Sweet and Tart and Vegetal; I’m Your Garden Huckleberry 

16 Nov 2016 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Food, Foodie, NaBloPoMo, The Daily Prompt Tags: , , , ,

For Novemeber 15, the Wordpress Daily Posts’s Daily Prompt is Tart.

This post also uses the Daily Post’s prompt from November 10, so I’m adding that. That Daily Prompt was Vegetal.

Both of these prompts work well to describe the second food experiment we did over the weekend. The first was the squash.

The next food experiment involved berries called Garden Huckleberries.

Raw, ripe Garden Huckleberries.

 

If you’re familiar with regular huckleberries, then you might think, “oh, yum.” I’ve had true huckleberries in Montana, and they are similar to wild blueberries. Sweet and very yummy.

The Garden Huckleberry is different. It’s a nightshade plant similar to tomatoes.

I think I may have had some of these self-plant in flower pots a few years ago. Once I identified them as from the nightshade family and realized they weren’t tomatoes or peppers, I wasn’t really sure if they were edible, and I pulled them. They were probably safe if birds left the seeds behind (which is probably how the seeds got there), but I didn’t want to take any chances.

These Garden Huckleberries were grown by a farmer, and I purchased them at a farmers’ market. So I felt pretty confident that we could eat them.

But they did come with special instructions, and I looked them up on the Internet at home.

Garden Huckleberries must be cooked before they are eaten. They also need to be fully ripe (the green, unripe berries are toxic). Raw they taste a little like a green tomato, except I’d prefer green tomato to the taste of a raw Garden Huckleberry. They weren’t just tart or sour, but also bitter with a strong, unpleasant vegetal flavor.

After removing the tenacious little stems from the Garden Huckleberries, we boiled them in enough water to cover and added a pinch of baking soda (per many instructions).

Blueberries and red cabbage both contain pigments called anthocyanins that change color depending on the pH. It’s redder in acid and turns bluish-green or green in alkaline (basic) solutions. It can be fun for at-home science experiments and can even be used to dye Easter eggs.

Garden Huckleberries have an abundance of anthocyanins.

So we got a little surprise as the water with baking soda boiled away. Green foam began to form on top of the water. And as the berries continued to burst, dipping a spoon into the water showed us a vibrant blue-green water.

As Halloween is not long gone, it felt like we were cooking up a strange and exotic witches brew that might be used for unsavory purposes. You might think I wouldn’t let that stuff anywhere near my mouth.


 

But we kept on.

Recipes for Garden Huckleberry all suggest adding lemon and sugar, so that’s what we did after straining out the creepy green water from boiling the berries. (And after doing a mini-science experiment before throwing all the fascinating water away.) Red cabbage can be these same colors. 

I tasted the cooked berries before adding the lemon and sugar and was not impressed. They were still somewhat tart, bitter, and vegetal tasting but much less so than when uncooked. Now they had a hint of berry taste & aroma to them. So we were getting closer.

Garden Huckleberries parboiled with a little baking soda.

Then we added the sugar and lemon juice and let them simmer away again. Adding the lemon juice turned all the greenish shades back to a reddish purple. The berries became a beautiful, deep, dark purple.

Now when I tasted them, some of them were delicious and others were still a little off. I’m pretty sure the best tasting ones were the most ripe berries that had also burst very early in cooking. While the ones that weren’t as good were either less ripe or didn’t burst (or both). Regardless, I decided to add more lemon juice and sugar and simmer longer.

The end result was fairly close to a fruit preserve or pie filling. It tasted a little like blueberries, but also had its own sweet & slightly tart berry flavor.


The longer we cooked with lemon and sugar the better they got. It wasn’t just covering up the weird taste. The end result didn’t taste like lemon really. But I think the combination of lemon juice and sugar transforms some component in these berries, so that the flavor actually changes. 

