party time

Over five days this summer I had hand in doing up just over 300 jars of canned yumminess. Right now my basement is full of jams (raspberry, blueberry, strawberry, peach, & grape jelly), salsa (peach & regular), peaches, peach barbecue sauce, crushed tomatoes (plain and seasoned), rotel, pickles, relish (corn & zucchini), and pickled jalapenos.



I get asked, a lot, why I can. Well first I enjoy it, it's also cheaper (or it will be once I build up a big enough stash of jars), it tastes amazing and I know everything that's been put in the jar. So my crushed tomatoes are just local tomatoes and lemon juice. That's it. Also crushed tomatoes super easy to make. It's all fairly easy to make when you get right down too it, but it is time consuming. Especially if you're canning on your own.



Last year was my first time canning large batches with a friend. This is totally the way to go! Split the cost, split the work, double the fun. This year we added another friend to the mix and pumped out that much more. Some tips if you're thinking of having a canning party... have a sit down and decide what you'd like to make, figure out who's going shopping and how much you'll need to buy. That's always a bit tricky in the beginning. I'm lucky that my girl JB tracks how much we spend, what we buy and how much we get out of it, so this year was a bit easier to figure out. Oh... yeah totally do that. Even if you're not sure you'll ever do it again. We do all our buying at our favourite Farmer's Market. It's a bit of a hike from here, but huge nd we know we'll get absolutely everything we need in one spot... sometimes we get more than we need even. The relish wasn't even on my radar this year, but I'm glad we ended up doing it. I think, haven't tasted it yet. Hope it's good.



Canning seems to be a bit of a dying art, so there is huge value to all those jars in my basement when holiday gift giving time comes around. Everybody expects a jar or three to find their way into their gift bags this year and odds are good they will. They just have to promise to give the jars back.

Have you or do you can?

here's hoping

I'm playing with fire tonight, I needed to bring a dessert to a dinner tomorrow night.... which I forgot about until we were at the point in the evening when I was seriously considering crawling into bed. I was missing some key ingredients for my usual go-to treats, so I hopped on my pinterest boards and picked a brand new recipe. Hope it works out better than the disaster I baked up for Thanksgiving. Keep your fingers crossed that my peanut butter pound cake with peanut butter glaze is a home run.

can do

Hey! Long time, no blog! I certainly didn't mean to ditch out on my little corner of the web, but I have been one busy little pioneer of a beaver.

You see Elwood sent us to St Jacob's market on Thursday with my girl JB and a scavenger hunt for the kiddos because Elwood is smart like that. While the kids were hunting down different types of veggies, pies  and berries, JB and I were price checking these.....



So many tomatoes! And we bought so many tomatoes. A full bushel, which is a shit load of tomatoes for those of you that don't speak farmer. Then we bought a boat load of cucumbers, peaches, peppers and jalapenos. After a quick run to walmart for all the canning jars we could get our hands on I pretty much moved in with JB, her cutie patootie kids and handsome husband and we got to chopping.



I think we chopped for three days straight and when we weren't chopping we were washing, blanching, peeling, sterilizing, cooking, stuffing and water bathing. As it turns out JB and I work very well together in her kitchen. We got a crazy amount of work done, for a ridiculously little amount of money and it never really felt like work.



We "did up" pickles, crushed tomatoes, pickles, three different kinds of salsa, pickles, pickled jalapenos, and did I mention pickles? Jen did a final count at the end and we had 161 jars of the above at a cost of about 80 cents a jar. I see much more canning in our future. I've done canning before, but usually on my own and at a much smaller scale.



I'd have to say, what we lacked in experience we more than made for with enthusiasm. We had no idea how to figure out yields. We bought peaches hoping we'd get 6 cups out of them and I ended up with 18 cups of peaches. Luckily we had enough of all the other ingredients to make a triple batch of  peach salsa and enough jars. We did do a couple of "jar runs" during the course of our canning marathon.

This whole canning adventure started from an of hand comment one of us made to the other and I'm still kind of surprised how easily it all came together. I highly recommend canning with a friend and if you've never canned before, we started with the pickles which were very easy to do and they taste delicious. So if you're looking for a way to dip a toe into the canning game, this is it.

