Cabbage Lasagna ~ New Recipe Tried ~ Sauce Maker Issues and other Tidbits

 

Although not the typical dinner for such hot weather, I tried a new recipe.  I had thawed the meat, and had the cabbage, so it was made.  It was delicious!  It was some work, but instead of boiling the cabbage first, I am told you can freeze your cabbage and thaw it, and it will be soft and pliable.  Is this true?

Either way, we did not miss the pasta.  I used home canned tomato sauce (herbed) in place of Marinara sauce.  It was very good, and of course perfect for my husband's health (and mine).  I will be making this again.  Recipe is from Sugar free Mom online.

 I'm still canning.  I canned another half batch of tomato sauce yesterday.  See that white bowl in the upper left?  My husband dropped it and broke part of the pour spout off, and the handle is cracked about 2 inches downward.  The smaller matching bowl was also broken.

I went to look up the price of another set of these, and they are now $109.00 for the set of 3!!  Crazy!!  I will be looking for other options. 

The one on the left is the original, the one on the right was the replacement a year ago.  The bottom gasket for it, where it goes into the inside of the sauce maker, and where the handle goes in from the outside, has been out of stock.  I have to wrap a towel around the base to collect all the liquid that drips out during the process when I crank the handle on the sauce maker.

The replacement for these are up to $22.00.  I found one similar to it on Amazon (saving me $7.00), that is made for a different brand of sauce maker, and it works.  It's slightly smaller, but it works, and hopefully will keep working until this canning season is done this year.

In the midst of looking for something, I found this box that was packed up during the kitchen renovations.  Daughter K made it for me.  I am keeping my leftover bits of cotton yarn in it, along with a crochet hook.  I can now work on small scrap projects while watching the canner pot.

We had some thunderstorms come in yesterday, but it was still very hot and humid.   They say it will cool down now, and I am looking forward to that.

New Recipe ~ Heat Index ~ Jalapenos

 

I made the black bean salad suggested, and ended up adding one more jalapeno (with seeds) to it for some flavor (a small one).  Pretty good.  I got to try out my new tool too.  It's for removing the hair off the corn without damaging any corn.

As for the recipe, it makes way too much for us.  We will be eating it for breakfast burritos, nachos, daily snack, etc.  Goodness it makes a lot.  

The heat last week was almost unbearable, and yesterday we hit a high 98 degree heat index.  It's been extremely humid as well.

I took the day off from tomatoes and picked jalapenos.  One batch of Cowboy Candy was made.  It's a good time to save seeds ha ha!  That's a lot of slicing.  I brought in about 4#.

What I call garden dump breakfast.  I made a casserole.  The squash is completely done, but I have not pulled the plants yet.  It's too hot out there.  The bees have cross pollinated the plants and the yellow squash is now producing half yellow and half zucchini.  I will get them yanked, but we are enjoying a few last yellow squash.

I'm moving rather slow this morning.  I tripped and fell over a suit case we had not put away. I'm always good at putting it away right after we get back, but not this last time.  I've been so busy, I have been too tired at the end of the day to get that job done.

Good gravy I am sore.  Maybe it's a sign I need to pack up and take a trip, and ignore all  the tomatoes I brought in.

Speaking of travel, I have a prayer request.  I typically post these on Monday's Happy Homemaker post, but we have a very close friend (Aaron) to my husband that will be driving over several states to see is daughter right now.  He and she, could use prayers.  His adult daughter is in ICU with an unexplained brain bleed, and they are unable to do surgery right now.  Her name is Cheyenne.