OK, the first flat of seed were sown last night. And here is the breakdown of what is going into the first flat of 72 cells:
9 cells – Aji Limo
9 cells – El Jefe Jalapeno
6 cells – Bell Peppers
3 cells – Jalapeno “M”
3 cells – Banana pepper – green color
3 cells – Banana pepper – yellow color
3 cells – Banana pepper – orange color
6 cells – Sage
6 cells – Basil
6 cells – Parsley
6 cells – Cilantro
6 cells – Oregano
6 cells – Rosemary
Here are a couple of pictures of the garden that I took two nights ago. It’s kind of crazy that in just about a week, how much the rhubarb and hops plants have growth.
This Ruffles flavor is suppose to be Queso Cheese, and when you open the bag it totally smells like a bowl of queso. But the problem is that is really doesn’t taste like queso. Instead you get a triad of flavors on your tongue: buttery, citric acid(yeah I know, again!),and cheesy. But the the cheesy flavor isn’t a queso cheesy flavor but instead its more of a blue cheese/cheddar flavor.
And then it hit me, these Queso Ruffles are more or less Cheddar & Sour Cream Ruffles that had some blue cheese flavoring added in to make in more “queso” like, heck they even look like Cheddar & Sour Cream Ruffles. Come on Frito-Lay, how dumb do you think I am? If they would have labeled these chips as Blue Cheese Ruffles, it would have been a more accurate description than queso. Once again another let down courtesy of the men and women of Frito-Lay.
Talk about quick turnaround time. When I got home from work last night, I had a little cardboard box in my mailbox from Johnny’s. So now I’ve got to lay out my seed starting calendar for the next couple of months. The plan so far is to start all the herbs and pepper seeds (jalapeno, aji limo, bell, etc) this week, and then some time next week I’ll start the seeds for all the tomatoes. And then in about two weeks, I’ll start the cucumbers & zucchini inside as well as sowing some of the seeds that need direct sowing (carrots, beets, lettuce, corn, peas, beans, etc.)
When I reviewed all the seeds that I ordered, I noticed an interesting trend with a large portion of the seeds that I ordered. In that maybe two thirds of the seeds that I ordered, are seeds that need to be directly sow into the ground. So really the only seed starting that I’ll need to do this year are for the herbs, peppers, tomatoes, zucchini and cucumbers.
One little tool that I picked up this year, are two seedling heater mats. We’ll see if they are any help in germinating my seeds, since I keep my house right around 63F, so any extra heat to get the seeds off to a strong start is a bonus in my book.
What do you get when you take Nacho Cheese Doritos, and add in a mixture of sour (courtesy of citric acid) and habanero flavor. You get Sabritas (Frito-Lay’s) Toro Habanero flavored chips! So on to the critical questions, that being were these chips hot, as in picante and not calinete? Oh yes they were, but it wasn’t an in your face kind of heat with the first bite, it was more of a smoldering heat that almost turns into an inferno of fire in your mouth with almost a hint of a fruity aftertaste while the heat is dying down in your mouth.
Would I get these again, right now I’m 50/50 on the flavor. I kind of wish that they wouldn’t have used so much of the citric acid, even though I understand the reasoning why they did it in the first place (for the acid to enhance the flavor of the habanero, kind of like lime in guacamole) but that is asking a lot out of Frito-Lay. But if you are looking to get your heat fix on, then these are the ticket for you.
For some reason last month, I was in the mood for some french toast. So here is the recipe that I came up with, using a basic recipe off of food network as a starting point, and the final product actually turned out pretty good. Continue reading
After a little bit over two months, I’m pulling the plug on the fermentation phase of this sauerkraut and moving on to the consumption phase of this batch. There was only a couple of things that I did to the sauerkraut before placing it into the fridge.
1) Cleaned and sanitized a 1 gallon glass jar (it was from a batch of pickles I bought last year at Sam’s Club.)
2) I squeezed all the brine out of the sauerkraut, leaving the brine in the fermentation bucket.
3) With the remaining brine in the fermentation bucket. I racked the brine to a stock pot and brought it to a rolling boiling, and kept it boiling for 15 minutes before cooling it down to room temperature in an ice bath.
4) Once the brine was cooled, I poured it back over the sauerkraut in the jar, just until the sauerkraut was covered in brine.
Now its time for me to start making some Reuben sandwiches at home, so I can consume all this sauerkraut. Good thing I didn’t buy more cabbage before St. Patrick’s day when it was $0.09 a lb, to start a second batch of sauerkraut. Since then I really would have had sauerkraut up the wazoo!
Today was a beautiful day, nice and sunny and a balmy 79F. Before I went to work I put out the two parsley plants that I overwintered in the house to let them stretch out and take in some of the sun. I also snapped a couple of pics around the house of the various plant activity. Below are some pics of the rhubarb, hops, green onion/garlic and sedum sprouting. Enjoy.
Well I finally placed my seed order with Johnny’s tonight, and here is what I ended up ordering for $50.35 (shipping is included in that number.) Each packet of seeds ranged from $1.00 to $2.95 each, with a couple of the salad mixes being a great deal with 5,000 to 17,000 seeds for $1.50 a packet. Continue reading
I thought that it was kind of strange the first time around, when I blew out the thermal fuse on the Shop-Vac. But blowing the fuse a second time really threw me for a loop, since I didn’t think that the filter was even that dusty to cause the Shop-Vac to overheat. Go figure.
At least I was smart enough to install the replacement thermal fuse with bullet style electrical quick connects, in case it ever needed to be replaced again. This time around I going to use a slightly higher temperature thermal fuse than the first time around. So this time I’m going to go with a 291.2F (144C) thermal fuse. Since the next highest temperature thermal fuse at Radio Shack was 550F, but at that temperature, I would think that the plastic housing would start to melt before the thermal fuse would trip. Which would kind of defeat the whole purpose of having a thermal fuse to begin with.
It took me about 10 to 15 mins to do the thermal fuse swap, and I was back up and running with the Shop-Vac, so we’ll see how long this fuse lasts.
New Fuse:
Radio Shack part# 270-1320, 291.2F (144C) Thermal Fuse