Work of Our Hands

Although we weren't able to put in a garden this year, we have gotten the chance to do some canning. I didn't get to make pickles or barbecue sauce this year, but we picked fruit several times and made lots of jam: blueberry, black raspberry, and sour cherry. Surprisingly, to us, the sour cherry is our favorite. Neither of us had ever tasted a sour cherry, but we thought we'd make some jam anyhow. . .and we are SO glad we did! Oh, yum!

Freshly picked and washed blueberries. I love how they look
against my favorite gold colander!

Black raspberry jam - yum!

Blueberry jam - so good!

Michele and I ending our afternoon of picking with a
sour cherry pitting session. It was her idea to pit cherries
on the futon. Thank goodness that cover is washable!!

Freshly pitted cour cherrie - so pretty!

Sour cherry jam and canned sour cherries. The canned cherries
are amazing warm and over homemade vanilla ice cream - oh yum!!

Accidental Hiatus

Well, I've accidentally taken a five-week hiatus from my blog. Life has been so good, but so busy! Well, to make it up to you, over the next five days, I'll share five things I've been doing over the last five weeks.

1. Picking peaches - OH SO FUN! I picked two baskets of peaches and had a ball doing it!

A tisket, a tasket, lovely peaches in a basket . . .or two



The trees were full of beautiful fruit

2. Canning peaches and making peach butter. I brought home a lot of peaches and was very excited to try my hand at canning them. Well, peeling that many peaches took FOREVER - I tried dipping them in boiling water and then slipping off the peels, but that didn't work for me. But I canned bunches the day I picked them and the next day I made the rest into peach butter. YUM!


freshly washed peaches



Pretty cans of peaches lined up like soldiers

3. Auctioned off two quilted wallhangings at my church fundraiser - fun and a great cause!

I really loved making these and watching the ladies go ga-ga over them at the auction!

4. Took some "before" pictures of my bathroom. You may recall that when Michele went out on the road I ripped up the floor. . . and then never touched it again. Well, I've been working with my beloved handy lady Lisa Golden to renovate the room.

The bathtub doubled as a landing pad for the paint and supplies



Bathroom sans vanity and toilet - can you really call it a bathroom?

5. Began the weeks-long effort of painting the "bricks" on the embossed wallboard on the lower half of the bathroom walls. I think by color #2 I was cursing myself for thinking of doing this. By color #9, I was no longer on speaking terms with whoever's bright idea THIS was.

First pass with colors 1-6

More on the past five weeks tomorrow! Thanks and it's great to be back!

Canning Addiction

Sweet pickle spears - oh yum!

Absolutely the most divine bbq sauce

Pickled tomatos - so pretty!

Salsa and hiding behind in the quart
jars is roasted roma tomatos

I've become addicted to canning. It's just so fun that I can't stop myself. Last Friday, I made sweet pickle spears, roasted roma tomatos and garlic, and salsa. Saturday morning I made pickled cherry tomatos with garlic and rosemary. And Sunday afternoon, Michele and I made barbecue sauce. I just love the whole process from planting to harvesting to preparing to cooking to canning to enjoying the fruits of my labor! This weekend I have a craft show to visit (not vending just supporting friends), our church picnic, another church event tomorrow, and I'd like to wedge some canning in there tomorrow afternoon. I don't even know what I want to can, but it will probably be variety #4/5 of pickles (I've already made bread and butter, garlic dill, sweet pickle spears, and relish (though I don't know if that counts as a pickle variety, hence the 4/5)). I plan to do either kosher dill or a zesty sweet - I'm really leaning towards a zesty sweet this week and a potential kosher dill next week if I can harvest more pickling cukes. Like I said, it's an addiction!

A Simple, Garden-Grown Meal

A delicious, simple, garden-grown meal!

I don't always take pictures of my meals, though it seems that I do throughout the summer when that meal is made up of garden fare. This meal was very fun. I made mini grilled cheese sandwiches with tomatoes from our garden and asiago cheese. I paired it with a pickle slice I made from a recipe a friend sent me - oh yum! - and some tomato slices that didn't fit in the sandwiches. It was a simple, fun, and fresh meal for a lovely Sunday afternoon.

The pickles we so fun to make and they came out so crisp and delicious. The recipe is from a very popular local restaurant to which Michele and I have never been, but we always mean to go. It's a barbecue place, but I think they have something vegetarian. Regardless, their pickles recipe creates a divine pickle!

Dinosaur BBQ Garlic Dill Pickles