The Smartest Question of the Day

Abortionist Nancy Pelosi compared lawbreaking illegal aliens to the Children of Israel fleeing Egypt, and now California Governor Brown  urges "the religious call to welcome the stranger".   On Facebook, APIII%er Andrew Wark  asks the smartest question of the day:

 "So where are all the democrats screaming their make believe "law" of 'separation of church and state'?  The silence is deafening."

SUCCESS!!!! Beautiful Heirloom Tomatoes

I set a goal last Winter, in the cold, here at home looking after my husband in his slow and steady recovery from a life-saving surgery, to learn How to Grow Tomatoes. I have made several posts about it, and will add links here but for now you can search the blog to find them.  Learned how to choose varieties, selected them and raised the plants from seed under fluorescent lights on the kitchen bar, set them out and mourned when they froze to death, set out the "leftovers" and watched them impatiently as they reached a stage of growth and then seemed to go dormant in this funny cool Spring.

 And then, God sent the rain. Glorious abundant rain. It started with a nice shower, then a couple of weeks later, eight inches of water poured from the sky onto my garden and everything took off! Things sprounted that I had forgotten I had even planted.  The tomatoes GREW!

Watched again as they bloomed and filled with greem fruit - fruit that sat on the plants as though waiting for an invitation to dress for dinner.  I wondered if they would ever ripen. They just grew larger and continued to bloom and make even more fruit.

And finally last week, they started in. First a fruit here, and another there. Now, I am gathering a gallon a day. That is half a peck - a kind soul on the tomato mania group let me know that a peck equals 2 gallons.
We are having a blast tasting these beautiful fruits. I've never tasted many of these heirlooms, so have been imagining their flavors all Winter.  They do not disappoint. The black and purple ones are rich and sweet and complex. The pink ones are perfect and balanced. The red tomatoes are acidic and tomato-ey. They are all wonderful.

I sell some at our County's Farmer's Market each Saturday morning, and have a little table set up outside the house for excess during the week.  Most importantly, I am canning the excess, so we will have our own tomatoes for the winter. More on that in another post. For now, I am just enjoying the harvest!

How To Make Whipped Cream Without An Electric Mixer, Using Only a Whisk

A little secret about milk is that the higher the fat content, the longer it will keep in the fridge. So "Heavy Whipping Cream", which has so much fat you could make butter out of it, can be bought a week or two ahead of time to be used for making whipping cream at a moment's notice.

My grandmother, Mema, made whipped cream from scratch - we never had cool whip or dream whip. It tastes divine and once you have developed a taste for it, the other products taste artificial and waxy. She used an electric mixer and I usually do too, but for a small amount to serve one or two people, it is just as fast to whip it by hand.

Here is how you do it:

Buy only heavy whipping cream or whipping cream. You can't use coffee cream or half and half. You can't use "fat free" cream. Highest fat content is essential.  Keep it very cold, but don't freeze it - alas nearly every brand today has additives that cause it to separate when frozen.

You can freeze the BOWL though, and using a chilled bowl will make it whip faster.

Pour about 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of heavy cream into your chilled bowl and beat with a whisk (any kind of whisk will work as long as it is clean - don't use a bamboo one unless it is new, because they are hard to clean completely and may retain oils and flavors of other foods they were previously used with).

Beat for about 1 minute, then add one Tablespoon of granulated cane sugar.  You don't need much sugar usually because the cream itself is naturally sweet. So take it easy, you can add more later if it isn't sweet enough. Also add 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract (vanilla also heightens the sweetness of foods, reducing the amount of sugar needed). Continue beating for another two minutes or so until the cream is stiff enough for your liking. Taste and see if it is sweet enough.

Pile it on top of cake or pie or ice cream and serve!

Refrigerate any leftovers immediately. :-)

Progressive Blacklists Get Uglier: Dinesh D'Sousa's "America" (#5 Best Seller on Amazon) Removed From Costco Shelves

At least McCarthy was loyal to the United States of America. The Progressive Blacklisting of anything decent and normal and American is getting too ugly to tolerate.
On Monday, Dinesh's book "American: Imagine The World Without Her", the companion text to his latest hit movie, was #51 on Amazon overall. Today it is #5, thanks to patriotic Americans' reacting to Costco's disgusting attempt to control what the public reads.

