PUTTING UP SWEET POTATOES

 The coworker that gifted us with all the jalapeños last week also brought in some bags of sweet potatoes.  A few people took some and there were three bags left.

I said I'd take them if no one else wanted them.

So I scored these three bags.  About 9 lbs of sweet potatoes from North Carolina! What to do with them?

We decided to roast them, mash them and freeze them for future uses.

First we washed them and cleaned them.  We cut off any dried ends or bad spots.

Then we put them on a foiled lined sheet pan and roasted them for 1 hour at 425 degrees.

Here they are after they were done (soft to the touch) as we set them aside to cool.

Since we don't prick holes in them ahead of time, what we do after they bake is take a knife and cut a slit down each one.  This lets the steam out and helps them to dry a bit as they cool.  Once you do this, they start to wrinkle and you can see how loose the skin is.

We aren't saving the skins (though I did snack on a few pieces) so after they cooled, the skins just slipped right off.  The slit we cut right after they were out of the oven made it easy to just peel them off.

We put them in a bowl and mashed them up and since we are freezing for random future uses, there are no spices/seasonings needed.

We measured them into 2 cup amounts.

After they were portioned out, I used the rubber spatula to get all the goodness and put a small amount more into each bag so the 2 cups became about 2 1/4.

We didn't waste any that's for sure.

Turns out the three bags of medium sized sweet potatoes ended up giving us three bags mashed to put up in the freezer.  I vacuum sealed them and popped them in the freezer.

Seems about the right amount for a sweet potato pie or a savory mashed sweet potato side dish...and the holidays ARE coming soon!

We love sweet potatoes!

BLUE SKIES AND BUTTERFLIES WEEKEND

It was a beautiful weekend, albeit a bit warm.  I was wondering if I'd need to mow, but...

Here is the side yard...nope, still have the tracks from the last mowing a couple of weeks ago.

And here's a view of the front yard from the mower shed, same here as well.  No mowing this weekend.  But since we don't want a repeat of the mower issues with stale gas, I fired it up.

I rode around for 8 minutes, ha.  I did turn on the blades and drove up the driveway and back a few times just to make sure that stays well cut.  So at least the Zen Machine got to do some work.

There was, of course, time spent on the front porch. Beautiful skies, a breeze blowing, birds chirping...

...and butterflies everywhere.  It was a nice respite from the busy work week.  We came back about 5pm.

But cooler nights are coming...well at least for a couple of days, ha.  Low of 49 on Tuesday but of course, it is Texas, we'll be back to 80's for highs / 70's for lows later in the week.  New weekend looks beautiful again!

HOPE YOU ALL HAD A GREAT WEEKEND!

GOOD FOOD AND HOBART SUNDAY

Hope you all are having a good weekend, it's been a little warm but cool is coming.  Last weekend, we posted about the marinated fajitas we bought at a market near the farm.  We said "wait until you see the chicken".  Well, here is the chicken.

It's definitely red!  You buy it already seasoned and marinated and it is SO good.  We roasted it in the oven along with some broccoli and cauliflower.  Good eats!

We don't need many words for this picture of Hobart sleeping on the couch.  We think it pretty much sums up what we always say...

#notspoiled

FERAL HOGS AT 2ND FAMILY

The hogs are back...at least at the front of the property.

"J" from 2nd Family sent this image to us.  She bought a trailcam after seeing our pictures and put it in her yard.  This is from her front yard porch looking toward the carport.

She captured images of these feral hogs roaming around in her front yard.

The next day, she found this part of her yard rooted up.  There were some large stones that they overturned, looking for grubs and stuff we presume.

A week or so later she moved the camera to the back of the house and captured these in the backyard.  

She said nothing was rooted around in the yard this time as the ground is pretty hard (we're drought-ish again) and so there isn't a lot for them to get to.

This part of the back of their house is about 2 acres from our front yard fence so we'll have to keep a close eye on things.  Again, it's been 10 days since this photo and they haven't seen them since.  Last weekend, we checked around thoroughly and we didn't have any issues either.  Hopefully the dry ground is making them move elsewhere.

BURPEE SILICONE SEED STARTERS

We ran some errands the other day, 2nd Man was doing some volunteering with Habitat for Humanity (their retail store) and so I went to a nearby Walmart.  They had a clearance section and a lot of "Summer" stuff that was discounted.  I found these:

Burpee SuperSeed seed starting trays.

I got two of the 8 cell trays...

And two of the 16 cell trays...

These are a bit different than the plastic kinds that are so familiar.  These are made of a harder, thicker plastic (reminded us of something "Rubbermaid" might make) and they are reusable.  That's right, you can run them through the dishwasher (or just wash in the sink, ha) to use season after season.

What makes them more unique is this feature...

The bottom half of each "cell" is made of rubbery silicone instead of that thin black plastic that is normal on the bottom of these type of trays.   

Here is a picture from the website.  Pretty neat.  The transplants just pop out.  The only down side is they don't come with the little greenhouse lid thing but then again, I've found when I used those in the past, it didn't make much difference.  As long as you keep them watered and in light, seeds always seem to sprout.

On AMAZON THEY ARE $12 and up for each.

I paid $3 for the 8-cells and $5 for the 16-cells.

You all know I love a deal!

PUTTING UP JALAPENOS

The other day, a coworker brought a bunch of jalapeño peppers that her mother gave to her.  She kept as many as she wanted and offered the rest to us and of course, I'm not one to pass up a free offer!

