| Adventures in Sauerkraut Making Part II |
[Mar. 20th, 2011|06:04 pm] |
What a good time to run low on Sauerkraut: the weather is warming up and the cabbage is on sale because of St. Patrick's day.
So a few days ago we bought about 15 pounds of cabbage at the grocery store. Today I processed it into the crock.
Just for the record we had 13 pounds and 9 ounces of cabbage after shucking and coring so we used 5.4 ounces of kosher salt, three carrots, just under 3 TBLS of caraway seeds and the whole quart of water with 3TBLS of kosher salt to cover all the shredded cabbage.
Last time we cut the cabbages into quarters for coring, but this time we did halves. I found them easier to hold onto while shredding on the mandolin.
This summer I'm going to have to find a good rock to hold down the kraut plate. |
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| It's the weekend |
[Feb. 20th, 2011|12:07 am] |
I woke up so confused this morning. It's Saturday. I woke up just before my alarm clock would go off during the week, and I cringed. I was having delusions that it was Friday and I'd have to go to one more day of work before the weekend. Then I realized that no, it's Saturday morning. But the joyous revelation was short lived because I realized i did have to get up on a short amount of sleep anyway to get my workout done, and breakfast before going to my writing meeting and running errands before coming home to get ready for our "comfort food" themed potluck at a friends tonight.
I also managed to get a carwash in there. Go me! productive day.
Now I aim to get some knitting projects off my to-do list so they leave me in peace.
Then comes the writing. Yay for long weekends |
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| late review of 2010 |
[Feb. 6th, 2011|09:33 pm] |
I'd forgotten I had a nice post for summing up 2009 and getting motivated for 2010. I was reminded about it when some random Russian spammed me on it. So I'm going to take stock on last year, even though it's a month late.
10 things I want to do in 2011
Take a real vacation (must save, and not buy yarn, oy!)
Knit a lot
Read a lot
submit 10 short stories for publication (1 down 9 to go. Last year I only submitted 3, my goal was 5 FAIL)
get working on my novel again
minimize my possessions (this is a recurring theme, my "stuff" is like tribbles)
get rid of all the mold in my apartment
Focus on what is really important (writing, knitting, reading) and use my time accordingly
get out and see more of Portland
Make a Library Thing account to keep track of my personal "library"
5 Important things I did in 2010
Paid off my Student Loans!!
Co-Founded my GPS writing group, we're releasing an e-book in the summer of 2011
Kept track of all the books I read in a reading journal on my other blog (only 10 books, next year at least 20. A surefire way to make sure I read enough is to make a list so I can cross them off when I'm done. I love crossing things off lists.)
Invested in some good stocks
started knitting again and learned how to spin
snipped from last year...
5 things I want to do in the next 3 years
Pay off my student loans
Sell my novel
Buy a motorcycle
Travel to a foreign country I haven't been to yet (vacation time)
Start my own jewelery business
This list is still the same |
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| News |
[Jan. 29th, 2011|07:19 pm] |
The sauerkraut is done! actually it was done last weekend. But I've been busy with some writing deadlines (see below).
It's really yummy, and is similar to my dad's but not quite the same. I think we either used too much caraway seed, or the stuff we just got from the bulk bins was really fresh and very strong. Eitherway, YUM! Now we just have this giant 5 gallon crock of it half full of the stuff... What's that, you'd like some? Then come for a visit and bring a kielbasa with you...
I've pretty much spent the last week, dodging snow storms, going to appointments and BICHOK (but in chair hands on keyboard) writing. It feels good to get so much done. I now have 1 story submitted, one to be submitted next week, and one story posted for a workshop.
Looks like I'm going to get to knit this weekend after all. Ah the simple joys in life. |
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| Fermentation and other things |
[Jan. 12th, 2011|05:36 pm] |
Portland is now under about a foot of snow. This all fell between 5am and 2pm. I barely got to work this morning because they hadn't plowed the 4 or so inches that had fallen by 7:30. And someone in an SUV behind me had the nerve to tail me and honk at me when I took the time to roll down my snow encrusted window at an intersection...