So Garden Huckleberries were good. We put the goop in jars. I may add some to a pie or fruit tart. I’m not 100% sure if I’ll get them again. I like berries that I can eat raw. But these were fun to try and the colors (all of them) were pretty amazing.

 

This post is also for NaBloPoMo.

NaBloPoMo November 2016

The Sleeping Fishes

14 Nov 2016 3 Comments

by alightningbug in Mom Stuff, NaBloPoMo, The Daily Prompt, WordPress Tags: , , , , ,

The WordPress, Daily Post’s Daily Prompt is Fish.

This works out almost perfectly since I was just thinking about our pet fish. 

We have quite a few guppies. All of them are descendants of fish we got many years ago at my daughter’s after-school-care program.

They had both male and female guppies. Only they called them Glowfish. Again with mislabeled items. I think they purchased them someplace that had the wrong fish in the tank or vice versa. But actual Glowfish reproduce by laying eggs. These fish produce live young. Glowfish also glow. These do not glow, not even under special lighting, but they can be colorful.

Along with producing live young and the lack of glow, many parents commented, “oh, they look just like guppies.” 

And, indeed, they are guppies.

With all the live young, the after-school program had a fairly steady supply of fish for the kids to see and also for feeding to a small pet crab (of some sort) that lived in their aquarium too.

They also had extra fish that the kids could take home with them from time to time. So we did. And we got both male and female fishes because somehow I thought that would be such a cool thing.

It was. For a while.

Many, many fish later, I’ve tried to separate the females from the males and put a halt to the fish population (that also bread at least once with a pet-store guppy that gave all the subsequent offspring more color variations). 

So we still have lots and lots of fish. And, what a lot of people may not know is that fish sleep. 

I walked in on them again earlier this evening and got a little weirded out. 

At night when it’s dark, they stop moving and just hover in the water. It can be a little disconcerting to flip on a light and see a whole tank full of fish not move. They seem so lifeless. It can easily feel like we’ve had a mass die-off. But they gradually wake up if I leave the light on for long enough.

During the day when I walk in the fish are ready for food, so they swim all around and back and forth, much like our cats do when it’s dinner time.  It’s like a feeding frenzy. 

Life is a lot like that. We have times we’re so lively and thrashing about and other times when we just need to be still. And sleep. 

Squashed

13 Nov 2016 1 Comment

by alightningbug in Food, Foodie, NaBloPoMo Tags: , , , ,

Oops! I was trying a new squash, and there was a little incident.

This was labeled a Kabocha squash, but I’m pretty sure it’s a Red Kuri or orange Hubbard that had been mislabeled.

Kabocha have a fairly soft skin. Hubbards (and Red Kuri which is related to a Hubbard) do not.

The soft skin of the Kabocha allows the skin to be eaten once cooked and also allows the squash to split open easily so that pressure doesn’t build inside if, say, you put it in the microwave.

I tried my first Kabocha squash this fall. The local H mart had a great sale, and I was looking to try a new winter squash. 

Kabocha are wonderful. They’re sweet, flavorful, and dense. If you’ve never tried one and you like winter squash, this is hard to beat.

A few years ago, I started partially cooking winter squash in the microwave before slicing it open and scraping out the seeds. I poke a few holes — a lot easier than trying to cut an entire stubborn squash in half — then pop it in the microwave for 3-6:00 minutes. This softens the squash enough to cut a lot easier.

Then seed and cook the rest of the way in the microwave or roast in the oven.

So I was trying to soften this new squash which had been labeled Kabocha. I thought maybe it was an orange Kabocha. (I’ve only cooked green Kabocha so far). I’m not an expert. What do I know?

I could tell the shape was a little different. 

Another name for Kabocha squash is Japanese Pumpkin. They are shaped like a squat pumpkin and have dark green or deep orange skin. This new squash, however, was somewhat teardrop shaped — a shape much more common to hubbard or (I would learn) red kuri squash.

