Edibles - '09 - Part 4

My carrots are gargantuan----lots of carrot ginger soup coming our way---also carrot-raisin-pineapple salad that someone posted last year after an RU---thanks to whomever posted it.

Wha, I think I saw a similar recipe for eggplant lasagna that used the EP cut very thin length wise instead of all the pasta. Is that the one you have tried? What cheeses?

Robindog, Carrot ginger soup is a favorite. Our carrots this are puny too. We should have planted more in Aug for winter. They do quite will here under a little mulch. Too late now. Patti

patti i will look it up for you and post later - need to get it out so my wife with "stumble" across it :)

I can't remember why I didn't plant any carrots this year! Bill, I never thought of using a carrot to sweeten the tomato sauce. Great idea!

Marilyn - yummmm, those carrot soup and salad dishes sound deeeelish!!!

Our Grandbabies have gone back to Colorado and the house seems so empty, as does my lap. sniff. They were such great little kids and so much fun to talk to (ages 3 and 1). I guess I'll have to have an RU to fill the house back up! LOL

After I read about the carrots in the sauce, I went right down stairs to see if DH was using some in his latest batch. Yep, he had a whole bunch sweating in the pot with onions and garlic. He has put up 34 quarts so far, as well as a few liter jars. We will be up to our eyes in "gravy" this winter.

He has used up most of the basil and lots of the peppers. But maybe next weekend we will get to put up the tomatillo sauce. On a second look most are not quite ready yet. But I have never grown them before, so I am not really sure. I need to make up a huge batch of meat balls to freeze in small bags, so we can have instant pasta dinners. I will also freeze up some bags of roasted eggplant with onion to add to the canned sauce when we don't want meat if I get enough EP.

dahlianut, The EP pie was pretty darn good. But I think I like it better when I add lots of orange zest and orange juice rather than lemon. I think next time I might add a handful of pine nuts to the topping. Have you ever eaten a dahlia bulb? I found this interesting and thought of you. Patti

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/Edible-Dahlia-Bulbs-Recipes.aspx

Mmmm---all that food sounds delish---and isn't it so much healthier than prepared stuff at the grocers? Sorry about the emptiness, Louise---that's why we have to have a grandkids "fix" weekly! Yesterday was a baking day---here are the apple muffins just before DH got into them!

with the carrots we do not chop them up, we peel them into the sauce and they break down and you do not even know htey are there.

wow patti 34 quartz! i have done about 20 and thought that was a lot.

Apple muffins look great. Tis the season!

Wha, I didn't do anything except be a taster. Patti

I just got hit by a computer virus that also hit my DH earlier this morning. Signing off so the geek squad (plumchoice) can come in and kill it. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Not sure how we both got it as we are almost never doing anything remotely alike but it may just from using Microsoft . But I don't know about these things. Patti

oh wonderful ... so sorry Patti

EEK! Patti I have no idea what that means but it sounds scarey!

Sorry to hear that Patti! Good luck!

The company we have a service contract with came in a few minutes after I saw the message and cleaned everything up. So it was gone quickly and we had no lasting ill effects. I hope!!!! That is why we pay these guys to keep our computers healthy. All that scary stuff just popped up. But because it had happened to my DH that morning, I wasn't too surprised. Just annoyed. I think it came from an email joke that a friend sent to my DH from England that he forwarded to me. I hate getting email jokes, but it was a funny one. I am going to ban him from forwarding his stuff to me until it has sat on his computer for a while. I love worms in my garden, but not in my computer or food! Now I guess we just wait to see if we have taken an expensive trip or bought me diamonds. Patti

Bummer, Patti. Hope all is okay now. Try Mailwasher - it's free.

Same messages popped up on my Microsoft---then my computer downloaded something & that was it---but thanks for the site, Victor.

We have had all sorts of "free" anti-virus software in the past, as well as ones we paid dearly for, but, none the less, we have had breaches in our systems. You name a security system and my DH tried it. We currently have one installed called CA Anti-Virus Plus and CA Anti-Spyware. But no matter what we seem to use there are always those clever, insidious worms that slip in and cause havoc. Plus some of the anti-virus/spyware that we installed in the past have caused major problems with our programs. I don't think some of them play nicely with Mr. Gates.

After losing a whole bunch of data a couple of years ago, as well as on another occasion when some of my important files were corrupted and scrambled, we now pay a remote computer support company to do routine housekeeping and to come in when called to remove spyware and viruses. I was tired of spending ridiculous amounts of my time cleaning up the messes and being frustrated over lost files. Plus I am clueless.

I still do back ups of certain files, but crashes always seem to occur between backups. grrrrrrrr. I religiously had my staff do a daily backup for my Bookstore's computer system which was installed in the mid 80's. The first time we lost a hard drive it was in the middle of a day. No panic as we had the sales for the day also on the register tapes, so we just had to re-enter the sales and receiving for that day once we installed the new hard drive and downloaded the backup. Plus it was in the winter when things where slow. We lost another hard drive on another occasion, but it was during the opening proceedure, so we lost nothing. It was funny to wait for a new hard drive to arrive via plane from Boston. It would come in a little cooler, so it looked like a heart transplant. I was shocked to learn that many big stores did not bother to do a daily backup and would lose months if not years of data. Dumb. Now with off site back up that would be next to impossible to have happen.

So now I love having efficient remote technical assistance when we need it. So far it has been wonderful. We also now use one of those automatic off site backup storage system to automatically back up all the files when the computer is idle. It doesn't slow down the system when I am working on it and I now know that all my new entries are backup when I am sleeping. Love this feature.

I am happy to pay for the back up service and the computer housekeeper. Now I just have to figure out how to get a housekeeper for the house. Not in the budget. I may have dust bunnies under the bed, but I don't worry about losing all my photographs or garden diary. My, "Dear Victor", is forever backed up. Patti

So you back up remotely too? I am looking into that. Carbonite looks pretty good.

That is what we are using now too. Carbonite is who our geeks recommended as well as a few other people who had used it. Patti

They're very reasonably priced.

I have some sizable cantaloupes. They are still green. This is my first year trying them. How do know when to harvest?

Victor, here they usually fall off the vine. Now saying that, I did pick one yesterday that hadn't fallen off. DH ate it last night for a snack and said it was wonderful.

Thanks. But they do turn yellowish first?

Yes, just like the ones in the store. ^_^

Thanks - wanna start a new thread, Celeste? You have way more good fruit/veggie pics than I do!

Does it look like this?

sure, give me a second.

A bit greener, and not as much gold! ^_^

Let it go a bit longer than.

New thread, please bring your yummies with you! ^_^
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1038315/