Ragdollcatlady's Just a Little Patch of Weeds Farm journal

[ragdollcatlady]

Latestarter, I could totally go for a meat lovers version.... This one was invented to use up all the different peppers from the garden. But I do think the crust might be a bit more helpful for your type.

ldawntaylor, welcome to BYH. I am afraid I am not much of a writer. I am horrible with punctuation and just write as I think or speak, but sometimes life is just so much fun I gotta share it. Or so boring I gotta just tell someone to let it all out.

This week was our 20th anniversary. I have to say, it was the funnest and probably the most memorable too. I only took the one day off since it was a wednesday. We drove to the coast the night before and spent the day window shopping in the little beach town stores. I love second hand, antique, small individual specialty places. We did buy 4 geraniums. Normally they have a funky scent and beautiful flowers. We found some scented varieties. We got chocolate-mint, ginger, orange and apricot. They are babies now, but I can't wait to see how they grow! The ginger has the strongest scent and is culinary as well. I found a few small handmade bells in the same store. I might put one on Wileys collar and the other 2 on goats collars, once I decide who I want to have them.

I found a "red solo cup" sippy cup I had to get for my nephew (he is only a month old yet). Sister in law will surely kill me, but my brother should laugh so its OK.

Then we did a wine tasting... DH was gagging and making faces cause he really doesn't like wine. He wasn't fond of the facility because we couldn't see the ocean, so we found a place we could and ordered a bottle of dry Gewurztraminer (really good wine, better than the 5 we tried at the other place) and an appetizer, and just talked and had a generally pleasant time. We had a few more drinks at other places and ended up at a karaoke event. DH doesn't sing or dance EVER. He sang "This is your song" to me and reached out for me to dance with him while he was singing. I have 2 left feet and don't dance either, but everyone else there was surely drunk and wouldn't care, so I got up to try and dance with him. Well, this cute little blonde girl comes up and starts to dance with me, pulling me out of DHs grasp. So I dance with her for a few seconds and then he reaches out for me again, so I head back to DH. She leans in, sings a line with him and wrenches me hard, back the other direction to dance with her. This happened several more times and I couldn't help laughing! It is hilarious to me that the only time in 20 years, my own husband actually wants to dance with me, I am stolen away by a cute little female! A few minutes later someone started singing to "ice ice baby" and one lady starts shaking her booty in DHs face and I absolutely lost it (laughing)!!!! Like wiping the tears from my eyes kinda losing it! Apparently he didn't remember that, or much else (that's OK cause he might have been traumatized if he did!). I was describing her to him and he didn't even remember the lady... she had been there all night, but he was pretty, shall we say, "well marinated" by the time we got to the karaoke place. I had stopped drinking well before that point so I was fine and had a great many laughs. This was definitely one of the funnest anniversary dates for me.

 

[ragdollcatlady]

Funnest doesn't even sound like a real word .... but it is exactly how I would describe it all!

 

[babsbag]

It sounds like you had a great time. I don't think my DH would ever do karaoke or dance so we would have to skip that part but the rest sounds like fun. I haven't been to the coast in about 8 years, ever since we left the Bay Area and became mountain folk.

Now you made me go and look this up. As far as "funnest"...it all depends. You should google "is funnest a word"...seems that no one can agree. "More fun" is what used to be accepted but "funner" and "funnest" are making their way to becoming acceptable. English is so confusing sometimes. So if you had a good time go ahead and say FUNNEST and you might be right, or not, but either way you had a good anniversary.

 

[Latestarter]

Sounds to me like you had a blast! Congrats on your relationship longevity! It's good to get away once and a while and put the day to day stuff aside. Glad you both were able to.

 

[ragdollcatlady]

Sorry it has been a few minutes, hours, days, weeks.... somethin' ... Time flies whether you are having fun or not!

Happy Thanksgiving (a few weeks late!)

I got to go visit my nephew and see my family. I also made a super yummy turkey. I didn't raise or butcher this one, but I used Angry Orchard hard cider to cook it! Oh Mylanta! This is what I call a very drunk turkey! She had a nice apple flavor, perfectly complimented by the cranberry sauce. I liked it so much, I have cooked 3 chickens since in the same kind of cider, but I added ginger beer to my secret recipe too.... Sorry... wiping the drool of my keyboard really quickly... like before it seeps under the keys!!!!

