Senior Sustainable Living with Jo

I found some organic pickling cucumbers on sale this week. The general consensus in this house like dill spears. So instead of buying all new herbs and spices that goes in my pickling mix, I decided to give Mrs. Wages kosher dill pickles a try. After reading through the ingredients, I added mustard seeds, celery seeds, black peppercorns, and two heads of garlic as tweaks to make the pickles my own. It would take 9-11 lbs of cucumbers according to the recipe on the back of the package. I have a love/hate relationship with premade mixes as you can tell from my additional purchases.  I cut the blossom ends off and cut the cucumbers into jar height lengths. I was using regular mouth pint jars. the extra lengths that I cut off didn't go to waste, but were cut into bite sized cubes in a jar to themselves. To help hold the cucumber to cut the ends and wedges, I was lazy and didn't grab my cutting board with the pins in it, I grabbed a regular cutting board and used the grooved side. I...

 I told you about the mix up with my ordering Napa cabbage and they substituted regular green cabbage, didn't I? But I didn't give you the recipe. Well, here you go. I believe in waste not, want not. First, I shredded all 10 lbs of the cabbage on my mandolin, or almost 29 cups shredded, This was no mean feat given my inability to stand for more than 25 minutes because of some brace issues. It took me the better part of two days. Another day shredding 3 cups of carrots and 2 cups of onions for that much shredded cabbage. The recipe (Ball Canning Book, 1966) calls for 1 cup of carrots and 1/2 cup of onions and bell pepper, but since I do not put bell peppers in my coleslaw, I substituted carrots for the bell pepper. I figured this was a safe enough to do since the mixture was basically being pickled for shelf stability. I wasn't wrong because I've made this recipe yearly since 1989 and hadn't been sick yet from it. So I feel fairly confident to share it. Canned Colesl...

I love kimchi!! It's a gotta have it daily if I can. No, it's not a Japanese thing but a Korean recipe. I was blessed with an appreciative multinational palate growing up. So my Asian repertoire includes Japanese, Thai, Chinese, and Korean recipes to name a few. I eat kimchi daily for the probiotics and immuno-boosting qualities it has. Not to mention the taste. Whether it's mild or spicy hot, it does the body good. It isn't difficult to make. In fact there are several Youtube channel posting on how to make it. My favorite is Maangchi.   She makes it easy enough to make except I don't add raw squid to mine. I prefer my squid prepared in other dishes. Well, it would be easy enough to do with two functioning hands which I no longer have. Back on the homestead, I planted the onions, Napa cabbages, carrots, and daikon radishes in the fall garden. But here in the city all the ingredients are readily available at the Asian Market. Since my last pint and a half jar broke o...

I saved and broke down all the boxes from the move. I even had the son-in-law go out and grab some appliance boxes. This was the first step in in creating my new no dig, in ground garden beds. I was intent on removing all the tape from the boxes when I noticed how swollen my left unaffected foot was. I'd been having issues with the broken bones on my AFO clad foot swelling, but not the other one. Oh bother, it would mean a couple days on Lasix, my diuretic, to reduce the swelling. It basically meant my heart was misbehaving again. The last thing I needed was to go into congestive heart failure again. Mad rushes to the bathroom followed. Each night I massaged lotion into my legs, elevated them on pillows as I slept each night. During the day, I'm off my feet totally. So nothing is being done in the garden. By now, I expected to have had a truckload of ground tree mulch delivered and spread. GRRR! But no, I'm stuck dealing with my heart issues. This is the thing about being a...