Ma Has Taken Over My Body

Mom would be SO proud!  I have become a canning, pickle-making fiend this year.  Now, don't get me wrong - I've canned tomatoes in the past so am not a total novice at it.  But, for some reason, this year it seems to be an every other day affair.  PLUS the fact that I am making Mom's Open Jar Sweet/Sour pickles for the first time in my entire life.  I loved those things as a kid, and think that's about the only kind of pickles I even remember us having.  Probably because it makes a HUGE batch - 2-gallon jar full.

Those little slices having been in the brine now since last Tuesday so tomorrow step 2 begins.  The official draining and replacing with alum water (I guess for crispness according to everything I read on the web - and of course, that stuff is always true).  Mom didn't happen to tell me WHY to put alum water on the pickles after the brining, just to do it.  So, we'll see.

On another note, I went to visit a good friend today who's new baby is just about 10 days old now - and getting so cute.  I got to see her in the hospital and can't believe the change in her in just this space of time.  The first year in a baby's life certainly sees the fastest changes.  Another good friend had a little one three years ago and he came early - he was just a little better than HALF the size of this little one who weighed in at 7 lb. 9 oz.  The other little guy weighed 4 lb. 7 oz.  I think it took him two or three months to make it to this newborn's size.  :)

I guess it's officially summertime in Oklahoma because its really been hot the past couple of weeks.  Luckily, we've had a little rain here and there so that makes things better.  Last year, it rained on the 4th. of July (natch!) and that was it for at least 3 months and maybe even 4.  I know it was a looooooooooooong time before we got anymore wet stuff.

So, my egg cooker just beeped so I guess that means we'll have egg salad sandwiches for lunch.  We're actually still eating lettuce from the garden that I've put in plastic bags in the fridge, so can still have actual home-grown salads. 

Speaking of fridge, we bought us a small second refrigerator about a month ago.  My first one that we got in 1976 when we moved to Wills Point, finally bit the dust a few months ago, and, although I really thought we could make do with one, I was WRONG!!!  After years of having a second fridge to store excess opened products in, and make ahead dishes for company, I realized that one would NEVER do.  It was like a jigsaw puzzle just fitting everything in there, and when the produce began to arrive in earnest, we were crammed to the nth degree - and a new little black box came to sit in my kitchen/dining room.  And, it's about full of produce, so what would we have done without it???? 

Enough about all this I guess.  Wish you were here, Mom, to get in the middle of all this goings on.  You would be loving it.  :)

A New Venture

I can't believe it but I'm turning into my mother.  I've been canning tomatoes, putting up her refrigerator cucumber salad by the quarts, and today I actually started making her Open Jar Sweet & Sour pickles.  Basically, NOT because I WANTED to make pickles, but, I have BAGS of cucumbers in the fridge which need to be used, and this recipe starts out with A TWO GALLON JAR OF SLICED CUCUMBERS!  Now, that's the way to use up cucumbers in a hurry.  And they are so pretty in the glass jar.  Now, if only they taste something like I remember, I will be a happy little pickle maker.

So, Ma is still with me - I can't look at the cuc salad or now the S & S pickles without thinking about her, and, drat!  I have a question I need to ask her, and she's not here.  It's been almost 10 years and I STILL have questions I need to ask her.  I guess that will never go away.  I know I'll be able to ask her someday when we see each other in heaven, but I can't quite imagine making sweet and sour pickles up there.  Basically, because if we do get to eat, it will be heavenly food!  :)

The dryer calleth so perhaps I'll get back to posting again later.  Obviously, I'm not a really great blogger, but then, I'm following some folks who started off strong and kind of faded as well.  I miss them.  Their posts made my day.  :)

Later ~~~~~~