I only managed to poke just one smallish hole in this squash because it was one tough cookie, er, squash. I thought it would be fine. All the other Kabochas have been fine.

Then I put it in the microwave for about 6:00 minutes because I figured it was pretty big (and three minutes didn’t seem to have done much to soften it).

It was that second half of the time that did me in.

“Boom,” I heard from the the kitchen.

Then I heard the sound of the glass base rocking in the microwave. I hoped it hadn’t broken.

It turned out that the skin on this squash was hard, tough, and thick (even once cooked). It held the steam rather impressively even with the little hole bubbling a little.

The squash had exploded. The plate and microwave glass were fine, but squash guts were splattered all over in various sizes. I had a quite a mess to clean up … after I got done laughing.

Oops.

My family laughed too. Then my daughter helped me clean the squashed squash from the inside of the microwave.

(I once exploded an egg in the microwave on purpose. It was for science. Luckily the squash was much easier to clean up.)

This squash tastes quite yummy, but does not appear to be a Kabocha squash. So my guess is it’s a red kuri or orange hubbard.

Part of this bright orange exploding mystery squash (the parts that weren’t plastered to the inside of the mircrowave) went into a roasted veggie mixture. The rest went into a lovely squash soup (just bouillon and pureed squash). Yum.

I purchased two of these and the next one is even larger. So I better poke much larger holes — several of them — or watch out.

The Week

12 Nov 2016 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Foodie, Games, Kitties, NaBloPoMo Tags: , , , , ,

It was a busy week. With the election on Tuesday, I got up early to vote. Then, like a lot of people, I didn’t get much sleep that night. I dozed, looked at incoming election results, then woke up. Then dozed a little more. It was very surreal.

Wednesday, I had a meeting at my daughter’s school. So there I was talking with her teachers, and so very tired. Though, I think we were all a little tired. The teachers had very nice things to say about my kiddo, and I’m very proud of her.

Thursday,  before work I took the cat to the vet to get his blood drawn. Then dropped him off at home before I went to the office.

My daughter had Robotics club after school, so I had to pick her up.

The school was having an International Night that evening. Since it started several minutes before I arrived at the school, my daughter was already in line to sample the many tasty foods, and I went inside to see what it was like.

I’m so glad we went in. International night was really cool. Our area has students from so many places. We got to taste foods from around the world.

One of the desserts was called, Casery (maybe also spelled Kesari). It was from India and flavored with cardamom. It was different but yummy!

Then we saw a video the students made and watched part of a talent show the students performed.

Then I had pinball league. I stayed awake enough to play a few good games. Yay!

I came home and tried to blog. I. Was. So. Tired.

I kept typing and falling asleep mid-sentence. And I kept typing the wrong thing. Finally, I managed a couple of tiny sentences and was done.  I had to count that as my NaBlogPoMo.

Friday’s blog post didn’t go much better. I was so tired. But I was a little peppier since we got good news about our little old kitty cat. He’s a lot better. That made me happy.

Today is catch-up day … for many things. Laundry. Groceries. Blogging and writing. Resting. But still driving my daughter to and from places. At least I’m getting a few of these done.

Wishing everyone a great weekend!

NaBloPoMo November 2016

And an other (NaBloPoMo Skimpy Day 11 and Cats)

11 Nov 2016 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Kitties, NaBloPoMo Tags: , , ,

Hopefully, I can do some extra writing over the weekend. But Thursday and Friday were days of skimpy writing.

I got good news about one of our kitties. He had stopped eating several weeks ago and was otherwise not well. Blood work from the vet told us his liver enzymes were way off and his pancreas was off too. Feline Triaditis is what the symptoms seemed to be telling us. One liver enzyme in particular is considered high if it’s over 150. His was over 2,000.

He had to take 4 medicines for a while. And when I say he had to take 4 medicines, I don’t mean that he took them voluntarily. He’s a cat. So I mean that we had to give the medicine to him and this was not always easy. One of them involved plopping (or more often shoving) a pill down his throat as he tried to kick me away. Not fun for any of us.

