What's For Dinner? Not Much!!

 Good Morning!

It's later than normal for me, I know.  The title of this post refers to last night.  Just as I was getting ready to cook up some dinner (really simple - fried clams [from a box], some tater tots and creamed spinach) our power went off.  And stayed off.

We were in the midst of the remnants of Hurricane Ida and boy did we get a ton of rain.  At one point our rain gauge was only showing a quarter of an inch.  About half an hour later it was at 2"!  And on and on.  Our back yard was like a lake...or rather several lakes and ponds with rivers flowing between.  Our gravel driveway now has a huge gully in it that I will have to be very careful to avoid when I back up.

Overall we ended up with about 5" of rain.  A town not that far away and near my office got 10"!!  There were many, many tornadoes around us, but thankfully not right over us.  Our power was off for 3+ hours and then again was off in the middle of the night.  When I got up, my alarm clock said 5:30, but it was actually after 7 a.m. (I thought it was unusually light for 5:30 - LOL).  My office is without power and they don't expect that back on till around 11 this evening.  It's a mess.

But...we are safe.

So, dinner last night was not much.  LOL  I had some cheese with crackers.  Fletch had a few cold leftovers from the frig.  I did have wine.  I was bored...it was dark and stormy and no lights, so no reading, no knitting or stitching.  Even our house phone was out.  I ended up talking with my little brother in CO (cell phone).

The power came back on in a vague way around 9:00.  Only the LED lights in the kitchen came on and they were dim.  Finally later full power was restored (only to go out again while I slept).

Dinner tonight should be better.  I thawed out some home-made sauce with hot and sweet sausage in it and will roast a giant spaghetti squash from our neighbor.  I'm hoping/planning to get to making the candied jalapenos today...if work is quiet...so I thought I would share my recipe for that with you all.

Candied Jalapenos

• 1 lb of jalapeno peppers
• 2/3 C apple cider vinegar
• 2 C sugar
• Juice of 2 limes
• 1 head of garlic

Core the peppers (wear gloves) and slice into 1/4" rounds

Peel the garlic

Heat the vinegar, sugar and lime juice.  Bring to a boil and then simmer for 20 minutes

Add the cut up peppers and garlic cloves.

Bring back to a boil for 5 minutes.

Put peppers and garlic in jars.  Cool syrup another 5 minutes and then pour over the peppers.

Process in a water bath for 10 minutes.

These are delicious!  They have a little heat, but toned down a bit with all the sugar.  Great on salads or just snacking on out of the jar!  The 4 dozen jalapenos I picked weighed in at just about 2 pounds, so I will be doubling this recipe.  

Hope everyone who was in Ida's path is safe.  We are almost at the (long) weekend and that makes me happy!!