Linda and LunR, Great advice, everyone! Linda, Thanks for clarifying about the light! bulbs. I've decided to get light fixtures for plants I want to display in my living room. I will probably look on line at the places you suggest. The Tokyo trip must have been fantastic!! Thanks for the tip about cinnamon, as I am getting ready to perform surgery. In having a "violet talk" with a friend today, I learned that her sister lost most of her collection to a bug. Someone had given her a plant she did not isolate that infected the lot. She has disinfected, and is ready to replace. I offered to pass along some of my back-ups and plantlets. This is incentive for me to don my surgical scrubs to go after any suckers, etc., as they will go to a home in need. One more question for today, does it happen that a plant with double or triple petals might result in a single or sem-double blossom from leaf propagation? I know that the colors might not have the full range as the parent. We were discussing whether leaf propagation might affect petal count, also. She commented that her plants "like to be crowded and grow two or three in a pot." I am trying to think of a tactful way to address this issue. Perhaps I can offer a free grooming session. Rain keeps Californians from going out. It is amusing for those of us from rainy climates. They also are amazed when they do go to a wet climate and see people walking around with umbrellas! They must think they are African violets, afraid to get their leaves wet! I am discovering Violet Friends are lots of fun to talk to. (Or perhaps we all just have undiagnosed OCD.) @ LunR Gorgeous ring, and a fun design! Joanne

It maybe a bit out of sequence (sorry utahs.f.) but I keep meaning to post my experiences this season with apple butter, which is highly popular around here. I used Roma apples - roughly chopped, wormy bits (few) removed, and enough to fill a 3 gal stock pot, stems, seeds, skin and all. Added a couple cups of water and simmered on low until soft, 2-3 hours. Let that cool overnight, then I ran it all through the tomato strainer, resulting in a thick applesauce, seeds, skin, and stems removed. I ladled all that out (approx two gallons)and used the dehydrator to make fruit leather. Started another batch of chopped apples in the stock pot. The next morning, the leather was done, the chopped apples cooked and cooled, so I made apple sauce from that, tore up the sheets of fruit leather, and added brown sugar, cinnamon, and a bit of lime juice and put the whole thing in the 2+ gal crock pot. Turned it on 'high' until it started to blurble, turned it on low. It was all done, deep brown and so thick a fork would stand up in it, that evening, 7 hours later. Yield was 13 pints. So, I dunno, I still used a lot of electricity, with simmering the stock pot twice for a total of 6 hours, 14 hours of food dehydrator, and another 7 hours of crock pot. Pretty good stuff, though. We did this twice, used about 2 bushels of apples, and ended up with 30 pints. It seemed to me that cooking the peels and all made for lots of pectin, which thickened it up. It was really easy to run it all through the strainer, only took a few minutes. Making fruit leather with half of it kept the intense apple flavor, which went back into the final result. I think we'll do this the next time as well.

Hello Lissa, Welcome to the forum. I think you'll like it here. I hope your family's pressure canner is usable. Most pressure canners have long, long lives. It's just a matter of checking and sometimes replacing an inexpensive part or two, as long as it's a common brand. I included a link to Bejay's earlier post. She was asking about citrus pectin, but I provided a comparison to apple pectin, which is more common. Certainly you can make your own. Apples are easily available and make excellent pectin stock. Some people make a strong stock; some make apple jelly, which can then be used as regular jelly or can be used with other fruits to help them jell. If you look around the forum you'll find lots of interesting threads. When you have a question, just ask away. Carol Here is a link that might be useful: Using and Preserving Natural Pectin

Ksal again welcome to the Cooking Forum! You life doesn't sound like chaos to me, it sounds like you're very considerate of the kinds of foods you eat and your kid. You sound pretty well organized. I'm no toddler, but due to not being able to find work closer, I have an hour commute and I come home starving so the sooner I can get dinner on the table the better for me. That way I can spend more time eating and savoring. Weekend cooking is my real savior. Soup is a great thing to get a toddler started--with fun crackers. Plus some chopped up veggies and dip. I often munch on baked tortilla chips and black bean salsa dip while prepping dinner. Also toasted nut mix and maybe a piece of cheese or small dish of cottage cheese. Most of my friends with toddlers I see making simplified versions of mom and dad's meal. Toddlers have much smaller tummies so they eat less but more often, and are often sick with a runny nose and don't always have the tolerance for the heavy and spicy foods that grownups do. Sometimes yes, I know my friend's daughter loves salty greek olives and I loved smoked oysters and braunschweiger as a kid! But a fruit cup and cottage cheese or a PB&J on whole grain bread are fine starters too. Nothing wrong with good ol' spaghetti O's. There are more healthful versions of instant kiddie foods out there now, in some of the higher end markets. I sometimes buy little chicken drumsticks and bake them with barbecue sauce on the weekends and them have them for quick protein during the week. Check out the homeade applesauce thread. You could make your own applesauce and can it up in little jars that would make a good starter for your toddler. My brother lived on hot dogs, cottage cheese and applesauce as a kid. And a lot of milk. The only veggie he would eat was green peppers, so mom always had some gp sticks on hand to serve him. To this day he still like plain individualized foods. If I had a toddler like him, I would make stuff up on the weekends and freeze it in those little plastic freezer cups--mashed squash, mashed potatoes, baked sweet potatoes. I think I remember reading that if you add cream cheese to mashed potatoes they freeze well. I buy the lowfat stuff.