How I spent my Saturday morning

Making JAM!

24 cups of crushed berries
16 cups of sugar
6 cups of water
6 boxes of SureJell pectin
Lots of LOVE

Mmmmm strawberry freezer jam for a year! Yes Sue some is for you :) and Jsue I am returning your two jars with jam in them :) best way to return jars in my opinion.

New Recipes

We made pizza the other night with friends.
It was OH so good.

BBQ Chicken with caramelized onions
Tomato, mozzarella w/ fresh basil.
Pioneer Woman's potato, leek and BACON pizza.

Even with me burning the crusts a bit... they were awesome.  I need to experiment with pizza more often.

I could seriously eat pizza almost every night of my life.  With thai food the nights in between.  Sigh.... YUM.

saturday in the country

Steve split and stacked wood.
All day.

So me and the boys did some other things to occupy ourselves.
We walked to the hardware store from the bridge. 
Actually Olaf, Serenity, and Micah rode their little run bikes while Christie, Donna, myself and my mom walked behind them, carrying the little babies.  And on the way back Olaf had to be carried too because apparently his endurance isn't that of his cousins :)  But we all had a good time out in the rain, even Forest and Kyler who both (blessedly) slept the whole time.

After lunch somehow both the boys ended up sleeping at the same time - yeah!  So I made applesauce, as shown below.

Does anyone else ever use these apple peeler/corer/slicer doodads?  They are AMAZING.  I want one, badly.  This one is my mothers.  I borrow it sometimes in the fall because it makes anything with large quantities of apples so much easier.  I swear we'd eat more apple pies if I had one.  (Hint hint mom, Sue.... Christmas... just sayin')

Nevermind the particle board countertop... we'll get our concrete one installed one of these days...

Since Wenatchee calls themselves the "Apple Capital of the World", we always have lots of places to get apples in the fall during harvest time.  They used to export more apples than any other place in the world, and do hold the world record for largest apple pie ever baked, but I think Japan is beating them in apple exports now.  That's okay with me.  There are still PLENTY of apples to go around.  Not to mention pears and cherries.

My applesauce recipe is this:  Put all cut up apples in a pot with some water to keep it from burning.  Bring to boil.  Turn down to simmer for like 1/2 hour, stirring every 5 minutes or so.  Put in the blender and pulse a few times until smoother.  Voila!  I don't add any sugar.  These apples were Fujis from Mom and Dad's tree, so they were already pretty sweet.

I just love making things to eat to put in the freezer.  This is my third batch made!  Although batch 2 didn't count because I sort of forgot I was making it, and burned it to the pan so badly it took steel wool, hours of scrubbing, and my sister in law's mom Donna to get it all off the pan.  Needless to say that batch didn't quite work out.  I am just thankful our precious All-Clad cookware survived.  I can't afford it again without a wedding registry.

Fire in the fireplace was nice too.

All in all a good day.

now we're talking...

Tonight, for the first time, I used some of the beef we purchased (1/4 of a cow) to make dinner!  I mean, seriously, I hardly ever cook during the work week, so this is exciting.  Olaf and I mostly subsist on leftovers from the weekend, mac and cheese, pizza, and relatives taking pity on us and inviting us to supper (thanks Mom and Christie...).  It is just so un-inspiring to cook for just myself, since the chances of Olaf eating whatever I put in front of him are only in the 50% range, it's all for me and then I end up eating it for like 4 days straight.  BORING. 

And try as I might I just can't get Olaf to just put the food in his mouth if he doesn't like the look of it.  I mean seriously.  I have tried force (no good), tricks (no good), bribes (no good) and talking logic to him (no good).  The thing is, he actually understands that this is dinner, and he can't have anything else, but he is happy to just say "All done mommy, please scuse table mommy."  And he'll be just fine until breakfast with no food in his belly.  Sigh.  So... back to the subject at hand.  I cooked!


I knew it was going to be good when I opened the white paper labeled "stir fry" and saw a bunch of super red colored meat with (Kendra shut your ears) blood still on it.  I am not going to lie, I don't much like the sight of blood either, but I do like knowing that the meat is that fresh to be that lovely red!  After sizzling it up with not a single spice, I snitched a piece and boy did it have flavor!  I may be hooked on this grass fed Yakima valley beef thing. 

Then I simply grilled up some peppers and onion in the same pan, added the meat back in, and tossed in the good old McCormick seasoning and voila, fajitas for me!  I am sure there are better spice mixes out there but I have to give it to good old McCormick.  It never fails to come through for me. 

mmmm, supper.

So anyway, if you are ever wondering how exciting my life is... cooking dinner is enough of a storyline for me to blog about :)  I pretty much rock.

PS.  I even got the cheeseball to eat some steak, cheese and tortilla.  Success!

who would'a thought...

So I am tired.
This is a daily event after getting off work, running errands, picking up Olaf, going home, feeding him, cleaning him, pj's, bottle, brush teeth and story.
I actually don't mind - I love getting things done, and love getting Olaf supper and ready for bed.

Usually I am too lazy to cook a nutritious (translation: any type of) meal for myself unless Steve is home.
But tonight I was inspired by non other than McDonalds... WHAT?

I am combining:

Baked dino chicken nuggets. (They are seriously good)
Lettuce from my garden.
Ranch Dressing.
Tortilla.

Sound familiar? Delicious and sorta low calorie snack wrap here I come!