OK I am recomposed if you will.

So, my twins just turned 19... trying to make me feel old by growing up. Sorry, but that is so not working. I stopped the clock at 30 for myself since that is just a really nice age and I will stay here regardless of how ever old anyone else wishes to make them selves, thank you very much! Creative math works for much more than just goats and chickens...

My pirate is taming down some. She seems to really miss me when I leave for a few days. I think I should leave every few days forever, if it helps that much! I guess the babysitters aren't quite the same. They don't tolerate you just taking a big ole bite out of their faces like your own mother will for some reason. Thankfully, she is biting less and less. I think her actual pain is reduced alot now. She is tall enough that she doesn't wear her scab off her stump as often so I am sure that helps. It actually frightens me some at how affectionate she gets nowadays... purring, kissing on the lips, drooling ....ewww! She is actually acting more like a true bottle baby now....

 

[Latestarter]

OK, my curiosity is peeked... How do you cook any bird in hard cider? or ginger beer? Do you just pour it in the bottom of the pan? Inside the bird? Inject it? Whatever or however it's done, I'd like to give it a try.

I'm not much on having my face chewed on either I'm afraid...

 

[ragdollcatlady]

Well, for starters, birds are notoriously clumsy have a hard time getting the caps off bottles, you know, the whole 2 hands, holding the bottle opener and the bottle at the same time and managing to not spill once the cap does come off....so I remove the caps for them. Oh sorry! My bad! You asked me how to cook the bird not get it drunk!! (Drunken Turkey/Chicken is actually what I call it.)

Ok, well, I had heard that folks used cans of beer to keep a turkey moist. I tried that before but didn't care for it. But I had the genius idea to try the hard cider because well, I like it and it is apple flavored! I cook my turkey straight from frozen to the oven. I really dislike freezing raw chickens. Usually I cook them, debone and shred, separate and freeze in ready to use portions to make life easier later on. Like the next time I am hungry. Really. Sometimes it is frozen for less than 2 days. But this year, with 3 of my 4 kids off on other adventures, I had less time and more animal chores. I ended up having to butcher more than I could cook at once so they went whole and raw into the freezer. So now I have hours of work waiting for me in the freezer. My biggest peeve about freezing raw is that I am impatient about food. If I think "hey I have a chicken in the freezer!" I will think " I should make tacos or chicken salad" ...but at that point if I still have to defrost it, cook for a couple hours and then prepare the actual food, I would die of starvation before it was done.Back to cooking... I usually cook the birds in a covered pan. I tried the rack, but it just ends up over cooked and dry. I still over cook it but it tastes good and is easy so I don't really care. I put the frozen bird into the pan, breast down, pour the cider into the cavity and a little over the top where it freezes immediately. I pour the ginger beer into the cavity and add about 2 cups of broth to the bottom of the pan. I brush peanut oil over the top (makes a nice crunchy snack later on and then I throw it in the oven at 325 for about 3 hours. I check if the thermometer is over 170 and no more red liquid comes from the puncture caused by the thermometer. Now you can eat it...or better yet, debone it, chill it overnight, then freeze in portions with some of the liquid. Defrosted at this point, it is really delicious! The broth makes a really flavorful gravy too.

I'm not much on having my face chewed on either I'm afraid...

I hear you there!

 

[babsbag]

I have a bunch of chickens in the freezer...may have to try this if I can buy one can of ginger beer and one bottle of hard cider since neither of those are on my list of beverages.

 

[Latestarter]

OK, just to clarify... you don't do cider and ginger beer at the same time do you? Those are done each to their own right?

 

[ragdollcatlady]

The cider and ginger beer are at the same time, I am just not coordinated enough to pour 2 bottles at the same time. 2 bottles plus the broth make plenty of left over juice for gravy. I might have to buy more cider just for the birds.

I try and keep ginger beer on hand (Reeds is the best) for migraines or stomach upsets. The reeds has a stronger version with a red cap or a milder one with the yellow cap. I don't care much for soda but I do like this one.