But his bloodwork came back almost all normal today. We can drop the med that’s hard to get him to swallow, so this is a huge plus on many levels. Of the other meds, one he already finished and the other we get to taper off. The last one he will stay on for his Thyroid.

I hope he stays healthy for a good long while.

Yay!

 

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Thursday

10 Nov 2016 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in NaBloPoMo Tags:

This is one of those days where I’m just not going to write much. 

But it kind of counted for NABLOPOMO. 

Well, that happened.

09 Nov 2016 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in NaBloPoMo, Uncategorized and beyond. Tags:

I wasn’t crazy about either major-part candidate, and it has been one really weird election year.

More than ever, I feel like I’m in bizzaro world. The Spock with a goatee will walk in at any moment.

I claimed I wouldn’t be surprised either way, but I think I am actually surprised.

I hope every registered voter who reads this, voted.

I’m going to pray and hope that we can all find good in this going forward. I think there can be good.

(I like and love all kinds of people. It is harder to like the ones with unkind words coming out of their mouths. I hope that can improve.)

 

This was my post for NaBloPoMo Crazy Day 9.

 

V-O-T-E, Vote!

08 Nov 2016 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in NaBloPoMo Tags: ,

Just a reminder, folks, that you should vote today if you are in the USA and registered and haven’t already voted!

Please vote even if you don’t like either major-party candidate. You don’t have to like them. Just vote.

You can vote 3rd party. You can vote via write-in. You can vote for yourself or your favorite high-school teacher. Just vote.

Some of the 3rd-party candidates you might see on the ballot are:

Darrell Castle

Gary Johnson

Evan McMullin

Dr. Jill Stein

And more. But not all of them will be on the ballot in all states.

Some folks say that voting 3rd Party is throwing away your vote. They have virtually zero chance of winning. But if it’s the choice between not voting or voting 3rd party, then V-O-T-E.

The only way to throw away your hard-earned right-to-vote is by not voting at all.

Plus you may have other important options on your ballot like Senate seats, House seats, or other local options. These probably have more impact on your day-to-day life than the President anyway, so vote.

If you are happy to vote for one of the major-party candidates, that’s great. Just be sure to vote!

Good luck to all of us!

Panera x2

07 Nov 2016 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in NaBloPoMo, NaNoWriMo Tags: , ,

Today was a NaNoWriMo Write-in at a local Panera Bread. Write-ins seem like a cool idea to me — get to meet other people who are trying to write a novel this month plus actually get writing done.

Panera had sent me an offer to get a free bagel every day of November.

Apparently, Panera had sent me this offer for the month of October, but I forgot about it and didn’t use it even once. So they re-sent me the offer for November. Thank you, Panera. I guess I haven’t been in one for a while, so they started throwing bagels at me to get my attention.

It finally worked today. I figured it was the perfect combination of reasons to go to Panera this morning — get writing done and collect a free bagel.

The NaNoWriMo thing started at 6:30, but this morning I decided I just had to clean part of the kitchen before I left. A bowl of fruit and garlic had been sitting around for way too long and the bowl was becoming a catch-all. It had crumbs on the bottom and some splatters. Plus I don’t think I ever meant the fruit and garlic to live together in the first place. It was supposed to be a fruit bowl. Time for it to go. So it did. Now there’s a tiny clean spot.

Then I needed a shower — there’s only so much that can be done with dry shampoo, and I rode on a hayride yesterday. It always seems like a good idea to bathe after one of those, and I was too tired last night.

Then I needed to give one of the cats his morning medicine.

I finally arrived at the Panera within the 6:30-8:30 timeframe, but distinctly late.

The free bagel could be any flavor. I got an Everything bagel with cream cheese.

