HA! My relaxing afternoon.

So much for being lazy for the afternoon!

I walked past the counter a few different times;  every time thinking I needed to get motivated to do something with the strawberries we picked this morning.  We simply don't have room in the fridge to store two buckets of strawberries.  Besides, tomorrow we'll be on the road up to the Farm... so I really had to do something with them TODAY.

So be it.

"GIRLS!!!! Who wants to help make jam?"

Candace was the only one who came forward;  didn't even think of snapping pictures of her working with me.  It was kinda hard for pictures anyway, because I had two batches sugaring and pectin boiling for each within 5 minutes of each other;  my hands were busy with little downtime.

Once the jam was made, I moved directly into prepping dinner:  Pork/Venison meatloaf and meatballs.  There was one more 1.5LB package of ground venison in the freezer (deer meat, for those who don't know the term venison);  mixed together with 1LB ground pork and some seasoning.... it's so close to the texture and flavor of ground beef.  So, half of it was loafed up, and the other half was balled up, browned and marinated in some home made BBQ sauce.

Between browning and stirring, dishes were done up.....

....and I had a "I-crave-something-sweet" attack.

Loads of eggs in the fridge.

Loads of strawberries in the fridge.

Any guesses???????

Angel food, of course!   However, rather than making up a cake in the classic angel food pan, I used two loaf pans.  Easier for strawberry shortcake.  Duh!   :D
Last year was my first attempt at homemade angel food cake.   It's so easy to make.  And delicious!  One loaf will travel with us to the farm tomorrow, in addition to the 2nd bucket of strawberries.  Mother-in-Law was excited when I called her to let her know of the goodies heading her way.  I'm SURE she'll make some jam.... and maybe even a strawberry pie!  **lickin' lips**

So NOW....
Dinner has been eaten.
The girls are washing up the dishes.
The angel food is in its final moments of baking.

And my feet are up.  I sense some crochet ruggin' happening very soon!

Happy Tuesday!

I love summer.

Heavy sigh...

Why does one area get flooded with rain when another area in the state rarely sees a drop of heavenly-sent rain??? Oh you poor, poor garden!  You won't need to see water for another couple of weeks once today's rain is through!  Between Thursday and today, I bet we've seen (and yet to see) 6+ inches of rain!!!!!!!  Our beans and peas had troughs of topsoil eroded away; our mounded items are doing okay.  TOMORROW, the garden will receive LOADS of TLC!

BEFORE the rain hit today (or at least the bigger lines of storms), Cassie had her 2nd tournament of the summer softball season.  Despite losing early on in the tournament, Cassie had an incredible day at the plate, hitting the green (out-field) quite a few times!  She was 4 of 5 at-bat.  One homerun (scoring 3 runs), one triple (scoring 2 runs), one double (scoring 2 runs) and one single (scoring 2 runs);  nothing like needing to mix it up!  She really brought the hits when the team needed it except in the end.  The team was down one run and she found herself at bat;  and she went down swinging;  her only non-hit of the day :(  Still super proud of her overall bats today though!!!!

Taking a moment to catch up with yesterday.....

Paul did some small construction on our quonset so that we can have a better house for out 26 meat chickens.  Pictures like this remind me of when Judy talks about how much nicer the chicken coops seem to be versus our houses :)

While he was doing that, Candace helped me pick our first batch of strawberries and then made a batch of strawberry jam.  Naturally, we needed to try it out on a piece of bread (we scraped the bowl clean!)

I also spent a few hours working on some connector blocks for the Diamond Fields blocks;  nothing worth taking a picture of yet.

And now..... we're relaxing with some Tom and Jerry cartoons.  I could head downstairs, but......bleh.  Not really in the mood.  So off to catch up on everyone else's day.

Happy Saturday

Jam, Jam, and more Jam

After mowing the lawn this morning, I spent a couple of hours picking some more strawberries with Candace's help. And then Caitlyn came out to help me pick some more rhubarb. Nine more containers each of Strawberry and Strawberry-Rhubarb will be stored in the freezer. I was getting tuckered out of jam-making, so the remaining 18 cups of rhubarb were placed in freezer bags.

While stirring the pectin for one batch, I perused the directions page and saw "Cherry Jam." Hmmm......sounded interesting, so I asked Paul if he would be interested in trying some. Out he went with Candace and picked the few cherries we have on the tree this year (first year of harvest), and then mixed them together with a batch of frozen cherries we received from the neighbor last year. I've never had Cherry jam. However, with the amount of sugar used in all of these recipes, how can ANY of them be bad (tasting)???

I LOVE the summer!!!
As does Cassie,

and Caitlyn,

and Candace.

It's about the only time of year they really can spend a decent amount of time with Aunt Jenny.



Okay----OFF to the garden now that it's a bit cooler out.

Post 483; will I ever get to sewing today?

Okay, so we took a slight (VERY MUCH NEEDED) detour to the grocery store after my eye appointment. DH is home for the day, so he tagged along to make sure all of "his food" was bought this time.