Have you done any canning?

pickles

My gosh this was one busy weekend. There was an anniversary dinner, sports bra shopping, Sherlock Holmes watching, yarn sale shopping, impromptu stop at the market, trip to the ice cream parlour, running a 5k race and pickles.

My girl JB and I decided to stop at the market on our way back from the yarn store tent sale. Which led to a conversation about canning and salsa and pickles and red pepper jelly. And before I knew it...



Sunday afternoon found me in her kitchen scrubbing a lot of cucumbers. A lot. I've never actually made pickles before, but have always wanted to. This was my first time canning with a friend. I highly recommend this. Split the work, split the cost and split the reward. Win, win, win.



The hardest part about making pickles was stuffing the jars. The jars were hot, which made handling them tough , not to mention all those pickles are different sizes. The nerve. The bottom row was easy, but it was a bit of a puzzle to get the top half of the jar packed in just as tight.



We went the easy route and made the pickles that you pack in the jars, pour the brine over top and then process in a water bath. We were very excited when they came out of the bath looking like pickles. In the picture you can see in the one jar the cukes are still very green, that's a jar we hadn't processed yet. The rest of the jars had just come out of the pot.

So, would I make pickles again.... short answer is yes. Long answer, likely. We haven't actually tasted them yet, so as long as they aren't awful, I would absolutely make pickles again. Now on to salsa!

Do/have you ever done any canning.

someday

My kitchen! As I have mentioned everyone remarks on how big it is when they see it for the first time. And it is a big room, but it is not the best use of space.



Forgive the untidiness, I was in the midst of cleaning up after jammie movie night when I stopped to snap these. So that's my kitchen from the middle of the room looking towards the cooking area. That is the extent of my prep area. It works with a lot of juggling, but forget multiple people working in the same area.



That's the other end of the kitchen, the eatin' end. That's original art work by The Abster on the wall there. It's a painting of her swimming in the lake, just in case you weren't sure who it was of.



And this picture is from the doorway to the living room. So to the left is a door outside to our deck. Just before that, just out of the frame is a large window overlooking the deck. On the right hand side there is a doorway going to the laundry room and bathroom. Further up on the right is a doorway going to Mike's little hobby room, which I've convinced him to turn into a large pantry. Also to my extreme right is the door to the "basement". So there's just no a lot of usable wall space.

One of my bloggy besties, Karen, suggested an island...... a suggestion that she could make since she's actually been in my kitchen. Cut up watermelon and everything. It ranks up there as one of my favourite bloggy moments. And I was all for an island, until Papa suggested putting in six feet of lower cabinets and counter top along the wall where my microwave currently resides. Great idea, huh?

So we did some shopping and pricing and I cam home a tad more discouraged then when I left. Only because I'm not 100% sure which way to go. I'm having a hard time picturing the cabinets in my kitchen. It's a bit of a hurry up and wait situation. Eventually though I will have a six foot baking counter in my kitchen and I can't wait.

What would you do to make my kitchen more user friendly?

happy anniversary

Y'all know how much I love my best girl Robin. She's just the best ever. I was so touched that she asked me to make a cake for her Grandparent's 70th Anniversary. Can you imagine that? Seventy years!! I had no idea what I was going to do and then I came up with this....



I wish the light had been better in my kitchen when I took the picture, but what are you going to do?

survivor

I think he was joking when my buddy JC asked if I could make a Survivor cake, but then his girl, TC... who was my girl first.... just sayin'..... asked me if I could make a Survivor cake. I told her I'd see, but really that was just to buy me some time, so I could tell her later that I couldn't via text message because I am not that talented. Not by a long shot. Of course then I came home and told Mike about it and he was all.... yes, you CAN do it. And I was all like...whatever! I can not!

And that brought me to google. I googled. I did. I looked at Survivor cakes that other more talented cake makers had made and I thought... hey maybe I can do this.

What do you think?



I based this on a cake design I found when I was googling. That was the logo from I can't remember which season. And yes, any Survivor fan worth his or her salt knows that the outer oval of the logo is usually black, but black icing turns the inside of your mouth purple and I was looking to avoid that. I ended up finishing this cake just after 11. I hated it as I was decorating it. I didn't think it was going to come together, but then it did. Right at the end and I was so pumped and there was no one up for me to share it with. I tried to get Mike up, but I knew it was pointless to try even as I headed up the stairs. Thank goodness for cellphones and unlimited texting. I took a picture with my phone and texted it to my Mom, who was up. Yay for Moms and modern technology. Oh and I think JC liked it too.

