 The good news is that my meds seem to be working and I don’t feel like I’m burning up from the inside out, with the accompanying clammy persperation from a metabolism gone haywire. And my eyes are a teeny tiny better and that is awesome. Thank you so much for your kind words, thoughts and prayers. But the bad news is that it is 105º outside. There was a roadrunner on the drive, carrying a frilly, little parasol to beat off the heat as she looked for a lizard. OK. So, I’m exaggerating a little. It was actually just a tiny fan.  I have to tell you about my adventure with our little Ellie-dog, our long-haired mini dachshund, in this heat. I was driving on the interstate, after having made some deliveries, and Ellie went along for the ride. She was in the front seat, panting from the very hot day and trying to get comfortable, when all of a sudden she jumped down to the floor. I told her to get back into the seat, but she dove under the car seat to the crackling and rustling of paper and plastic wrap. Backing out of her hideout, she jumped into the seat with a stale, partially eaten, chocolate cupcake. Chocolate can be deadly to dogs and I knew it. Just to give background: A few weeks ago, in a moment of absolute insanity, I had purchased a packaged “Super Chocolate” cupcake from a huge pile on a table at the grocery store. The pile was so inviting to a person who is supposed to be totally abstaining from such things and besides, there was a big, big sign that declared, “SALE!!”. They were on sale. That’s a siren song to this coupon shopper. I had to have one. So I did. When I got to the car, I opened the package, took one bite and thought, “Bleh! That’s awful!!” and put it back into its plastic wrapping, intending to toss it in the trash. That was a sale down the drain. I don’t know if my separation from such things made that cupcake taste bad or if it was just a sorry product, but whatever, my picky tastebuds saved me from myself. I placed the wrapped cupcake in a small bag and put it on the floor of the car, where I promptly forgot about it. I must have stopped fast or something, because that little bag rolled under the seat where it went to live in a cupcake no-man’s land. That is, until Ellie found it. As soon as she had grabbed that cupcake, she jumped onto the seat cushions on the passenger’s side of the car while, at the same time, my hand shot out to grab her nose. Now, remember that I am on the interstate going 70 mph. Ellie was trying with all her might to wolf down her treasure before I could pry her mouth open. Driving with my left hand, I stuck two fingers of my right into the back of her jaw, opened her mouth and scooped out wads of slobbery cupcake as Ellie tried valiantly to grab it back along with my fingers. I yelped. Using the elbow of my left arm, with hand on the wheel, I managed to get the window open partway in order to toss the offending cupcake onto the highway. I figured that it was so slobbery that it would decompose and that wouldn’t be considered littering? I managed to hold Ellie’s collar in such a way that she could not move to grab the chocolate pieces that had broken off and scattered all over the seat. And I mean ALL over the seat. Instead of heading back to work, I made a detour to the vet and plopped my silly puppy onto the table, stating rather foolishly, “She ate a chocolate cupcake. Not all of it, but some of it and it said that it’s a Super Chocolate cupcake!” The vet dubbed her Cupcake Dog and did an exam, using the name frequently. He determined that she was just going to have a really bad tummy ache because – yes, we read the ingredients on the cupcake package – there wasn’t even enough chocolate to call it just a Regular Chocolate cupcake, much less Super Chocolate. False advertising indeed. And so, Ellie, Cupcake Dog, did fine and I bandaged my fingers where she had been unable to distinguish between them and globby cupcake. No harm done. Better for you than preservative-filled, pretend chocolate cupcakes are the veggies in your garden. You do have a garden, right?! If not, then start thinking about next year! If you are like me, your garden is coming in all at once right now. It makes an overwhelming task to deal with mountains of tomatoes, potatoes, corn and every other kind of vitamin-filled vegetable that show up at this time of year. At the request of a reader, who asked what other kind of soups I process that use potatoes, I thought I’d share a recipe that my friend Janis invented and shared with me a number of years ago. She serves it every cold, Halloween night to volunteers who help with her community project. Her method of making this soup is the “dump” method and the ingredients include the “kitchen sink” but I put together a batch and measured what I did so that I could pass that on to you. The nice thing about this soup is that it makes so much that you are able to can it in the pre-meat stage and then cook up your meat prior to serving so that it is fresh tasting and delicious. The recipe makes about 8 pints of base soup. Of course, you can make this large batch for a crowd and add your meat at the end, without worrying about canning it. So here you go: 6 – 8 cups fresh tomatoes that have been blanched, skinned and quartered or chopped. (You can use canned tomaotes if you do not have fresh, one can being Rotel tomatoes) 1 can chicken broth 1/2 to 1 jalapeno pepper diced (not needed if using Rotel tomatoes) 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 3 medium new potatoes chopped with skin left on 3 carrots, chopped 1 cup corn (frozen is fine) 1 cup green beans (frozen is fine) 1 cup fresh or frozen peas (optional) 1 large onion chopped 1 1/2 cup cooked pinto beans or kidney beans or a can of drained Ranch Style Beans 1 26 oz can of your favorite brand of spaghetti sauce – I like Hunts To Serve Soup (For 1 quart) 1/2 lb hamburger 3 cloves garlic salt and pepper 1/3 cup shell pasta  Drop tomatoes, whole, into boiling water and watch for the skins to split. Remove to ice water when the skins split. Slip skins off of tomatoes and quarter or dice tomatoes and place into a large stock pot.  Add can of chicken stock to tomatoes and bring to a boil to stew.  Add jalapeno  Add chopped new potatoes and carrots. Continue to boil until carrots are tender.  Add chopped onion  And just a little hint. When using fresh tomatoes and cooking them, often they have a slightly bitter taste. If you make spaghetti sauce or even juice from fresh tomatoes, this can be a problem. The solution is to add about 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda to the tomatoes as they cook. They will foam up like the top of a volcano! But this cuts the bitterness totally and gives a more smooth, nice taste. If using commercially canned tomatoes, this step can also be necessary. Note: Do not add soda if you are going to can tomatoes only, using the waterbath canning method. This cuts the acidity and reduces the safety of using waterbath canning. For this particular recipe, we will be pressure canning it, so reducing the acid will be fine.  Add green beans, corn and peas (peas are optional). I am using frozen here, but fresh is great.  Add beans  Add spaghetti sauce  Put soup into jars, either pints or quarts, and process in a pressure canner on 10 lbs of pressure for 60 minutes for pints and 75 minutes for quarts.  To serve, open a jar or two of the soup base and put into a deep pan. Add one cup of water for one quart of soup base. For 1 quart of soup, cook 1/2 lb of hamburger or ground chuck with 3 cloves of pressed garlic, salt and pepper, until browned.  Add beef to the soup. I like to add pasta shells too. Boil until the pasta is tender and add more water as it cooks to thin if need be.  Serve hot with fresh cornbread. This is a wonderfully quick dinner on a cold, winter night. Also, just for information, this is great for camping. Dehydrated hamburger can be purchased at many hunting/camping stores, as well as at Costco. This meat can be rehydrated and cooked with the garlic and salt and pepper and then added to the soup. Great meal for around the campfire or when the electricity goes out!  |
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