The many, many, many-step salve

This morning I put the herbs I chose into the crock pot and I covered them with olive oil. I couldn't find any more reasons to postpone it. When I thought the herbs were sufficiently covered, it looked like I'd used about a pint and a half. Okay!

So I turned that puppy on, and then I turned it off. Not immediately, of course. If you can find a guide, they will say things like "Put the herbs and oil in the crock pot and heat on low for 3-4 hours."

Welllll, I had checked how hot it gets the other day, so I thought that would be a bad thing.

I let it run most of an hour ... which may have been too long. It smelled of hot olive oil, not of herbs (which you want) but also not of fried herbs (which you don't want), and the plants only looked saturated, not fried. Still later it smelled of cool olive oil, but everything else had remained the same.

And after I turned it off, I left it to sit most of the day. About 20 minutes or so ago, I turned it on LOW again. My timer just went off, and I went out and turned the indicator to OFF.

So I will just let it set mostly, and check the smell of it probably once a day, since I'm going back to that pesky job thing in the morning. And we shall see.

It's an experiment at this point.

Testing, testing, 1... 2... 104??

Well I plugged in my two-quart crock pot and put water in it to see how hot it gets. Five minutes ago it was 110 degrees, now it's 104. Hmmm.This is the one I plan to heat olive oil + herbs in. Hmmmmm. Is that too hot? Is that how hot it gets? Does it fluctuate?

I also divided the nocino (no-chee-no) into two separate jars. The sugar was not being taken up. And there was no headroom to shake the fluid enough to help it along. And I hadn't gotten the lemon zest in.

So before the lemons died the death on my counter in the 100+ degree heat, I wanted to use them. -- Yes, a lot of the things I do are based on how they are going to spoil before I get to use them! Sigh. *Shrug*

I divided it. It IS a pretty green. It showed when I ladled it around. It's very sticky, go figure. And it's sharp. I tasted some of the syrup left after I divvied it up: You get a sugar hit right off and then a bitter-ish green walnut taste and cinnamon right after. Seems about right. Didn't taste the clove.

Mysteriously the kitchen emitted a POP a few moments ago, the same pop you're glad to hear when you're canning and your lids are sealing. There was only one lid out there, and it's not sealed. ... Kitchen mysteries ...

After 10 minutes, the water was at 120 degrees, after twenty, 140, and after thirty, 140. Okay, we have reached our upper limit for LOW it seems. There, now my burning desire for information is satisfied. And I know it holds 5 cups of fluid easily.

Now to do some math to figure out how much herb I can stuff in there and then cover with olive oil. Visualizing my double handful of herbs, I'd say no prob. Yay!