what a week!

Last weekend started off well. On Sunday, we went to the twin cities to see our twins that turned 10 on the 17th of July and celebrate! We had a wonderful day and the weather cooperated for the day!! We brought the twins home with us for the week!! We ate chicken, BLT's, pancakes, corn dogs( not me), spaghetti and a few smoothies!! We met Kurt on Thursday night so they could go home!! We had fun, I took a day off from work and we went shopping! Another day we painted ceramics at The Potter's Shed!

cookbook

Last night I went to a cookbook dinner. The author is a very nice lady and she has written about 5 cookbooks. Teresa Marrone is her name. She is grew up in Aurora, Il. and now resides in Minneapolis area. She was very entertaining and visited every table to discuss her books.

She has written mostly books on eating what you find in a  forest, more like scavenger eating. I sat with people I didn't know and had fun meeting new people. I also bought 2 of her cookbooks. Last night was about food that is seasoned with maple syrup. WE had a 10 course meal, really small portions so you didn't feel so full!! It was really fun and I hope they offer something like it again! So, I bought the maple syrup book and one on slow cookers!

BBQ sauce

I have a new favorite website that I check daily called "onehundreddollarsamonth.com." The author is a gal named Mavis and she tries to feed her family for one hundred dollars a month. She has a huge garden and lots of tips for gardening, lives in the northwest and is a smart shopper! Her grocer gives her produce he would throw out, ours won't as it was abused when he did! But anyway, to get to the BBQ sauce recipe. Mavis made strawberry/chiptole jam. I thought, YUM!!! So, I bought a pail of berries and had the chiptole in the freezer. So, I made it, found it to be way too spicy for me. I realized quickly( smart of me) that no one would eat this stuff, so I can't throw it out, thinking about the cost I had into so far. What to do with this stuff??? God, what to do?? Help me figure out something. He did, I love BBQ sauce and thought why not, so I added some apple cider vinegar, more sugar,some salt, and water. I cooked this for 2 days so it would get very syrupy. It's still a little hot, but when added to chicken, it was mild. So, I got 4 pint jars and so, starts the canning season for me!! Blessings! So recipe for this is: 6 cups of strawberries, cut up and washed, 5 cups of sugar, 3 Chiptole peppers diced, 1 cup of brown sugar, 2 cups of apple cider vinegar and 1 cup of water. Of course, mine had 2 packets of pectin in it to make the jam, so I am not sure if that helped it get more syrupy quicker or not.

This and that

I have not been cooking very much with the heat, but I have been making soup! Go figure, as hot as it has been, I'm hungry for soup. Saturday I went to the Farmer's market (local in Spooner), and bought 3 pounds of peas. So, I made soup with leftover hamburger patty, carrots, peas, and orzo. It was good, weird eating it on a hot day, but so good. That lasted for 2 meals, last night I made soup again. It is a prepackage mix by Giada ( from the food network). It's an Italian soup and very good. Called Pasta Fagioli. I found it at Target, last time I was there. Giada has a line of food there, plus cookware. Well, that's all from here today. Blessings!

Happy 4th of July!!!

I was going to make this a very short post, but decided not too.  4th of July is a very special day for celebrating, but I think we as a country have forgotten what it really means! So here's my list, it's short! 

1. Freedom is a privilege, many men and women died for this privilege!

2. Freedom should not be taken for granted! Be grateful!

3. Freedom to come and go as we please. Freedom to worship where you want, go to school where you want, shop where you want, blog what you want, watch what you want on TV. and many more!

4. Freedom to enjoy your life! Pursue life, liberty and happiness!

This is a extremely short list, but you get the drift! Blessings, enjoy the rest of the day and the fireworks!

beans

I made a pan full of beans on Sunday afternoon. I started with Cranberry beans which are a wonderful and beautiful color bean, Pinkish color. So I soaked them for about 3 hours in a pan of water. Slowly heated them up at 3 hours soaking, added a sliced onion to the water. After cooking for 2 hours, I added 3 large pieces of cubed ham to the beans, 1/2 cup of molasses, 1/2 cup of ketchup, 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of black pepper and made sure the water was above the beans. I cooked them for another 2 hours, let them cool down and put the pan in the refrigerator over night. When I got home Monday from work, most of my meal was done! I warmed the beans up for another 2 hours, then we made grilled ham sandwiches to go with the beans. Well, we are still eating the beans, but they are getting better as they get heated through each meal!! Blessings!

garden photos

I have traveled so far away from what the blog started out as, sharing recipes with you all, so sorry!!!! So, with that in the forefront of my brain, I really want to start back to recipes, but want to share the photos of my beautiful flowers that I have spent hours planting, transplanting and breaking in a sweat to get them to look pretty in the yard! Tomorrow I will give you some ideas for smoothies that we have found we like and those we don't! Blessings! The top photo is day lilies that my mom gave me a long time ago. The bleeding heart bush is huge, then the petunia are from the HUGE hanging basket I bought myself!