Salsa (Cha Cha Cha)

Time for a "new recipe" post!

I made salsa! And it worked! Yay!

I had gotten free tomatoes last week (by accident).  Lots of them.  I don't eat tomatoes (I hate tomatoes, but love spaghetti and stuff like that), and me and Hunts have a good thing going with their spaghetti sauce, so why ruin a good thing?  Next logical step: salsa!  I couldn't let all those tomatoes go to waste, so I gathered up my inner strength, sent Tim out to get some canning jars, got some supplies for salsa, and took off with it before I could talk myself out of it.

Wednesday night Tim and I peeled all the tomatoes so they'd be ready for Saturday.  And Saturday, I cored seeded (de-seeded?) all the tomatoes (and oh my.  That was NASTY.  Did I mention I hate tomatoes?).  Then I put them in my food processor and pulsed away, and dumped into a large stockpot.  I chopped six jalepenos, two medium sized onions, and cracked open cans of black beans and white shoepeg corn.  Mix all together with two packets of Mrs. Wages (basically a spice packet so you don't have to mix the packets yourself) and cooked away for about an hour!

Tim stepped in and helped with the process (besides helping with the tomato peeling Wednesday night, oh, and getting jars), and helped me sterilize the jars.  (He was also the official taste tester.  I'm still a little grossed out since I handled the tomatoes. Did I mention I hate tomatoes?) Once that was done, he filled them and I put the lid on...and then put them in a water bath for about 10 minutes.  We took them out and voila! All the lids popped! YAY!! My first attempt, and it worked!  

I ended up with 11 pints of salsa.  I have pictures, but don't feel like uploading them at the moment.  Besides, I'm pretty sure the people who read this blog are family members who've already seen the pictures.

Water, Water Everywhere...

...but not a drop to drink. (Or, alternately, "When it rains, it pours".)  It could have been worse.  It could have been worse.  That's what I'm telling myself.  

(Sidenote: I feel like I'm saying that a lot recently...our freezer unplugged while we were on vacation and only the top stuff thawed? It could have been worse...Our sump pump quit working and Tim had to manually empty it every two hours for a day and water was everywhere in our utility room?  It could have been worse...Honestly, I really could have done without ANY of these situations BUT...they could have been worse. Sigh.)  

Back to my story. So Monday night our sink drain quit draining, despite Tim's best efforts to fix it.  (Taking a plunger and trying to unclog the clog...Draino...run the garburator...taking a plunger and trying to unclog the clog...wait, did I say that already?) ANYWAY, it was draining v.e.r.y. s.l.o.w.l.y. and then it might speed up, and then it would be fine, so you know, it's a clog, right?  It'll eventually work itself out, right? WRONG.

Tell me if I'm misunderstanding a sink's job, but last I checked you were supposed to be able to fill it up with water with a tap, and then drain it when you're done.  The sink is not supposed to fill itself up, from the pipes, right?  Well, last night Tim and I had a bit of a rude awakening...

Around 2:50 Tim bolted out of bed and raced to the kitchen.  I was a little slower on the uptake and followed suit about 30 seconds later to find out was wrong.  I wandered to the kitchen...and there was WATER EVERYWHERE.  Overflowing out of the sink (which was weird, cause neither of us are stupid enough to leave the tap on), all over the counter, all over the floor.  Tim had made himself busy trying to empty the sink and I raced downstairs and there was water everywhere in the utility room.  It was leaking down from the kitchen and there was a lot of it.  At first I thought it was coming out of a pipe that burst, but it turns out there's a hole in our kitchen floor from our renos (we've been meaning to get it fixed, but the water had to go somewhere, and there was conveniently a bucket basically underneath it).   I finally cleared my brain and was able to get Tim downstairs to shut off the water (Sidenote: I know how to turn the water off now. Whew!)  Apparently turning off the water halted the flow of water coming UP THE PIPES.  Go figure.  Our sink works backwards.  At least it was clean water (which makes no sense - because it drains to the sewer...or maybe it doesn't??  I don't know anymore!)

Not our sink.  But this is what is was doing.  Minus the soap.

Anyway, I then grabbed some towels, and started mopping up the water in the kitchen (which also got in our drawers and cabinets...ugh) while Tim emptied the sink and then mopped up the water, which was thankfully contained to the utility room.

We finally went to bed an hour later.  I slept great after that, I don't think Tim did.  First thing we (Tim) did this morning was call a plumber, who is coming in this afternoon to have a look at it.

So yeah...It could have been worse.  The end.

Tidbits

Mom keeps asking me if I've updated my blog - I keep telling her no, but next time she asks I can say yes! Whew! 

So it looks like last time I posted was in July...oops.  Where does time go?  For that, I'll give you some highlights.

*****

August

We went home! To Canada! Yay!  The best part: we managed to surprise mom - everybody in the family kept it a secret for THREE MONTHS!!  (I think we would all be a little more impressed if it wasn't so easy to pull the wool over mom's eyes - sorry, mom!)  We flew in on the 21st and unfortunately our flight was delayed so we didn't end up walking in the door at home until midnight...and mom was asleep.  But her reaction (when she finally realized she wasn't talking to Lynette) was priceless.  ("Julie?? Jule?? Jule?? What are YOU DOING HERE?!" <-- That was complete with cheek pinching. Ha!)  During this time we celebrated mom and dad's 30th wedding anniversary, the return of Ann and Lydell from New Zealand (though technically for me it was like they were never gone - sorry guys!), Weston's birthday, Lynette's birthday, AND a pretty decent housewarming party for Ann and Lydell (which also was Lynette's birthday party).

Since that was the most exciting thing that happened in August, I won't expound any further on what went on because it was totally overshadowed by an awesome vacation spent with family.

*****

September

I went apple picking for the first time in my life!! It was quite the experience, too - as I got to pick apples from on top of a school bus.  Yes, you read that right! A big ol' yellow bus!  It was...interesting.  And fun.  And that's all I have to say about that.

Also, I watched a full game of college football. BY MYSELF.  For those of you who don't know, that's pretty significant for me.  I mostly wanted to see Tim on TV (he was at the game) but I did get caught up in it.  (Go Hawks!) And whew, did it get close there in the end - I was even yelling at the TV.  That is so not me - I did NOT grow up in a sports-oriented family (until last year, I couldn't even name five NFL football teams...and now I can name them all, and even most of their quarterbacks!!  It's okay if you're impressed).

*****

For an update on my list:

- I'm almost done with biographies - I think I have to read about three more to have read 26.  So far my favourites have been the biographies of Walt Disney and Dr. Seuss.  Julie Andrew's was pretty interesting, too.

- I'm actually getting further in my book on CD list as well, too - I'm on my 10th or so book.  I probably won't finish, but I'm giving it a decent try.

- I can name 26 NFL Quarterbacks. Yay me!

- I've tried a bunch of new recipes, I haven't been keeping track of them.  Oops.

- I don't remember what else is on my list, so we'll keep it at this. 

Until next time!