As With All Good Evenings...

...yesterday's started off with bacon.



The Dulcinea and M were over for dinner and I had a 2lb. slab sitting in my refrigerator just waiting to be eaten. A couple pork chops and a chicken breast were thawed, seasoned, and then wrapped in bacon before being put on the grill. As dinner cooked, it was off to the backyard for more photography.

The cauliflower is coming in slowly but surely.


I spied the first chili of the year!


And there were, of course, lots of flowers.












When dinner was done, it looked like this:


For dessert it was grilled bananas. Just peel, give a douche of orange juice and Triple Sec and then grill. But not as long as I did.



It is going to be a busy late summer of canning. Dogger wants to learn how to can and, now that Old Man Standiford is a telecommuter instead of a regular commuter out of town, he's got grand designs for stocking his larder. Being home all day, he has had the time to get his garden in order. There's going to be tomato canning on a massive scale, I can tell you. This means I need to buy more quart jars. Plus Standiford's friend Kathy has vowed to turn his cucumber crop into pickles. Hot peppers will be in abundance which means I've gotta make a drying screen and get some pectin for jalapeno jelly. Plus I hope to convince Kath to make a small batch of peppery pickles. I should head to Goodwill or St. Vinnie's and invest in a pressure cooker as I'd like to can some japs as well. We've got habaneros this year so perhaps I'll whip up some jerk paste to help perk up those long winter nights. When cherries are available, I want to preserve some in bourbon or brandy again.

Yep, there's a lot of work ahead.