Fall doings at The Country Chick Ranch Preserving and sprucing things up

Fall is in the air! Even if it isn’t registering on the thermometer yet. But the garden has been providing a bounty of fall produce, and I’ve been scrambling to keep up. Here’s what we’ve been up to this past week at the place.

We had a bumper crop of Napa cabbage so I’ve been making Korean kimchi. I love Korean food, and when I drive to LA, I love to stop at my favorite restaurant where they serve little dishes of the most amazing pickled veggies alongside the best grilled meats ever.. If you ever are shopping at Mood Fabrics in LA, and hankering for some Korean BBQ, go down to Wilshire and make a left. Go about two blocks until you see Genwa Korean BBQ. You won’t regret it. I had to really hunt down the ingredients for this kimchi. Let me tell you, finding Korean red pepper powder and salted Korean shrimp is NOT easy around these parts. That’s a blog post in itself.

But it’s sooo good! I used this recipe to make it.

Next up , I’ll be making pickles from our homegrown cucumbers today! I’m trying Alton Brown’s recipe. It looks very promising. That there is a German pickling crock. Very serious piece of equipment there.

Last night I roasted these butternut squashes from the garden and used a rather bland recipe with sage and apples to make a big vat of soup everyone was ‘meh” about. With burnt grilled cheese sandwiches. Next time, I’ll add some curry powder to do Richard’s beautiful squashes justice. The poor things did not deserve to end up in a bland soup!

Richard got a new old truck. This will look great at the pumpkin patch. I’m envisioning a photo op . I’ll have to make something.

On the decorating side , I’m working on some slipcovers in natural linen to replace these past their prime , stained, and beat up ones. They were once white, but I dyed them unsuccesfully, and they are a mottled mess.

Gigi will be moving into her own room and out of my little back room. I’m thinking this old bed would make a nice extra one to have in the room for sleepovers when she or Lily has friends over. But it will be awhile yet, before Gigi has sleepovers. I’ll have to make my own mattress, since the bed is an old twin one, and they don’t make mattresses in it’s size anymore. It’s really narrow.

This one has been causing all sorts of trouble practically digging up the whole yard. I’ll have to make her a bed too. since it will be getting cold at night and we’ll need to bring her in.

And hopefully we’ll finish this deck one of these days.

And thanks to those of you who offered your support about my messy house post a few weeks ago. I’ve been working hard to keep things tidy and it’s starting to show! Well, maybe not at this moment….