Are you watching this season of Survivor?

who lives in a pineapple

I've just realized that I didn't show you Miss Maya's birthday cake. She wanted a pineapple cake. Specifically a cake that was shaped like a pineapple. Why? Well I wondered that myself..... spongebob's house. I know, seems pretty obvious now right?



So that's what I ended up with. I liked it.... Maya not so much. You see she's only just started to like frosting and only peanut butter frosting will do. Green peanut butter frosting is not acceptable.



Luckily there was a couple of spots that hadn't been sullied by green food colouring. Crisis averted.



I'm not sure if I'll ever have a call to make a pineapple cake again, but hey, if you do need one. Drop me a line. I am your girl.

baking

Earlier in the month when I was up to my eyeballs in butter, flour and sugar the fabulous Lynn had asked me if I would take a few pictures of my baking exploits. By the way, the final tally was in the neighbourhood of 100 dozen cookies. I kinda never wanted to bake again, but I have almost every day since my last order went out. I am a special brand of crazy apparently.

So I actually didn't take many pictures at all. Grabbing a camera was about the last thing on my mind, but I did snap one or two.



Lemon sugar cookies. I made a lot of these.



Cute little boxes of treats I did for the kids' teachers.



And these are the treats I took to dinner at my Mom's. Mini butter tarts with some very awesome pastry if I do say so myself, salted caramel cupcakes and cinnamon chip cookies.

a girl, we had a girl

I just spent the better part of tonight baking and decorating lemon sugar cookies. Turquoise stars for Abby to take to school to share with her classmates. They look adorable.

And now I shall crawl into my bed and tomorrow morning when I wake up I will be the very proud momma of a brand new 8 year old. It seems like just yesterday I was in the operating room listening to my brand new baby cry and asking Mike - Did we have a girl or a boy?

i think i hate thursdays

Dudes, I just sent the ugliest cake to school with Abby for the cake auction. Well I sent it to Papa and Grandma Linda's cause they're getting her and the cake to school for me tomorrow. Boy howdy it is not my best work. Abby thought it was beautiful and I love her for saying it, but she doesn't know what she's talking about. Trust me, because there was no photographic evidence on that one. On the flip side though, it tastes amazing! And I learned tonight, that riding lessons, playtime, dinner, choir practice, tidying up and baking and decorating a cake is too much to ask of one evening. I'm going to watch Survivor in bed!

dessert disasters

I realize it was a week ago, but I think our Easter desserts are still topical.

As I mentioned we had two Easter meals this year. I offered to bring dessert to both. The brown sugar cake I made was supposed to be a bundt cake, but I felt like layer cake, plus I have no bundt pan in a suitable shape for icing. Anyway I had too much batter in the pans, so I ended up having to trim them. So I trimmed, then I set them aside, took care of something else and came back to this.....



There was only one very guilty looking person in the kitchen when I returned......

Me: So what happened here Abs?
Abby: I was helping you.
Me: I'm not really sure that helps me, honey.
Abby: But Mom it's soooo delicious.

What can I say.... I am very vain about my baking. That little line was enough to get her off the hook, but shhh don't tell her that. She'd use it against me like kryptonite.

And in related Easter dessert disaster news I present you with this....



Okay so once upon a time these used to be seriously cute Easter basket cupcakes. Then I asked Mike to bring them into my Mom's from the van. Apparently he thought the cupcakes were "strapped in" so they would survive being turned dang near upside down. Yeah - it turns out he was wrong about that assumption.



And these turned out so incredibly cute I can barely stand it.

family fun night - meatballs.

Since we spent most of the weekend in our jammies, letting the girls recover from strep throat. Thank goodness for antibiotics. I thought movie night would be a good idea. And since it had been such a miserable week, I thought I'd better make it something special.

The girls wanted to watch, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. My beautiful BFF Robin had gotten it for them for Christmas and Mike and I had yet to watch it. The girls, of course, had watched it eleventy billion times already. The great part was it was exactly the movie I was thinking about when I suggested movie night.

And here's why....



Spaghetti and meatball cupcakes. I realize these are hardly news, but my girls hadn't seen them before, so it was a huge deal for them. Just a little homemade buttercream, a little homemade strawberry jam and some Aero bites. Now that we're a weight watcher's household, I only decorated half a dozenish and froze the rest.

