March 30, 2013

  • Potsticker Night!

    TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

    First of all, our peach trees are just full of blooms.  The Beast took one look at all of them and said a prayer that we actually get some peaches this year and there's no more fungus to deal with.  I don't hold out much hope for the fungus.  It really attacked our granny apple and sour apple trees.  The Beast had to pull them out of the ground and dispose of them at the city dump site.  He's said if the peach trees don't give us any fruit this year, he may pull all of them out of the ground until this fungus problem resolves itself.  Then he will plant one or two and see what happens.  It makes me sad because they produced such good fruit the first year they were in the ground but we didn't have a fungus problem then.  In fact, this state was just coming out of a severe drought of five years duration.  All the waterfalls were pretty dry, too.  It was sad at first.  But, since the home garden boxes are up off the ground, we've been very successful with that.  TOO successful, actually. 

    When I had to have my vascular surgery, that left me unable to can a lot of my veggies.  This year should be different, although my kids and Tara would prefer to see me make salsa out of all my tomatoes.  I may just do it 50/50 and make everyone happy.  I can make both the salsa and canned tomatoes or spaghetti sauce.  I will have canned green beans, some canned squash, canned banana and jalapeno peppers.  I haven't decided what else to put in the garden boxes that can be canned because I want cucumbers, salad greens and radishes, too.  Those take up space but are so yummy out of a garden because it doesn't get any fresher than that. 

    Tonight I made potstickers with our sweet and sour chicken (which the Beast loves).  The bad part is that WE have to eat it ALL because of the onion in it.  We can't give it to the dog even if we scrape the onion off it.  It can be lethal to Baron and the lethal part seeps out of the onions into everything in the pan.  I don't use much onion but the taste is definitely there, regardless.  I love the way the pineapple tidbits taste (so there are a LOT of those...LOL). 

    I made both pork and chicken potstickers and the Beast whipped up the sauce for dipping.  It is made up of soy sauce and a Chinese hot sauce (that green stuff I can't remember the name of right now).  He bought this soy sauce from a real oriental shop in Huntsville and it has a bit of a sweet side to it instead of being really salty tasting.  I've learned to like it better than the stuff you buy at Cheapmart or any other commercial store.  Add a little rice to the menu (I like it but the Beast usually only takes a tablespoon or two), and it was delicious.  The potstickers were perfect.  Nice and browned after being steamed then lightly fried up in peanut oil.  Yum!

    It was in the 70's today which was warmer than predicted.  I sat outside for a while, drinking coffee and just looking at how pretty the peach trees look dressed up in their pink blossoms.  My dogwood trees should be blooming any day now and here they say we will be getting a last blast of cold by Sunday night.  **Sigh** I hope the blossoms are strong ones.

    Love you all.  Have a Happy Easter celebration and I hope you celebrate with family and friends.