Day: September 10, 2021

Turkey Tracks: September 10, 2021

It’s September 2021

How did that happen?

And it is already the 10th!!

We’ve had cooler weather, with temps dropping down significantly at night, which makes for great sleeping.

And for rising desires for warmer foods, like this beef stew I made in the Instant Pot. I cook the carrots and new potatoes separately—and the fresh green beans separately too.

The beautiful beef cubes were a gift from friend Margaret whose freezer went belly up earlier this summer. The carrots, new potatoes, and fresh green beans came from Farmer Tom’s Hope’s Edge weekly market out at the farm—which is a trip to which I look forward each week.

The Instant Pot cooks the beef in 35 minutes!!!! For my Histamine Intolerance, that’s wonderful as long cooking times create more histamine in foods. I saute the beef in the pot in some tallow or ghee. If I’m not in a hurry, I’ll remove the meat and throw in the chopped onions and garlic and saute those for a bit, but not this time. I added two cups of liquid, onions, garlic, herbs, salt and called it a day. I also added a limited amount of ketchup, whichI can eat in small quantities sometimes—and it added such flavor. When the meat is done I put the beef in a large bowl and add the warm, cooked vegetables and spooned out what I wanted to eat. The rest I saved for other meals.

This Dahlia is now three years old. Isn’t it gorgeous!

The first year I just saved the tuber after the first killing frost. But when I planted it in the spring, it took it all summer to get big enough to start blooming. Last year I put the dug tuber into a small pail with its dirt and roots intact and put it into the dry/dark/cool storage hold upstairs, and when the days started getting longer in early March, I put the whole pail in a sunny window. The Dahlia sprouted and started growing. Finally it was warm enough to put it out in the garden again, which it liked. It’s been blooming like crazy since early August, so I will put it back in the pail again this fall.

And here’s Tara Faughnan’s Wedding Ring quilt with THREE rows finished. I moved it up the design wall so I could get to the bottom row more easily. This quilt clearly wants to be called “Joyful!”

I will be making this quilt again very soon (this winter) as I’m obsessed with it. I want to try a more controlled palette with dark brown/black/dark grey/khaki/cream centers and rings that have a lot of the dark brown/black and cream rings—studded with pastels and a few pops of color here and there. Tara has a version that sparked my imagination, but I hesitate to show it here due to copyright issues.