Monday, September 15, 2008

Barn Sides, Pork Rinds and Tree Frogs


Today, Chez Suite, we'll be hanging a little laundry on the line and canning a few thousand tomatoes. Lest you imagine me as a good a gardener as I ought to be, I will confess to buying my canning tomatoes at a large organic farm about 50 miles from my backyard raised beds. It all works.

It must be the microclimate of my garden (Yes, I'm justifying my gardening failure by blaming it on the climate.), but most of my canning tomatoes are still green. Green! I am familiar with the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes" and even read the book. But these are far too numerous to fry.

Ooh! Speaking of frying, yesterday Sarah tried her hand at making chicharonis (no idea on the spelling here). These are a disgusting small wheel-shaped snack that look like innocent pasta in the bag. Then you put them in hot oil and they puff up. I suspect it has something to do with pork rinds. SO NOT MY THING.

Some friends of ours brought a huge bag of dehydrated pork rinds back from Mexico, as a gift for my girls. Oh-Kay.

And yesterday Sarah was desperate for a snack, so she covered some of those little orange wheels with water and popped the bowl in the microwave. Oozy, gooey, gelatinous moments later, I had a minor freak-out and the chickens had a lovely snack. If the hens lay deep-fried eggs, more freaking out will occur. Mark my words.

Finally, NOT speaking of frying, the wildlife around here seems determined to help out with the homeschooling effort. We were unsuccessful at photographing our guest of last week, a magnificent five-eyed Praying Mantis, but this week we are studying this cute little guy:




Tree frogs have only two eyes. Not that I'm disappointed.

5 comments:

Misty said...

canning... i love it.
I didn't get to last summer, and it appears i won't get to this summer either, except for maybe some apple butter next month...

Toni said...

Mexican food. Yummmm, I love a great restaurant of how Americans interpret Mexican food. However, the snacking food of the Hispanic culture completely baffles me. None of it is even remotely enjoyable to my tastebuds.

I have seen those orange wagon wheel thingies and have always wondered what they were and how you prepare them.

Have you ever heard of lucas? Sweetened chili powder. Yuck!

HonuGirl said...

Ohhh a tree frog... I remember those. Boys and I would catch them at the former residence out by the pond. We were just talking about the frogs tonight and how much noise they make -- jeffrey said -- it sounds like frogs live in my classroom, Mom... huh? Apparently the fan is malfunctioning -- I was hoping they actually had some! =(

Alexis said...

Glad to hear you found some tomatoes to can. Like you, all of mine are a beautiful shade of green. All 100 pounds of them. As you know, I'm new to gardening, but learned that if you STOP WATERING them, they will turn! So I stopped, and guess what? I'm getting a few rosy colored tomatoes!! Woohoo! Not a total waste (because I don't do fried green anything except zucchini!)

Katie said...

I think you need to print me off a copy of the tree frog photo so I can hang it on my wall...I just lurve it!

Great post. I better get to my tomatoes too.