It turns out that one little 2-oz-mini tub of cream cheese is about $1.40, and the free bagel doesn’t come with it. So it was a grand total of about $3.50 for my free breakfast (cream cheese + coffee+free bagel), but it was yummy and hit the spot. When I asked about the cost, the cashier told me that the bagels cost about $1 and that the butter is free. She said I could change my order. But my taste buds were primed for cream cheese.

Not knowing how the NaNoWriMo thing was supposed to work. I just picked a table and wrote. I got a few hundred words written and then headed in to work.

It was a busy day.

At about 5:30 my phone chimed with a schedule reminder — NaNoWriMo at Panera at 6:30 to 8:30 PM. Yes, PM not AM. Writing just seemed like more of a morning thing to me, so I hadn’t double-checked the time. I saved the event directly from the website into my calendar, so it was correct there just not in my bagel-filled head.

After work I stopped at the Panera again. I’d already used my free-bagel option for the day, but after ordering soup I found out that now they were giving me a free coffee or soda. Well, that worked out well.

There was a small NaNoWriMo area sign on a large table. I got to meet a few other writers (Josslyn?, Jannet, and Greg) and a random man who came there for NaNoWriMo, but didn’t actually come to do any writing. That was awkward for those of us writing. He just sat at the table and looked around. I think he was expecting a Meet & Greet not a Write-In. But I’m not even sure why he came to a Meet & Greet because he said he wasn’t even trying to participate in NaNoWriMo.

But we all seemed to get some writing done (except for the random guy).

So NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo I wrote words for both of you, YAY!

 

Another Awesome Day and Cats

06 Nov 2016 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Kitties, Mom Stuff, NaBloPoMo, NaNoWriMo Tags: , , , ,

I have over 500 words for NaNoWriMo so far today (only about another 1,500 and it will meet a daily goal except that I’m behind on my total goals). It’s early, so I have another chunk of writing time planned for later.

Plus this post counts for NaBloPoMo Day 6 which probably seems silly except that this way it’s done. That’s better than not done. (And actually I wrote more than I thought I would. So I may post again later today or not …)

I’m trying to squeeze a lot into this beautiful day. I’m planning to get several things done at home then maybe visit a farmer’s market. Then maybe take my daughter to Cox Farms to enjoy some Pumpkin Madness (a day of pumpkin smashing and fall activities). There’s a market there too though so maybe I’ll just skip the farmer’s market beforehand.

Our cats are completely battling it out in the kitchen as I type this. I can hear them squealing and thumping on the floor and on each other. Glad they still have some spunk. They finished the old-man gruel that we like to call “cat food,” and now they’re just full of it (piss & vinegar along with the food).

We have old kitties, so we mix their food with lots of extra water and some added clear fiber (like Benefiber only generic).

Dave recently purchased a mini-blender for the sole purpose of mixing up the cat food. The cats gobble this stuff down, and then they don’t know what to do with their extra time.

They feel like they should be eating for longer, so they pester us and each other in the time they would have used for eating. It used to take them about a half hour to an hour to finish their food because we’d have to add more water and give a little stir. They’d leave and come back a couple of times.The blender has changed that. 

Plus, our cat Mojo doesn’t like to drink water the same way most cats do. He likes to stick his paw in the water, splash it a while, then lick the water off. Sometimes he’ll even leave his paw in the water as he sucks on it, almost like a straw. It makes a mess. When he’s done, there’s  water on the floor and a path of wet paw prints.

Our other cat, Fletcher, usually looks at us as if to say, “Do you see what I have to put up with?” He doesn’t like drinking the water after Mojo’s had his paws in it. Today, Mojo was especially splashy with the water. So we took the water away for a few minutes. That’s when the cat fight started.

They’ve calmed down now and will probably take their old-man naps in a few minutes.

Maybe they can sun on the balcony for a bit while it’s still warm out. Kind of what I’d like to do.

NaBloPoMo November 2016

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