Rescue food

Handsome Son visited yesterday, and  brought over a bag of organic, fancy chips, vinegar flavor, which turned out to be waaaay too salty, in case I could use them.

So I offered to crush them, bread chicken with them, bake, and see how it worked. Very well, as it happened.

This is one section of then. Two more lots in the freezer.

Used as the only seasoning, the chips mellowed down to very good. As you see, they were very crackly and couldn't reduce to crumbs. So they're crunchy and very good.

He'll come over when I'm over this cold and have time and energy to make a fruit crumble, with apples from the farm, and we'll address it all together.

This is supposed to be a sick day. I've baked a raft of chicken, rescued herbs from drying up outside, taken out the garbage, brought in the mail, finished a stitching project and cleaned the stovetop.

Aside from that, I've just been loafing about.  It's evening now and I'm definitely taking the rest of the day off.

9.11

Vicks plant, cutting from friend's garden, flourished last summer in my garden, then caught and felled by an early frost.

Except for one tiny leaf. Which I tended indoors over the winter, put outside this year, and it's now almost as big as the parent, and doing well.

I brought it indoors early this year. Today, in fact.

It seems appropriate.

It must be Fall, there's brambles

Local farm grown known hereabouts as blackberries, but to me they're brambles. Local farm Honeycrisp apples.

First crumble of the Fall. Bramble and apple. Fruit macerated days ago and frozen ready. Oatmeal topping, which I ground today and chucked in whole oatmeal flakes too. Molasses and just a bit of white sugar. Butter to bind the crumble.

Afternoon tea on a cool rainy day. Crumble with plain yogurt. English breakfast tea.

Continuing mystery why people don't cook for one. Some for neighbors, for handsome son if he visits, to have a little something in the afternoon, to freeze for later.  All fresh ingredients, because I'm worth it.

Back to watching Grantchester now. Rewatching.

Major highway, aka Autumn Joy sedum

This season, the sedum is heaving with bees, several species, all kinds of other insects, several kinds of butterflies.

Here's  one of my favorites, a dusky swallowtail, a ragged old guy whose wings have seen better days. He's spent most of the morning on this sedum.

Walking is happening again

Now that the weather is cooler, 70sf, I can get out and walk for my half hour daily meander. Everything feels better when I can get out without risking heatstroke.

Bit of gardening, deadheading, pulled an armload of daylily foliage, and observed, outside the fence, this hardy soul.

The pansies bloomed from April to August through all the heatwaves, undeterred, then when they finally wilted, I put the pot outside the fence for the winter. And now she seems to be saying hey, not so fast!

Brown butterflies around, too, I've forgotten what they are for the moment.

And a great half hour walk, mostly on grass, some sidewalk, past groups of families putting kids on the bus for their first day. New shoes, backpacks, grandparents, parents, dogs, everyone seeing them off.

Funny how for the rest of your life, September is about going back to school. Even when you are only an innocent bystander, which I'm happy to be. Not even teaching a workshop, despite strenuous efforts to get me to.  Just doing what I feel like.

Wheeeee!!