Putting up with Becky

Gotcha!!

You thought I was going to talk about someone having to

"PUT UP WITH ME"!

haaaahhhaaahahahahaah that's funny!!

I mean putting up food to feed my family

all 2 of us!

I spent almost the whole day today in the kitchen.

I made French Bread

and

Italian Bread.

Do you know the difference? I do!

I started a bowl of sourdough starter.

Yes it's in a bowl this time.

A huge 4 quart mixing bowl, with a towel under the bowl just in case it does like all my other starters have done in the past.........heat up and boil over the sides like a science project gone mad!! I am armed and ready this time around!!

I do not want to be cleaning that wood stove tomorrow morning!

Smooth as a babies butt when I first covered it.

In a couple hours she was a cooking!!




Remember my Valentines Day present from my sweetie?
Well I asked for them anyway.....a bushel of sweet potatoes!






I decided to go ahead and precook about 1/2 of the bushel.
I baked them slowly in the oven and then peeled them and put them in the freezer.
They are ready for me at anytime to thaw and make a quick sweet potato dish.






Yummy!!

I also was in the canning mood!

This old yellow pressure canner has been with me since my first Christmas as a married woman.

34 years and she is in better shape than I am.

She has been thru the wringer and back again.

She has been run over by a tractor trailer.....oh yes this is true....Danny used her to wash his big rig one time and forgot about her sitting there behind when he moved and ran right over her!!

She must be a Timex!

Oh yeah, I got ran over by a tractor trailer one time too.

I have a few blemishes from that one tho!!!

I am married to the great beans and potato eater.

He has never met a bean he didn't like.

I am one step ahead of him now......with all this beautiful spring weather that is right in front of me.....and a garden in dire need of repair...that means a lot of long hours outside and no time to cook a pot of beans......wallah...canned pintos ready to pop open right before he gets home and he'll think I slaved in the kitchen all day!!

October beans for the same reason.....a quickie in the kitchen!

7 quarts of Pintos

7 quarts of Octobers

Then I made homemade tortillas and beef and bean burritos for dinner.

Topped the evening off with a funny crazy movie and 2 hours of American Idol.

I am now officially pooped.

My dearest bed buddy seems to never sleep well anymore and when

he doesn't sleep neither do I.

For some reason he slept good last night.

I had to touch him this morning to make sure he was still with me cause he was so quiet.

It sure made me feel good today and I feel even better knowing how much I accomplished today.

Amazing what a good nights sleep will do for you!!

It makes you not be able to decide whether you should cook French, Italian, Mexican or American cuisine ........or just make them all in the same day!!!

My new best friends!

Here are the pics of my stove and of "rosemary" the nice lady who gave her up for me!!!

My antique wood cook stove!

I have been real busy the last couple days on a new project. I purchased an antique wood cookstove from one of our fellow farmgirls "Rosemary" and picked it up at her house yesterday. She lives in Warrenton Va 4 hours from here but a real nice trip other than the speeding ticket on the way home.



The stove is exactly what I have been looking for for 31 years. My parents had one that was almost exactly like it when I was about 10-14 years old and I loved to cook on it. On Sat and Sun when I was out of school and my parents were building our house I would prepare lunch for them. I would fire up the stove and I would drag anything I could find out of the freezer or make anything that took several hours to prepare and I was as happy as a lark.



I would putter around the kitchen cleaning the whole time that I was cooking. I would have my metal dishpan of dishwater on the stove where it would stay hot and would wash up my dishes as I went. The dishpan would drive my mother crazy for some reason. I learned that trick from a little old maid that would hire my brother and I to do odd jobs around her house. She always had a dishpan on her wood cook stove with hot water in it but I am most assured that the water was never emptied for days and days as she was too tight to use too much dish detergent!!



I have pics of the stove up and running and yes there is already a fire in it!! I will have to post those tomorrow. I worked all day long scrubbing and buffing on the stove. I used this "Stove wax" which is a blackening that has no smell or fumes when a fire is started. That I liked. Danny had to do some work on it that required braising ???? The stove looks like it is in showroom condition now! Only $400 and it was a Christmas gift from Danny, see I have been really good this year!!!!!



Danny and I both were so happy when we fired her up and she did not even begin to smoke. Ah the crackling and popping of the fire was so relaxing. The stove is in our "great room" (awfully small room) so we can enjoy it while watching TV or eating our meals either one. I hope to have many years of service from it and many good meals!! It will also be great to use if the power goes out as it has for 3 days this weekend Fri, Sat and Sun, just blinked off but that is a bad sign...



Enough for now, getting sleepy...