When you finish reading, please go to your favorite blog and use their affiliate links to buy your copy through Amazon. I am not an affliliate, but that is no reason not to share the wealth with the other conservative bloggers who keep us informed and thinking for ourselves.

Here is Dinesh's statement on the matter (click here to go to the Facebook post):

Dinesh D'Souza   July 08, 2014 at 5:28 PM
"Yesterday I was stunned to learn that Costco had pulled my latest book, America: Imagine The World Without Her, from all of its stores. This was despite the fact that the book had sold very well at the chain and that my movie of the same name was releasing on over 1,000 screens the very next day. Today, I am disappointed to learn that this news has been confirmed by Costco . This action confirms the suspicions of all freedom-loving Americans and is a direct attack on my livelihood which I take very seriously. In a free society, Costco is free to ban my book, but their customers are also free to shop at other stores which don't censor books. In the book and the movie, I talk about the shaming of Americans and a culture of intimidation and censorship that has been spearheaded by the President himself. It's one thing for Costco executives to pal around with President Obama and donate almost exclusively to Democrats. But to turn their company into a tool for suppressing dissent against the government is another matter. I urge all Americans to watch our film in their nearest theater and buy the book from an establishment that honors freedom of speech. Once they do that, they will understand why the President and his allies are so afraid of this message and determined to keep it from reaching the American people."

I do not EVER want to hear any liberal try to talk about some 50 year old events of any kind again.  Not ever. Not ANY. What matters is what is happening today. They are aggressively blacklisting Christians, people who support ACTUAL EXISTING LAW, people who support sexual constancy as a virtue, people who support honesty in all things,  people who don't give a damn what YOU do but are willing to say when asked that they support the only kind of marriage any society in the history of the world has ever recognized, people who support legitimate elections, people who oppose concentration camps and support defended borders, people who expect citizenship to mean something that it has ALWAYS meant.

In general any person who loves, lives and speaks out in favor of legitimate American Culture is embattled by hateful people who are not thinking at all, but taking marching orders like zombies.

The zombie apocalypse is here, and the brain eaters call themselves "Progressives".


UPDATE 7/9/14:  Newsmax reports that Costco has retreated following the loud outcry and promises to restock the books. The company's official reasoning shows how recursive Progressives are - everything runs in a closed circle with these people:  Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti  "said that the company's national goal is to market books that are on The New York Times' bestseller list, but that "America" has not been on the list. A company statement on the Costco Facebook page stated."

BUT of course (and Costco's people know this), The NYT has refused to place Dinesh's book on their list at all, despite strong debut sales:  the Washington Examiner reported previously that America has been "banished" from the famous list, despite far outselling one by Hillary Clinton:

"The New York Times bestseller list hasn't waited a millisecond to put Hillary Clinton's book atop its influential chart after just a week of sales, but has totally ignored another top-10 hardcover from noted conservative and critic of President Obama, Dinesh D'Souza.

"His new book, on sale for three weeks, isn’t just absent from the top 10 lists already set for the next two Sundays, but totally missing from the list of the nation’s top 25 nonfiction hardcovers despite having sales higher than 13 on the latest Times chart.

"According to sales reports provided to Secrets, D'Souza's new book America: Imagine a World Without Her, sold 4,915 in the first week and 5,592 in the second week. Had it been included on the upcoming June 22 Times hardcover nonfiction list, it would have ranked No. 8, and then No. 11 on the June 29 list that puts Clinton's sales at 85,721. The lists are widely circulated in the publishing industry before they go public.

"The Times is somewhat mysterious in how it calculates its list, but it includes several books selling well under 3,000 copies in a week. A spokeswoman said, “We let the rankings speak for themselves and are confident they are accurate.”

"America is expected to explode when the accompanying movie debuts next month. In America, D’Sousa slams Obama’s agenda and targets Clinton too — maybe one reason the Times hasn’t recognized it."