But in better news, we are 3 days in to our first batch of Sauerkraut. We bought 6 largish heads of cabbage, weighing about 15.5 pounds total. After coring and stripping the top leaves it weighed in at 14 pounds. I then shredded all of it with my grandfather's cabbage mandolin. It's still sharp and works great.
In our daily "poke it with a stick" procedure, I've spied bubbles coming out of the holes we've made. I'm hoping this means we didn't screw up the salt/cabbage ratio.
It seems I'm good at fermenting things. Maybe I'll try making Kefir next, or Kombucha, the tea shop down town has starters. Last fall I left a jug of cider in our fridge for about a month and it got nice and fizzy too. |
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| Holy Expletivin' Crap! |
[Dec. 20th, 2010|08:30 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  annoyed | ] |
We live in Maine people! 3 inches of snow shouldn't turn us all into total morons.
Ok, so it was ICE...that means you shouldn't tail the person you're driving behind, ahem-me so that every time I stop in the stop and go traffic you loose control of your car because you are emergency breaking--on ice. And YES you should be driving 10 or 20 mph in a 40 zone because of the ice (not because the person in front of you is driving 10 or 20 mph). And NO that does not give you permission to go through red lights and block the intersections. Yes YOU are the problem, you are why I drove past 4 accidents and had to wait at 2 green lights for ambulances to go by me.
And YOU are the reason why it took me an hour and a half to drive my 4 mile commute home!
sigh...ok...better now... |
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| I've been waiting.... |
[Dec. 17th, 2010|10:54 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  happy | ] |
I've been waiting for this moment for four years. Today I sent of my last student loan payment. That's right. All Done!
As of today, I am Debt Free! (or Monday when the banks actually process the payments.) We'll have to see how long that lasts. Knocks on wood.
Hopefully this means that 2011 will be good! |
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| subjectless |
[Dec. 1st, 2010|12:43 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  blah | ] |
Home sick today, so finding some time to post.
I was able to sleep till noon, and that already had me feeling better than I was when I should've left for work.
Small wonder I'm sick. Between all the holiday traveling (yup, to mass) and catching up with things back at work and my multiple lives here in Portland, my head has just been spinning.
Every time I go to mass, it seems, I get sick. Not sure if it's the 3 hour drive, or the fact that my brother was sick, or that Tristan gave me his sore throat or just being exposed to so many foreign germs... but its totally got me now. I really gotta start taking better care of myself.
My writing group is back on track for getting our ebook out this summer.
I've finally gotten all the tools I need to get really serious about messing around with the stones I pulled out of Mt. Apatite this summer.
I've been neglecting my awesome felting project though....prolly going onto that next. |
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| pre-turkey rush |
[Nov. 24th, 2010|10:05 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | This Will Never End-Blind Guardian | ] |
Ok, it's been a few days, but I'm back.
Sunday night I saw Blind Guardian at the Palladium in Worcester. Nothing like seeing a group who has been performing together for over twenty years. The big surprise there was the opening acts. I liked them both. Seven Kingdoms and Holy Grail--very entertaining. And the even bester part of that was getting together with the old gang again! --All those people who live in MA and not in ME :P
But I took Monday off to support the sunday night concert. This means that I only worked 2 days this week. :D :D
Of all the vacation days I get from work, Thanksgiving is the best. It is always a 4 day weekend. And now that I'm not in school anymore, I can actually use my vacation days to pad these out.
Other news is I submitted a short story to Clarkesworld last night. Should be hearing back from them soon, hopefully by the weekend I'll hear back form them. They have a short response time, so it's making me jumpy. I can't just click send and forget about it for a month.
There are a couple of strange things in our fridge at the moment too. I left a gallon of cider in there for like 2 months and now it's super fizzy and tastes awesome. And next to that is a giant chuck roast sitting in corning spices. Hopefully in about a week we'll have our own corned beef :) |
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