debrafrederick's Journal, 28 April 2016

What we have here is 4.1 lbs of onions fresh out of my garden and there are about 100 pounds drying as we speak. I spend 45-50 bucks every season buying Vidalia Onions when they hit the stores, won't have to this year!!! YeeeHaa!!!!! 

Ahhhhhh I ditched the planned BBq pork loin menu and went with Beef liver and onions instead, had a side of the Cauliflower "Potato" Salad....it was all oh soooo good, caramelized the onions in some butter then topped it with with slices of uncoated beef liver and let it simmer for a bit. That's good eats right there! The Cauliflower "Potato" Salad was quite good too, not quite like true potato salad, but excellent in it's own way and quite satisfying too. I'm stuffed!  

nice 

Your onions sound awesome! I know you guys are proud of your crop!! Your dinner sounds delicious, too. Good eating there!! Glad you enjoyed the cauli-potato salad. I think it is just as good. 

Mom I am just so thrilled that we can grow those huge tasty onions, in the picture, the 4 large onions are right at one pound each, the ones still drying in the garden make them look small. The smaller ones dry quicker so we got to have these before the others were ready. The way to tell when they are ready to pull. The stalk will fold over and lie on the ground, then you pull them out of the ground and leave them lying there until the stalk dries up and gets crunchy, all the juice from the stalks pulls back into the onion bulb. Crunchy stalk = onion - ready to eat or store. This is the first successful crop. Trial and error as we learn what NOT to do. Thomas Edison failed 1,000 times inventing the first light bulb. We will not give this up! 

Oh that is good information, Debra. I know nothing about onions and I planted 150 of them. LMAO!! It was a kit I got from Sam's Club, I think. I had no idea there were so many in the bag. There were Shallots, Red, Yellow, and White. Later I saw sweet onions at Lowes. I think I have enough planted now .. but they made me think of yours. These say they will be ready August or September. The ground was to be at least 50 degrees before planting. I hope I didn't jump the gun and plant these too early. So far the nights are not below that. *fingers crossed* I am going to have to figure out where to store all of this or give them away. How long do they last when stored? 

I'm happy for you. Until your posts, I didn't know it was all about magic dirt. I won't buy anything but sweet onions these days. 

if you keep them in a cool (35-40) degree place away from light they should keep for about a year. We have an old chest freezer that has a thermostat that will let us simply refrigerate instead of freezing. Put them in recycled walmart produce boxes with holes cut in them and stack inside the freezer. That is the plan anyway, we will see how it goes! 

That is a great idea. I thought about putting them in our barn but they would freeze in the winter.  

Mmm...tasty 

My onion binge last night spiked my carbs up over 20, not a lot, but still, I know that if I keep it over 20 I will start to gain weight. I will have to moderate my onion feasts :) 

Ha! If you can keep them for one year, no hurry to eat them all up. ;) 

Yeah, you wouldn't think there was so many carbs in onions. I must admit I wasn't even counting them, then one day I went to log French onion soup (without the bread on top) and boy was I in for a big surprise.  

So very good! 

You are doing great! Okay, onions confuse me. Everywhere I look there are different carb counts on different onions and I don't believe any of them at this point. (Guess I'll just use yellow onions for onion soup) 

I have noticed that there are varied carb counts for different types of onions, with so many lies in the food labels it's hard to trust any of them. FS food database has sweet onions and green onions at 7.55 carbs per 100 grams weight. While red onions have 10.7 carbs per 100 grams weight and the same for just the category "onions". I would weigh them just to be more accurate. My idea of medium and someone elses idea of medium are most likely two different things. 

I find it difficult sometimes that FS database has so much prepared food and or brand names, especially for vegetables. I have a copy of Corinne Netzer's Food Counts and check in with it from time to time to try to correlate her numbers (from USDA) with the FS database. In actuality, I bet the food count numbers are about 95% accurate because what we eat comes from living things that experience varying conditions in their lifespans.  

I now use Dietgrail dot com to find out what I want to know. They have an amazing compilation of foods. 

I guess if I was trying to be 100% precise it might matter a little more, but due to the fact that I have a very flexible WOE, the variations don't really make much difference. If I indulge a bit and hit 30 carbs in one day it's still a win...back in the old days I would be scarfing down between 200-250 g daily and think nothing of it, and that may be under-estimating it a lot. Simply the fact that I am aware and I have a reasonable knowledge of carb counts is a total win. We all want to see the pounds drop off faster, of course we do, but baby we are in this for the long haul. I don't see my goal weight as a destination, it's simply a mile post on the way to healthy living. This does not stop at my goal weight, it continues on for the rest of my life because otherwise I will be right back in here with a weight problem and poor health. I have to rein in my impatience, my urge for instant gratification. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make myself and everyone else healthy and happy. Since I can't do that, I will keep logging on FS, tracking my food and providing encouragement to the other travelers on this long road. 

Well- said, Debrnafredrick!!!