I forgot to count, but I scored about three dozen.  Mostly medium to large size.  Side note, peppers are a vegetable that you can freeze raw without precooking.  I washed them and then dried them off well, you don't want any extra moisture during freezing.

I came up with three way plan:

The smaller ones I sliced into rings.  Because the rings still have the seeds and ribs, they will be a bit hotter.

I spread them onto a parchment lined baking sheet and popped them in the freezer.

These will be perfect for nachos or burgers, anywhere that we need some sliced jalapeño rings.

The larger ones I sliced lengthwise and then, using a spoon, I scraped out the ribs and most of the seeds.  This removes the hottest parts making these a little bit milder.

Once they were all cleaned out (a few seeds is fine) I spread them onto another parchment lined baking sheet and put them in the freezer.

These will be used to put into a pot of beans or soup or better yet, stuffed with cream cheese, wrapped with bacon and roasted in the oven!  So good.  

The rest of them I cut up, scraped and then diced into small pieces.  Again, a few seeds is fine.

One more sheet pan with parchment and a trip to the freezer for future use.

Diced jalapeños are great added in all sorts of dishes, we love them in scrambled eggs, a meat sauce, casseroles, etc.

And here they all are, ready for freezing:

The slices in this glass container, easy to take out however many we need...

The halves are in this ziplock bag so they can be flat for storing and we can take out what we need...

And then the diced in another container that fits in the freezer door, easy to spoon out what we need.

Freezing them this way lets you get them out as you need them without freezing into a solid mass.

WEEKEND

Well it's been a beautiful weekend here.  Not too warm and low humidity.  Last night the low was in the 50's.  That's nice weather for us.

Here is the view from the porch Saturday.  You can see the grass is going back the other direction but it is what it is.  No mowing for sure.

The Zen Machine looked lonesome, all fixed up and no place to go, ha!  So part of the new routine now will be that even when I don't need to mow, I'm going to take it out for a spin.  I started it up, backed it out and rode around for a bit, just to keep it charged, the fuel moving around in the engine, etc.

Bill (the farm truck) always gets taken for a spin down the road, about two miles roundtrip, again, just to keep things running smoothly.  We do that every time we are out there if we're not using it for something else.

But still, it seemed a bit lonely and left out so...

 ...we got a little more bling!  It needed either a whole new steering wheel or something to cover the old one.  The old covering that was integrated onto the steering wheel was worn and bare in spots.  Obviously, replacing it would be much more difficult (and $$), so it was easier to just get a cover.  We didn't want one of those that just laces or ties on, so we found this one, a nice, padded one, that just stretches to fit.  It wasn't easy getting it on there, but once in place, it doesn't move at all and feels really comfortable to grip.

Still no rain in the forecast for another week but gorgeous weather so we'll take that.

GOOD FOOD AND HOBART SUNDAY

Sunday, time for some good food and some Hobart!

I stopped at a market near the farm and got a couple pounds of marinated beef fajita meat.  This kind is special to Mexican meat markets and has annatto (achiote) in it that gives it the red color (wait until you see the chicken).  2nd Man cooked it up, made some flour tortillas and pico de Gallo and we had a wonderful meal.

We also cracked open a bottle of wine (Apothic Cabernet).  It went really well with the fajita tacos!

It was all a very nice way to end the day.

I got a storage crate for some stuff and it was sitting by the table.  Hobart kept meowing and looking up at it, so we moved his afghan from the chair to there.  He jumped up on it and slept the rest of the day.  Because...

#notspoiled

CD COLLECTION AMAZING TRASH TO TREASURE

  Regular readers know that I have a favorite place to look for bargains...our downstairs trash area!  Our building has trash chutes on every floor and they feed into a separate room, but for boxes and other things that people can't put in the chute, there is an area (indoor) near the loading dock where people can put the things they don't want.  I've found quite a few cool items over the last few years.

Here's another of the latest and I dare say, might just be one of the best finds:

I saw this binder in the trash and thought "Hmm, what's that?"  I figured it might be papers or something from a school or someone's office.  I almost walked on by.

I opened it up...and couldn't get back upstairs with it quick enough!

Someone's entire music collection of CDs...

There's everything From Whitney Houston to Alan Jackson and Taylor Swift...

Bon Jovi....Brooks and Dunn...Alison Krauss...

Eight Alabama albums...

There's also Garth Brooks, Blake Shelton, Belinda Carlisle, Alicia Keyes, Kelly Clarkson, Aaron Neville and dozens and dozens more.  There are even classical artists and some Celtic music!  32 pages, each holding 8 CDs each and only two empty spots...254 total!

What the heck?

We can only guess that perhaps there was a divorce and an ex threw them out?

Or maybe someone died?  With regard to that, 2nd Man said if we woke up and all the cabinet doors were open and the chairs were piled on the table because whoever passed wanted them back, the binder was going back to the trash, LOL!

Of course, CDs aren't as common as they once were (who knows, that might be why someone dumped them) but we still have a CD player with our stereo system here and at the farm (and yes we still have a record player in storage for future use with my parents record collection).  We've been looking online and apparently, there are places where you can send them and they will convert them to digital so they can be accessed by mobile devices.

For now though, we'll put them up and use them when we want some music to listen to.  This person's musical taste aligns very well with ours so hey, it's a win!

This was DEFINITELY a treasure rescued from the trash.