Click through to read the rest of the article by Examiner's "Washington Secrets" Columnist Paul Bedard.

Remember this every time some Progressive tries to convince you of anything. All of their arguments are self-referential and meaningless. As one would expect from zombies.

UPDATE 7/17/14:  The New York Times had to relent finally, too, or risk losing what shreds of authority the gray old thing has left, and allowed "America - Imagine A World Without Her" on the NYT Best Seller List. Result?  America will debut at #2. From Dinesh's site:

" Dinesh D’Souza’s publisher at Regnery recently sent this note about his latest book:
“I am happy to report that for the week of July 27, America will appear on the New York Times best seller list at second place for hardcover books as well as eBooks!”
This comes following the New York Times past omissions of the book from the best seller list, despite its rise to #1 on Amazon’s best seller list." 

Congratulations, Dinesh - and all red blooded Americans of all heritage. The zombies are still outside the gates, but chalk one up for reality this week!

O Tomato! Beautiful Heirloom Varieties I Am Gathering Now!

Tomatoes here are finally ripening and I am gathering about a peck or more each day.   I lost track of what tomatoes I have where since replanting them after the freeze, so as they ripen I am looking back at my lists to figure out what they are. We are having a lot of fun tasting these different varieties that we have never had before.

Chocolate Cherry - Just today I picked the first 4 of these, have not  tasted them yet. Weirdly, all of my cherry tomatoes are running kind of behind the full sized fruit. Maybe they will keep coming all summer though. 

Brandywine or Cherokee Purple? - I have a couple of plants with nice big 8 ounce pinkish tomatoes that have green shoulders, and the green is as sweet as the pink. Great flavor, nice and sweet. 

Rutgers are doing well too for me, making big red orange fruits. I think they would be great for fried green tomatoes because they are so meaty. 

Japanese Black Trifele (anyone know how to pronounce that?) is Paul's favorite so far. Wow, what flavor. I have gotten 6 tomatoes from the plant so far, and the new fruit is a long way from ripe. This is them, below - they have a nice mahogany brown color when fully ripe, and delicious complex flavor. 

Porter are awfully pretty and uniform. They look like pink eggs, weigh about 2 ounces, and have a good flavor. I am saving seed from them to plant again too.  Look how attractive they are in the two photos below!  They are producing to beat the band. 

Henderson Pink Ponderosa is doing great for me and I like them. They are a nice size, uniform and attractive. 

When you don't spray for bugs, the bugs do share the produce. This photo below shows different problems my tomatoes have - not many fruit have these issues, but a few.

The big Brandywine or Cherokee Purple (I have never see either - help is welcome) with green shoulders is one the grasshoppers have been snacking on. See how they kind of "mowed" along it?  That portion can be cut off and we can still eat the tomato but no one would want to pay for it.

To the left of it, in the top center, is a Pink Ponderosa that some kind of caterpillar or grub has drilled into - just as they have done to the Homestead tomato on the far left and the little cherry tomato.  These have to be thrown away because the damage inside is far greater than the damage outside. I don't even bother trying to "save" these fruits.

The white papery patch on the big Rutgers is sunscald. Although I let my plants sprawl, some are still exposed to constant sun, and it has been in the 90s all week. I don't see this on every variety, but perhaps these large fruits are more sensitive for some reason.

Yeeecccch. Enough of ugly tomatoes. Here is a prettier picture to end with, These gorgeous Costoluto Genovese are ripening...

I am mixing the varieties all together when canning, just using whatever is ripe to fill quart jars. That way I can put up two or three quarts at a time instead of trying to hold them. I am doing a water bath using my stock pot with a small rack, instead of my canner. Since I have a smooth top range, this works well for me.  

Remember to follow the instructions at the National Center for Home Food Preservation in ALL of your canning methods to be sure you are preserving safely. PickYourOwn.org also has a lot of great recipes and instructions.  Both are linked  from my sidebar, over to the right.  I don't get anything for recommending these - it is important that we learn how to look after ourselves in safe ways so that we feel completely confident in our own knowledge and ability.