A Small Harvest and Making Wine

Hello, friends.  Last week, I planted peas, after cleaning last year's bean vines off the trellis, prepping soil and adding aged chicken manure/bedding.  I tried a sweet potato hummus to help use up some of the sweet potatoes.  It was basically the regular version, with sweet potatoes added, and was decent.  A 20% coupon code was used for a business purchase, going through Rakuten for another 7% back.  I went through Swagbucks for 1% back on another business purchase.  More cleaning has been done.  The hoosier cabinet was cleaned, and another round of cleaning most of the refrigerator, including the crisper bins, before I went to the grocery store.  I'm not sure how the shelves end up so sticky, but I suspect the bags of sweet potatoes made for the critters leak some.  At least it's clean for the moment.  

At the grocery store, asparagus were $1.49, avocados 2/$1, our dogfood was $6 off, and organic lettuce & kale were $1 off.  I decided to do another 9 day cleanse to move my healing along, and will be eating lots of leafy greens.  A $5 reward went towards my purchase.  Soapmaking oils were melted on the woodstove.  As I write this on Sunday, it's been two weeks since we ordered vacuum bags, and I've been sweeping in the meantime.  They're supposed to be here in the  next few days.  We're usually so much better about having supplies on hand.  In fact, we have seven bags for our now defunct vacuum, so it really irks me.  Somehow, the bags slipped through the cracks, which I guess happens from time to time.  Laundry was dried on the line.  Not long ago, I heard about a food pantry in our little community.  On Saturday, I dropped off a box of tomato products and pasta there.

A friend has a set of glasses just like my recently thrifted one, and told me it's a Murano glass from Italy.  I already loved it, but how cool is that.  While picking up something for J at Lowes, I bought a bag of potting soil for winter sowing.  I had a partial bag, but doubt it will be enough, with the pile of seed packets I put aside for this.  Maybe next week I'll be motivated to work on it.  I recently used up the last of the homemade curry powder, and didn't remember which recipe I used.  So, a double batch of this one was made, with all the ingredients on hand.  Some of the spices were older, and I used her tip to lightly toast them to refresh them.  A large pot of veggie scraps was placed on the woodstove to simmer, to be canned as broth this coming week.  A nice cutting of broccoli was harvested from the garden.  A few could have been cut sooner, as evidenced by the flowers, but we'll eat it just the same.

 The English muffins were used up in the chicken mash, so this week's carb cleanout was a small bit of couscous left in the pantry, and some ramen noodles.  Months ago, I mentioned freezing pawpaw, so we could try making wine with it.  We finally started it!  This is just before the airlock went on.  After I had the idea to try it, I got on several forums to see what had been said about it, and most people said they'd make it again.  Some describe it with tropical undertones, some describe it as off-dry (some German wines are described this way), with most prominently peach flavor, and some pear and banana. It's said to be "pretty darn good".  In any case, we have them in abundance here, and don't do a lot with them, so it'll be great if this turns out well.  We'll have to be rather patient, as it was said that it's disappointing at one year, very pleasing at two years, and fabulous at five.   Wishing you all a lovely Valentine's Day.