t care what anyone says. Isn’t Bullseye the Bestest Boy ever?” #2 “Bullseye might be in the running for Bestest Boy, but he still doesn’t beat out Best Buy for deals.” #3 “Mo-OM! Enough with Target, Best Buy, and everywhere else. You promised us Denny’s for all-you-can-eat pancakes. LET’s GO ALREADY!!!”

Ooo…

Definitely! Layering, knowing the order to layer, and why for different ingredients is very important for in an IP. When you have time, look for up different spaghetti recipes for the IP from various bloggers. Most of the reputable recipes will tell you the order to put things in and not to mix things. The thin liquids or items which will produce liquid as they cook and break down, such as vegetables or raw meat, need to go one the bottom. Starchier or thickening agents, such as beans, oats, rice, pasta, pasta, etc., need to go on top. They can be gently pressed into the liquids so they’re just submerged, but don’t mix them in.

Thanks! I just finished packaging up 10 lbs plain sauce for the freezer out of the 13+ pounds of sauce I got out of making with 10 lbs of fresh tomatoes from the garden and some canned tomato paste in my 10-quart Duo Nova Plus Instant Pot doubling Simply Happy Foodie’s recipe . Two and a half pounds of various cherry tomatoes, four and a half pounds of chopped Mortgage Lifters, and three pounds of chopped San Marzano-style Romas. While it is “plain sauce” to be added to recipes or for use as a base for Sunday gravy, it does get a few seasonings and red wine. The recipe calls for a few cans of paste to give texture to the finished sauce. Here are the 10 lbs of various tomatoes added to the 10-quart Instant Pot insert. The tomatoes are sautéed with some onion, garlic, and red wine to help the tomatoes exude some liquid so the IP will pressurize. Then the other seasonings are mixed in. All of the tomato paste is layered on top but not stirred in, otherwise the liquid will be too thick to pressurize the pot. That said, I still had issues, as the countdown started without the pin popping up until 15 minutes into the cook cycle. When the pin did finally come up, I stopped the cook and reset the time at pressure. I did have a tiny bit of scorching on the bottom of the pot, but the flavor of the finished sauce was not affected, B”H! After the pressure cook and natural release, I purée the sauce with an immersion blender, which takes care of not putting the tomatoes through a food milk first to remove the skin and seeds. I then add an additional step of adding fresh basil and dried bay leaves, then stirring throughout. If the texture is still a bit runny, I then put the insert of sauce into a 145 degree F oven overnight. The finished sauce. I packaged up two To Go containers to bring some sauce to several friends. Since this is plain sauce to be added to recipes or used as a base for various tomato pasta sauces, I package it in 16 oz measure by weight. Similar to if a can of plain tomato sauce is purchased for such a purpose. For my purpose, I freeze 16 oz by weight in quart size zipper freezer bags. I use a canning jar lifter to hold the zipper bag open so I can pour the measured sauce into the bag and use a silicone spoonula to scrape the sauce that clings into the bag before removing and sealing. Of course, 16 oz fills the quart bag about halfway. This enables me to lay the bags flat on a half sheet pan to flash freeze before final packaging. The first sheet pan ready to be flash frozen. All the bags ready to flash freeze, plus the two containers for my friends. Flash frozen and packaged for long term freezing. I had 10 bags of sauce for final packaging. I put three quart bags in a gallon zipper freezer bag with a quarter sheet of paper towel between each to try and prevent the bags sticking together due to condensation. This should be enough for us for about six months. After that we’ll use canned until next year’s crop of tomatoes are harvested.

I received an email saying Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days will be October 8th and 9th. I don’t remember if this event happened before or if it was this early if it has. But it definitely feels as if it is earlier than ever.

While my San Marzano-style tomatoes have been ripening for two weeks, I still have tons of green tomatoes on the vines. This GRITS will make fried green tomatoes at some point, but like with my cheese stuffed fried squash blossoms, we don’t indulge in breaded and fried items often, so I’ll probably only make a batch once at the end of the season. Meanwhile, I’ve had a pound of green tomatoes fall off the vine on their own over the past few days. I kept the ones which showed no damage, and considered what to make with them. I realized I haven’t had the traditional Jewish delicatessen sour green tomatoes in awhile; they’re not a common table top offering here on the Eastside of Seattle. I decided to look up a recipe, found one which didn’t look too difficult, and gave it a try. I went with Meathead of Amazing Rib’s procedure. You can find it here: https://amazingribs.com/tested-recipes/snacks-and-munchies-recipes/quick-and-easy-kosher-dill-pickles-and-tomatoes/ Mise in place for the “dry” ingredients vinegar, water, and salt to be boiled for the brine The finished jar of tomatoes. It will sit until next Sunday in the refrigerator before we give it a try.

Apparently a critter decided to taste two of my stalks of corn, one in each raised bed. They snapped the stalks, but the ears weren’t touched. This is the first stalk. You can see the ear dangling to the left of the snap. The full damage to the first stalk. Here’s the damage to the stalk in the other raised bed. At least this one fell towards the trellis. Again, the stalk was snapped right next to an ear which wasn’t touched. I decided to harvest the two ears, even though they’re immature, and treat them like baby corn. Definitely long and skinny. The kernels aren’t plump and juicy yet, so I chunked the ears. Since we were already planning on steamed broccoli for dinner, I decided to add the ears to the broccoli. Definitely not sweet, yet. But not bad. I served it buttered with dried dill weed. Someone on another forum suggested sprinkling around the stalks and between the ears with ground cayenne pepper. I need to get some, but I’ll give it a try. In the meantime I’m almost afraid to see if the critter returned overnight. I only have about 12 stalks of corn in each raised bed.

I believe they are a 75 day maturity tomato, according to the packets. However, I did an experiment this year where I transplanted a seedling out in February under agricultural fabric for one of my San Marzano plants, and the other I transplanted in late May. Both didn’t start ripening until last week.

Fun, fun, fun!

Tomato harvest has continued since September 3rd with two more Mortgage Lifters. I gave these to a couple of friends, so I didn’t weigh them. They were a bit smaller than the first one. On September 4th my first San Marzano-style Roma and some Sun Gold cherry tomatoes.came in. September 5th saw two more Romas and the first Purple Bumblebee cherry tomatoes. September 6th is when things really started to roll in. Saturday, the 7th was a quiet day harvest wise, but I added two more Mortgage Lifters and several Romas and cherries yesterday. The first Mortgage Lifter weighed about a pound and a half: The second weighed about a pound and a quarter. The rest of yesterday’s harvest came to just over half a pound. All told cherry tomatoes totaled about a pound over the five days. The Mortgage Lifters and Romas totaled about four and a half pounds over the five days. All told five and a half pounds over pretty much my first five days, plus the slightly over a pound Mortgage Lifter in August and the two more I gave away which I didn’t weigh.