As for the movie, it was super sweet. Abby tried her hardest to keep from telling us what was coming next. I loved Flint, the main character who does in fact make it rain meatballs amongst other things and has some super cool hair. I love that Bill Hader voiced Flint. I love me some Bill Hader. You should too, he's a super funny guy. And really any movie that puts Neil Patrick Harris (love him!), James Caan and Mr. T together has to be amazing, right?

Have you seen Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs?

that is a good pie

I wasn't sure what to get Papa this year for his birthday. I don't find him all that easy to shop for and his birthday is always smack in the middle of fair time. Seeing as this year was extra busy, with both Mike and I having increased our volunteer roles.... well I was really at a loss. I have been trying really hard to make the gifts that I do give be more than just stuff. So I thought about Papa and what he would like and it hit me..... dessert.

It's no secret that Papa is a dessert guy. He takes it very seriously and can often be heard complaining that Grandma Linda doesn't bake enough pies/cakes/cookies. So I enrolled him in the dessert of the month club. Once a month a plan on making him one of his favourite desserts. I've already made October's selection - apple pie. An apple pie I made using this recipe.

Papa was nice enough to save the pie for Thanksgiving dinner and share 1/12 of his birthday present with the rest of us. The night I made his pie I had made another one for us. So when Papa came over to pick it up we all had a piece of our pie with coffee, before he headed for home. As we ate he commented it was a nice tasting apple pie, for which I thanked him... but guys it gets so much better.

As the pie was being served up tonight Grandma Linda says to me..... Papa says this is the best apple pie he's ever tasted.

To which I replied..... umm could you say that again?

I was shocked, cause here's the deal..... Papa knows his pie. He has 63 years of dessert experience under his belt. And he's not one to throw around "dramatic" statements like that unless it's the real deal. It was a huge compliment that meant a lot to me and it makes me smile every time I think about it. If that's not a ringing endorsement for that pie recipe I don't know what is.

peanut, peanut butter....

Today I made my first attempt at canning and cooked me up some grape jelly. Why, you ask when there is perfectly good Welch's grape jelly available on my supermarket shelf? Well I guess "you" didn't really ask, but my pal Jenni did via facebook. Well my reasons are threefold --

Number 1 - I love grape jelly.

B - I have an interest in learning how to can. I have the canning pot and everything.

#4 - I have heard that grape jelly is an easy beginner project.

So I followed the instructions the best I could and now I have several jars setting up on my counter in the kitchen. I guess I'll know better this time tomorrow if the whole experiment was successful or not. I have to admit I'm not feeling very confident. Probably because I have zero canning experience. I've never actually seen anybody can anything before in my life. And on top of that all the information I read seemed to contradict the last thing I read by just a tiny bit.

But as of right now this is what I know for sure about canning.

• Reread and reread and reread again the recipe you're using to make sure you have a firm grasp on the task at hand. Oh and it's probably a good idea to just read the one recipe. Reading several will really muck things up for you.
• While not necessary a canning funnel is worth every penny. I currently don't have one, but I will be amending that ASAP.
• Ditto that magnetic thingy that helps you pick up the hot lids when it's time to seal the jars up.
• Also a jar lifter for when the time comes to take you hot jars out of the canning bath. I managed without any of those items, but it would have been so much easier if I'd had them.

So keep your fingers crossed that this turns out to be a success. If so there's a grape jelly category at the fair one of these jars may be destined for.

abby's cake

This past weekend Abby celebrated her birthday with our extended family. Just a big little barbecue with the Grandparents, Godparents, some cousins and an Uncle and an Aunt or two. The food was yummy and for once I didn't have two tonnes too much. Something that caused me to panic for a full 15 minutes, but I eventually got a hold of myself.

I, of course, made her cake. Still playing around with fondant. I liked the way it turned out, but -- and I can hear you already telling me I'm crazy -- I was not completely happy with it. My fondant ripped after I had it on the cake and I couldn't take it off without losing the most of the icing that went under neath it as well as the fondant itself. So I had to piece it together.



