Cooking up a storm....

Began the day wit wheatgrass in my ginger shot.
I stopped growing wheatgrass before our trip,
and hadn't began any seeds again.
At the local co-op yesterday, Jimmy and I noticed they had beautiful stuff for $2!
How can you pass that up???
Got me in the mood to start soaking my seeds again :)
For the kiddos, I made a grain free apple cake.

I bought tomatoes and pears from bountiful baskets last week.
Today they are both ripe.
I jumped in right away with and started cutting up pears for the dehydrator.
I filled all nine trays up with slices - probably used 18 pounds total.
I'm hoping to get to the store and use some birthday money I have stashed on a food mill.
Assuming I will acually do that,
I saved all the extra parts of my pears and threw them in the crockpot to make pear butter. 
I added some quartered pears too, to fill it up.
I despise trying to get things through a strainer.
I have maybe 10 pounds left to figure out something.

I halved enough tomatoes to cover two cookies sheets.
They are in the oven roasting with olive oil and garlic.
YUM!
When I get to that store for that food mill,
I have a plan to cook it in the crockpot for 24 hours.
This should make a beautiful tomato paste.
Still have about half the tomatoes left.

No school today.
We were planning to do it,
but we have much more fun plans
in preparing a surprise for Jimmy's birthday next week.
More on that later :)

In our parenting lessons:
Don't be easily provoked.
Love isn't.
We shouldn't be surprised wen our children make mistakes.
You don't want them to feel insecure or scared to mess up.
Your reaction to them is usually more about some stress or selfishness going on with you
and less about what is actually going on with them.
Let it go.
Be aware.
DON'T take your stuff out on them.

First Canning of the Summer

Have you been canning yet this year?

I have been trying a few new recipes.

I did this Peach Butterscotch Sauce.
It really goes against all my healthy standards, but it looked SO good!
I'll use it for the girls' birthday party where we'll have an ice cream social.

First attempt at grape juice!

I made grape juice for the first time!
We got 2 full bags of globe grapes with seeds.  What do you do with that?
No one around here wants to put in the effort to eat grapes with seeds.
SO LAZY!
I decided to cook them down and try my hand at juice.
I put them in my big enamel pot and covered with water.
I let them simmer for an your or so until the willingly would crush with a potato masher.
Then I strained them through my mesh strainer.
That was a little ridiculous.
Apparently I am in dire need of a food mill.

It worked ok and I ended up with 3 quarts of yummy juice that I hear goes really well with sparkling water!


The last thing I canned last week was this Strawberry Rhubarb Sauce.
I chose this one because it didn't have too much sugar.
We thought it was really good!
It, too, will be served for the ice cream social.
YUM!
I made a second batch, pureed and dehydrated it into fruit leather.
They were good, but the orange got really strong.
Next time, I'll leave it out for the dehydrating portion so we can taste the delicious strawberries and rhubarb.

Cooking down strawberries and rhubarb!