Produce

 
Last Saturday we went to a U-Pick farm. As been evidenced by previous entries you will see we're a fan of this. Most of the stuff I froze but yesterday I tried my hand at making jalapeno jelly for the first time. I should retrace my steps a bit because I also made pesto and although I am going to put caterpillars and basil in the same entry, please do not fear! Yesterday morning before school the girls helped me look for caterpillars that were eating my basil. We captured a few and put them in a terrarium along with the nibbled leaves. We're going to try to watch them grow. Jacie helped me rinse off the leaves REALLY well and put them in the salad spinner (new favorite toy for the kids as of late).

After I dropped the kids off at school I made the jalapeno jelly. The story is not about the process of making it though, the story unfolds a little bit later. That afternoon before Blake went to his what he declared "Christmas" party (Fantasy Football Draft), I was telling him how a couple of my fingers felt warm. Later on that evening my whole hand was hot. I was starting to let my mind go crazy, "Am I having a stroke?" "Am I imagining this?" So I decided to look it up. I Googled "Why does my right hand feel hot?" Right away there were a few hits about sensitivity to capsaicin. It made a lot of sense. I soaked my hands, because by this time both my hands were hot, in a bowl of cold heavy whipping cream (being raised Dutch, I knew I couldn't just use a bowl of perfectly good milk for this. I knew my heavy whipping cream was seeing it's last days of life so I opted for that instead, besides one response was using fat so I thought if milk helps, cream should be better). They still felt hot after I removed them so I then Googled, "How long will the burning last?" and saw that it could last up to 8 or 12 hours. After wading through many home remedies on the internet (oil, lemon juice, bleach) I saw rubbing alcohol. I figured that would be ok on skin so I tried that. It wasn't immediate relief but after another hour or so the heat dissipated. Lesson to be learned: Wear gloves when cutting peppers.