Abby was thrilled with it and everyone else thought it was lovely. But I can't wait to make another one to get some more time with the fondant. I think it needs more icing sugar. When I watch them using fondant on Cake Boss or Ace of Cakes there's does not seem to be in constant danger of ripping like mine was. Yep, there is more playing to be done.



Mike is just wishing I'd switch back to buttercream -- he is not a huge fondant fan. So I'll have to throw a little buttercream his way on my next few cakes to keep the grumbling to a minimum.

cake auction

Last week Abby's school held a Mother's Day cake auction. These are the cakes I made and donated.



I loved the Mr. Men and Little Miss series of books when I was Abby's age. So I thought, in honour of Education Week, I'd attempt to recreate the cover of the books. I was happier with the Little Miss Giggles than I was with Mr. Nosey, but those were the best stencils I had when I was throwing this together at midnight, cause I'm stupid like that that's how I roll. Abby thought they were fantastic and was disappointed she didn't manage to win one of them. That makes the midnight cake decorating all worthwhile.

i woke up with a slightly larger head this morning

Last night Mike and I helped out at a fundraising dinner, penny sale and silent auction for Abby's school. It was a very busy night, but all the volunteers were great and I had a lot of fun. We were a bit worried about how our silent auction donations would fair in these tough economic times and we did definitely see a decrease, but the night was still an amazing success and we made close to $3000 for our little rural school. Yay us!

For my part, I did what I've been doing best -- or at least the most these days. I baked.



I admit I was nervous putting them out on the table. I told Mike if they didn't sell for a reasonable amount of money my ego would be crushed. And yes, I did sneak away -- when I could -- and check out how the bidding was going. I am very happy to say they brought a total of $42 to Abby's school and there was some disappointment expressed from the losers. So I left the event feeling pretty good about myself.

I was surprised that they went for so much when you consider that my buddy ML was wandering around telling people they were horrible tasting cookies, so she could win them herself.

One of the bouquets went home with Abby's little friend -- who's a boy, but not a boyfriend, Mom okay -- and his Mom called me this morning to complain about them. Uh oh. When she asked her little guy how he liked the cookies he said -- well I don't want to hurt your feelings. And then he wondered if she would ask me for the recipe.

I wonder if I could use that as a testimonial if I decide to go pro?

twilight

Well it had finally arrived Twilight was available on dvd. And what better way to celebrate it than with Heather (aka Edward's true girlfriend) and a Saturday night viewing. We tried to get Robin to join us, but she was being a party pooper or had to take care of her "recovering from surgery the day before" daughter. Something like that. Lucky for us (I guess) Michael decided to man up and be one the chicks and watch it with us. I'll let you in on a little secret -- he loved it. And in fact can't wait for the next movie.



Well because my goal is to live as much of my life n my jammies as I can, we had a Twilight jammie party. Mike refused to participate in that portion of the evening, but he was all in for the Twilight themed treats I made.



I just left those cupcakes out on the counter and I guess some errant Vampire stopped by to sink his or her fangs into each and every one. And before I found the vampire bitten cupcakes on the internet I made these sugar cookies.



Bats and moons. Not that Edward ever actually turns into a bat and this movie was Twilight and not New Moon, it was the best I had.

I truly had the most fun hanging with Heather, who even came early and joined us for family game night (Disney Scene it -- so fun!). And the movie was great. I thought Robert Pattinson was a good choice for Edward, although I'm not sure I totally bought the actors as Esme and Carlisle. They seemed a bit too young. And Mr. Jenny Garth was a bit too much the same colour as his hair. I'm always a little worried when they make a book into a movie, but I'm learning to separate them, let them stand on their own and not compare. I thought it interesting how much Mike enjoyed the movie without having read the book. From that I'd have to say they did a pretty good job with it. And now I really want to read the books again.

And now I really want to do jammie movie night again. Who wants to come and what are we going to watch?

cookies for Jesus

Okay the sugar cookies may be becoming "a thing". I love making them so much and they look so pretty. I am thinking about incorporating them into my Relay for Life Fundraising. I am thinking about working them into some fundraising I will be doing at work and for Abby's school. Sugar cookies are on my mind a lot.

So much so that when Mike mentioned that this Sunday was the potluck lunch at church I immediately said....

Oh, I should make sugar cookies.

And Mike said.....

Yeah, too bad you didn't have a cross cookie cutter.

And then he laughed, because that would be funny.



Yeah, I totally did.