Archive for September, 2009

Last night as I was getting ready to  write my post about canning tomatoes (look for it later in the week)…  my husband called me into our family room.  He asked me to sit down on the sofa and look at the fireplace.  Huh?  I asked him, what about our fireplace?  We have a gas fireplace and he had turned it on.  The room smelled strange…  the smell of a heater after a summer of disuse.  It wasn’t cold last evening, so I couldn’t figure out what he was up to.  Then from out of the very skinny grates, squeezed a little mouse.  It ran along the hearth and then under our TV armoire.  Oh boy..  a mouse in the house.

“I’ve been watching him for a while and he’s kinda cute.”  my husband says, “I’d really hate to kill him.”  “Let’s try to get him to him go outside.”

So armed with brooms and the back door open, we tried to shoo the little mouse out the door.  And all the while, I’m thinking of that movie, “Mouse Trap.”   Either we have a smart mouse or he found somewhere really good to hide, because we could not get him to leave the armoire.

After our best effort, I finally said, “We can’t have a mouse in the kitchen.  We’ve got to set out the traps.”  So we got a little chocolate… which neither mice (nor I) can resist and set the traps.

I entered the family room early this morning with trepidation, not looking forward to finding a dead mouse.  And that smart little mouse never took the bate.  Maybe he doesn’t like Hershey’s Chocolate Bars… maybe he’s a chocolate snob, like me, and loves Belgian Chocolate.  I don’t know.

But that little mouse can’t stay in the house.  We need to find a better mouse trap.  Maybe my husband will go today and find a trap that captures the mouse instead of kills him… that’ll make him happy.

And when I think about it, I can’t help loving that I married a man who would save a mouse if he could.

Mouse Update:  The mouse does like Hershey’s Chocolate.  I knew I should never have mentioned the movie “Mouse Trap.”  That little bugger got away with the chocolate without ever springing the traps!

Can we just stop time for a minute?  I love this time of year.  All I want to do is eat.  I love the delicious foods coming out of my garden.  I love the Farmer’s Market.  I can’t seem to get enough corn on the cob, blackberries, raspberries, peaches, apples and tomatoes.   Oh the tomatoes… they are my favorite.  Yesterday my husband came home for lunch and we had fat slices of tomato on Italian Bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, a little salt and pepper, and a large leaf of basil.  It was so simple and so good.

Then there is salsa.  I have run out of my Roma’s and jalepenos making salsa.  I want to can salsa (still looking for the perfect canning recipe) but I may need to buy enough tomatoes and peppers to finish the job.  In the mean time, I am making and eating as much salsa as I can.  Everyone in the family loves it.

You’ve got to have jalepenos.  And I prefer a paste tomato… not so runny.  You can use slicing tomatoes, but I recommend slicing them in half, and squeezing out the juice and seeds first.

Here’s my recipe:

Fresh Garden Salsa

• 1 ½ cups diced Roma tomatoes
• ¼ cup diced yellow onion
• 2 cloves garlic finely minced
• Juice of one fresh lime
• 1 Tbsp. finely diced jalepeno (seeded for milder flavor)
• 2 Tbsp. chopped cilantro
• ¼ tsp. red hot sauce
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Optional: chopped yellow, red or green pepper

Mix all the ingredients together and refrigerate for 30 minutes to an hour before serving to let the flavors mesh together.  You can also add a little cumin to taste.

Serve with tortilla chips or on Carnitas Dulces or cheese chips…

One last quick tip:  I have started putting on a glove when I chop a lot of jalepeno, serrano, and especially habanero peppers.  I have rubbed my eye hours after cutting and washing my hands and felt the burn.  So I throw on a glove, lunch lady style, and save myself some pain.