The yard has been weeded and seeded. The apple trees have been harvested. The shrubs and tree limbs are trimmed back. And the patio is now clean. All that is left is to wait for gentle fall rains and grass growing. Then the leaves will begin to change and fall and we will have a whole new set of chores to get this house ready for winter.
For now we celebrate the last bits of summer with wine and a good reading…
Puppy snuggles….
Weanie roasts and smores….
Happy Saturday!!!
My family has always grown a HUGE garden. The tomatoes set and produced like gangbusters this year. I have been dying to put up some homemade salsa and tomato sauce. I use so much sauce in my crock pot recipes and the hubby eats salsa by the gallon. But the problem is that I didn’t know how to can either of those.
So over Labor Day weekend, my Grandma and Aunt Janice offered to teach me. It was SOOO much work but it was awesome! I love making stuff in my Grandma’s kitchen. It reminds me of being a kid again.
Start with the freshest tomatoes a garden can produce. Remove skins and seeds leaving only the yummy pulp and juice…
Pick some yummy green chilies and throw on the grill…
Roast until toasty and blistery and sweat until skins come off…
Take tomato goodness and cook down until you have thick saucy goodness…
Season with yummy veggies and spices and pour into jars and process until sealed tight!
In 13 hours (over two days with many helping hands) I was able to make 14 pints of tomato and roasted chili salsa and 17 pints of tomato sauce. My cupboard is so happy now!!! I can’t wait to savor these goodies in the winter when everything is cold and dreary.
Remember my apple trees? Well it’s harvest time…
I now have two five gallon buckets of apples. And I only picked half of one tree!!! There are a few gems in there but mostly they are all covered in worm/bug/bird marks. It’s going to take a lot to dice and clean these babies up. For now they are bathed and chilling in my fridge.
My question is now what? What you guys make with all these green apples? My leading preservation options are:
– apple butter
– apple sauce
– apple pie filling
Anything else sound good?
My apple trees are coming along nicely. My summer apple tree is LOADED with fruit.
My fall apple tree has less fruit but still doing reasonably well in this heat and drought.
This fall apple tree has a great deal of worm invasion and other assorted bugs crawling on it. The summer apple tree also shows some bug sign but to a lesser degree. I did some internet research and found that the local extension office recommended Sevin, an all purpose big killer for fruit trees. But now I must decide to spray or not to spray. It’s a laborious process but would increase my fruit yield. And I would introducing chemicals to my fruit.
Anyone out there have any experience on this? All advice is welcome 🙂
Mmmmmm….new potatoes and peas
Every summer right after the first hill of potatoes was dug I can remember Grandma and Grandpa making this delectable dish. It’s so simple and yummy it’s crazy. It’s just boiled potatoes covered in a garlicky white sauce and peas. I just made a quick roux and thickened some milk. I seasoned with garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
These tiny red potatoes came from our family garden. Their skin is so thin and tender. The meat of potato is soft and perfectly mealy. It tasted of home and family to me. Paired with some fried chicken the husband and I had an awesome sit down dinner last night.
It might not be the healthiest….but you gotta live once in awhile right? Does your family have any traditional summer dish?
Spending last weekend in my hometown meant a trip to the family garden! Growing up my Grandparents grew a HUGE garden every year. My Grandparents raised four teenage boys in the 60s and 70s and took up gardening to protect their grocery bill! We had beans, potatoes, corn, onions, asparagus, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, rhubarb, gooseberries, tomatoes, peppers, cherries, apples, and more I have probably forgotten. I never knew what frozen or store bought canned goods were until I went to college, lol.
Look at all the green goodness! Thanks to a mild spring and lots of rain the garden is in excellent shape. I couldn’t help snap a few pictures as I wandered the property. It was a beautiful day full of blue skies and sunshine. It was a perfect way to relax and meditate.
My Grandfather has passed and my Grandma is 80, so this garden is largely tended by my father and my uncle. I try to pitch in when I am home because that’s only fair if I share in the bounty. My plans for summer garden goodies are as follows:
On my visit I dug some new potatoes for an old family tradition of New Potatoes and Peas. I also snagged some sweet spring onions!
I plan to clean up a couple of these and dice into some stir fry tonight for dinner!
Happy Thursday!!
My parents visited last weekend to deliver our new (to-us) living room furniture.
And of course we they went shopping to pick our their new set. Not to mention my dad finally go to pick out his first cross bow (he’s avid deer hunter with a rotater cuff injury and hopefully this will get him back to a hobby he loves) and while we were at Cabelas…my husband lamented the state of our grill.
Our grill was a cheap $180 put together your self grill from when we first got married. The heat shields are rusted out. One auto ignite switch never worked. And the frame is badly in need of some spot welds. So my parents schemed and agreed to halfsies on a new grill for our wedding anniversary in June!
Can’t wait to cook on this bad boy! And we have found a good home for our old grill. The father-in-law is going to buy the old grill and fix it up for his mechanic shop so he and his employees can grill out at work!
I got the urge to bake this past weekend but I didn’t want to invest a lot of time. A Pinterest idea popped into my head, Lemon Bars
All I needed was an angel food cake mix and lemon pie filling. Easy, quick, and low maintenance!
I combined the two together in my mixer. Was a bit of a strange texture but I may not have mixed well enough in fear of over mixing.
Slipped in a 350 degree oven for 30-32 minutes. It was only slightly brown on top.
Then after cooled I cut and served with powdered sugar.
It is a very spongy cake. I wouldn’t categorize it as a bar so much. It was very lemony and not overly sweet. Tasty none the less. But next go around I think a lemon icing or glaze would punch up the sweetness to cut the tartness.
This recipe is so easy and quick it’d be great for last minute baking needs. And it’s very pretty on a plate. For a Pinterest recipe this wasn’t too bad. Not the finest I’ve ever had but I’m not one to turn down desert!
Remember awhile back when I told you about my weekend hangover? Well this weekend I had the pleasure of spending Saturday with the folks of Prairie Fire Winery at their annual spring planting.
Right smack dab in the Flint Hills of Kansas on the slope of a hill, we planted over 500 vines. I wish I could remember what variety we planted but the names where in French and I’m a Spanish kind of girl, lol.
Thems a lot of holes! I even got to take Dex. He was a great dog and didn’t even try to make a run for it. He followed us up and down the hill and charmed everyone. After five hours he was one pooped puppy!!
I had a blast. I got my hands dirty, learned about vines, sampled some wine, and hung out with good friends. Bob and Julie are truly some of the best people I have had the pleasure of meeting. And boy are they passionate about their vino!! In the past two years their wine has really started to rack up awards as well. Check out this article in winespectator.com, they made the final four!
And you can’t beat the view either!!
I have the pleasure of going to school with Bob and Julie DesRuisseaux of Prairie Fire Winery. They are two of the smartest people I know and their wine is amazing!! Last spring I helped them plant almost 600 vines on their vineyard….I was sore for a week, lol.
I decided to load up some girlfriends and go see their new store front. We also got to do a tasting…
I may or may not have come home with 2 or 6 bottles…
Then we headed off for some antiquing and browsing the old shops!
I was so enamored with all the old bits and peices that I didn’t snap many photos. I did find some tatting and other handmade bits.
The weather was warm, the wine was chilled, and the company was great. It was much needed relaxation even though I came back exhausted! Now I’m on to face Monday….with a weekend fun hangover…
May the Force be with me!
Michele plays with yarn, food, and music in Portland
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