My family’s cherry tree did SUPER well this year. The cousins had their fill of eating off the tree, my dad got two full pies and I ended up with a gallon of fresh ripe fruit. They are just soooo pretty!
I don’t really have the time to make pie or jam right this minute so I decided to wash, pit and measure out the fruit so that I can deposit all this into the freezer for another day.
Each bag contains 4 cups (and a little) of pitted fruit. I may make one pie and one batch of jam? For now these can cool their heels in the freezer until I have the time and brain space to deal with this.
Our garden has been a little slow this year with unseasonably cool spring that immediately shifted to boiling hot summer. Everything is plodding along but we picked our first produce, a very health zucchini!
I should have a second squash in a week or so. Our yellow squash plant is not far behind but it has more blooms that is spreading out the resources of the plant. Our tomatoes are LONG way from producing. I guess we will have to be patient, lol.
The summer garden season is upon us and I needed to clean out my freezer from last year’s tomatoes. I had four bags that were a mix of roma and summer slicers. I got the skins off and thawed out into pots. By 10 am, I had one pot of bubbling tomato water.
By the end of the day, I had half a pot of luscious tomato sauce. I used my immersion blender to smooth out the sauce. I didn’t screen out the seed so there are still some spots. But I mixed in some garlic, onion, salt and pepper to season my red sauce.
The family enjoyed half of this made into tomato soup for grilled cheese sandwiches and the second half is slated for spaghetti sauce. I CAN’T wait!
My spinning mojo has really caught fire. After starting some singles out of 100% Romney last week, I spent all day Saturday playing outside with the kids and finishing the singles. I let them rest overnight and played the “mother’s day card” so I could drink wine and ply my yarn.
I really enjoy using my tensioned Kate. It helps prevent overspinning and having the singles fold back on themselves. The wine doesn’t hurt either!
The chaos continues and I decided to take some time out for me this past weekend. My kids were visiting family and I had the TV to myself. It was glorious!
This self care session was brought to you by a class of red blend wine, some lavender scented candles and my Paintbox Socks, Take Two. The tubes are all done except for the afterthought heels. I did pause for a second to think “should I really be cutting my knitting while drinking wine” and then did it anyway!.
The hubs and I have been completely ignoring the garden assuming it was done for the summer. And we happened to poke around the foliage and found some surprise tomatoes!
We did know our pepper plants were doing well. We are still harvesting occasional poblanos, lots of jalapenos and some super hot habaneros.
I really really love all the different shades of color we are getting. I think I’m going to let these babies go until first frost, fingers crossed!
My garden is on its last legs but we are still getting some decent veggies. Last night’s picking included some tomatoes, poblanos and jalapenos.
My tomatoes are HUGE and none are smaller than my fist, lol.
Right now we are just cooking what we need for recipes and freezing the rest. I think Jellybean wants to try to make ketchup at some point. But that can be a good mid-winter boredom project.
The apple harvest continues! This time Jellybean and the husband talked me into apple pie. I must really love them because I spent SO MUCH time cutting and pealing apples.
I haven’t made a fruit pie since I was in high school so I was a little rusty. But what it lacked in beauty it made up for in flavor. At least according to my family. I don’t like fruit pies myself.
Next up Jellybean has requested we make apple butter. So the apple adventures look to be continuing, lol.
Our apple tree is giving us a bountiful harvest this year! I have a daily ritual of picking the ripe apples every evening (and raking/scooping the fallen ones into the trash). I finally had a refrigerator bin full so the kiddos and I made jelly!
After A TON of cutting and de-bugging I ended up with two instant pots full of beautiful red apples. The tree was here when we moved in so we have no clue what kind they are. We just call them red apples, lol.
We painstakingly drained and filtered the apples for most of the morning. That left us with enough juice for three full batches of jelly.
And the apply flesh/pulp the kids and I ran through the food mill to make apple sauce. I’m not a fan of applesauce but PB and Jellybean gobbled it up!
Safe to say our winter stores are good to go for jelly. No doubt some of this will end up in Christmas gifts!
About a day after American Thanksgiving I found myself staring at the fridge full of leftovers. And for whatever reason I felt a surge of creativity. Maybe it was the small gathering and zoom meeting hangover? So I pulled all the bits and bobs of Thanksgiving and started creating.
I decided on a “pot pie” like construction. I used the extra crust leftover from the 2-pack I got for pumpkin pie. I filled the pie pan and then in a separate bowl I mixed green bean casserole, a dollop of mashed potatoes, a little bit of turkey gravy and a healthy dose of diced smoked turkey.
I baked that for about 20 minutes and then pulled it out of the oven to crumble the last little bit of stuffing we had and cooked for another 15 or 20 minutes. It came out gorgeous looking!
Oh my lawwwwdddd….. and it was delicious too. It was creamy and hearty and tasted like the parts of your thanksgiving plate where your different foods touch. I threw in some leftover hot rolls with jelly and had the best dinner ever. And best yet? I literally finished off three whole containers of leftovers instead of letting them sit and get thrown out!
I am considering keeping more pie crusts on hand throughout the year. I feel like there is a whole world of untapped potential for leftovers cooked in this manner. I could do quiche with leftover roasted veg or even spicy taco pot pie with bean, meat and cheese. As long as my family indulges me…this might be staple “recipe” for us!
My Tangled Yarn Knitting Adventures 