Upon leaving the store, there was a van selling fresh, picked strawberries from a local grower in the area----one bucket would help me finish up the remainder of OUR strawberry pile. So, 12 cups of sugar and 3 Sure Jell packs later, another 10 containters to join the others in the freezer. I even tried throwing in some rhubarb in one batch since our rhubarb plants are flowing-overeth with their leaves :0)

And...one baking fiasco lead to another.
Rhubard Crunch is baking away in the oven at the moment....this doesn't last very long in our family! One sitting, and it's pretty much wiped out! (after all, it's only a 8x8 baking dish)

While all the baking and mixing was going on, I started up the dishes (mainly because I needed to clean out the jam containers). Well, DH took over once my hands got too busy with all the steps. {{You can believe whatever you want----did I purposefully start them knowing I couldn't finish and DH would take over??? hmmmm...maybe}}

Now---I'm a bit pooped! The heat and humidity has hit home over the past couple of days. Even with the AC on, it's enough to wipe out someone! So....I think I'm going to put up my feet for a bit; maybe read the back of my eye-lids, and hit the sewing room in an hour.

Strawberry jam recipe

For those interested:

My favorite SIMPLE strawberry jam recipe is a "freezer" jam. Here is the SureJell site that has the exact recipe I used off the box.
Basic ingredients: One box Sure-Jell, 4 cups sugar, 2 cups crushed strawberries, 3/4 cup water. Sorry--I don't know the exact amount of "pectin" that is in the Sure-Jell box. VERY SIMPLE recipe!!! It's "fail-safe" too---seriously!!!

My MIL had also picked up some other type of pectin that was a "no-boil" recipe; with almost exact opposite ingredients requested. Basic ingredients: One packet "other brand" pectin, 1 1/2 cup sugar, 4 cups strawberries.

Having taste-tested both types after sitting in the fridge for a day, I vote the Sure-Jell recipe TOP! Hands-down!!! The other brand was rather fluidy and not very "jelly-like" at all. The tastes were virtually the same; however, the Sure-jell was sweeter----(DUH! 4 cups of sugar vs. 1 1/2 from the other brand will probably do that, huh???)

I did a quick google, and came across another Strawberry recipe forum, but haven't looked closely at any of the recipes. They may also be Sure-Jell recipes, but not sure.

Amanda, sorry hun, I don't know if Sure-Jell is avaiable in UK----heck, I don't even know if it's available throughout the entire USA. But it's SOOOO easy, soooo simple, and tastes marvelous!!!

The nice thing about the freezer-jam recipes, is you don't have to mess with canning with a pressure cooker and fretting that a seal wasn't complete. I love the simple Glad dishes; they stack nicely, and I really don't have to worry TOOO much about freezer space because we have a chest-freezer. However, strawberry jam doesn't last long in these here parts!!! :0)

Weekend update

I'm uploading/updating pictures and pages to my Family's Website and Quilting Website right now, so I figured I'd at least take a few moments to pipe in and document my weekend goings-on. :0)

We headed up to the farm of Friday morning, arriving just in time for lunch. We basically relaxed for the rest of the afternoon, sitting in the shade with a brilliant breeze blowing; I pulled out the baby-quilt that I had packed for accomplishing some more hand quilting on the hearts. Around 4:00, I tied up the laces for a quick 3 mile aerobic interval run before the evening festivities started.

The evening consisted of even MORE relaxing, lots of good eating (my MIL is an ex-chef of a their family-owned restaurant and EVERY meal she makes is fit for an army and presented beautifully!) We had grilled chicken on the grill and pork steaks.

Saturday started off with a 7 mile run before the heat really started pounding us. And again, the day simply consisted of relaxing, sun (and shade) bathing, some hand sewing, avon catalog searching, swimming for the kids, sandbox, fetch with Misha (BIL's Black lab), and simply NO STRESS :0) And actually, Sunday was a lot more of the same. Quite a simply enjoyable weekend without anything spectacular.

OH WAIT!!! How could I forget? On the way up to the farm on Friday, DH and I stopped to pick up a couple gallon pails of freshly picked strawberries. Well, it appears that MIL had the same thing in mind as me (fresh jam!!!!), because she ALSO had 2 gallon pails of strawberries at the farm!!! So----we had a LOT of strawberries, and spent Saturday afternoon making about 10 batches of strawberry jam, each yielding about 5-7 cups??? (I think) Regardless, I have a small collection in my freezer, my MIL kept a small collection, and my BIL and SIL each took a few containers too. I reserved two quart containers for my sister, who I'll be seeing next weekend. She LOVES strawberry jam!!!

When we arrived home yesterday (Sunday) afternoon, DH piddled outside with the animals while I started all the "inside" stuff---laundry, picking up a bit, unpacking.

Oh---how could I forget this too???? On Saturday, after my run, before making the jam, I stopped at the Walmart in Ashland (Wisconsin). They are about the only Walmart around that still has a nice collection of fabrics. Yeah, well, I walked away with about 20 yards of fabric with a new quilt in mind for my mother. NOT that I needed more fabric!!! I would show a pic of it, but the fabric is still in the dryer. Soon......

As for the quilting front---I basted the last part of Cathy's Aunt Sukey last night once the kids were in bed. I started quilting part of it this morning, but have taken a break since the kids needed to be picked up from summer school at 2:00. I'll head back down later once they get all settled after a snack.

I'll tune back in later, all.