Pickles

I have been busy both with work and at home lately.  Last week I started riding my bike to work.  It was a nice change from running all the time.  I tried a new route the first day...staying on the road instead of going a little out of my way on the bike path.  I decided I did not like it...too many cars and stop lights to worry about.  So, the next time I rode I took my old route around the small lake in town.  It is a much better way to start the day.  The only bad things was that I think my bike seat wasn't at the right level and now my knee has been hurting since Saturday.  I haven't been able to run or bike and that just makes me feel so blah.  Hopefully I will be able to do something tomorrow.

Over the weekend we went to a movie, The Sorcerer's Apprentice.  It had Nicolas Cage and we always like his movies.  It was a good family movie to go to.  On Saturday we went to the Farmer's Market, as usual.  We are trying to can at least one thing per week and this week we did pickles.  We bought about 9lbs of pickling cucumbers and 14 heads of dill.  We were expecting about 9 pints.  The recipe we used was from the USDA's canning guide and it called for the pickles to soak in a brine solution for 12 hours.  This meant that we couldn't process the jars until around 11 pm.  It made for a long night.  We started canning and realized we had way more pickles/jars than expected.  The hubs had to take a trip to the grocery store to by dill seed b/c we ran out of fresh pickling dill.  In the end we had 18 jars...double of what we expected.  I think the main reason behind that is the size of our pickles.  We could only fit about 4-6 in a jar.  We have to wait 4-6 weeks for the pickles to cure before we can try them.  I hope they are good b/c we have 18 jars to eat over the fall/winter.

On Sunday we slept in late and then I even took a nap around noon.  It felt good to be lazy.  When I did get up I spent the rest of the day doing laundry and in the kitchen.  I baked a chicken and made roasted vegetables for dinner.  While the chicken was in the oven I made some leek and potato soup (also called vichyssoise).  I used my Martha book.  Martha says this is the best known cold soup.  It is really easy to make and it tastes really good.  I actually got the idea from a young boy at the Farmer's Market who was trying to sell me leeks and potatoes as a combo to make the soup.

This week I hope to get my exercise routine back in order and my body back in shape.  This weekend we will most likely be canning green beans.

Hope all is well in your corner of the world!