Man, Do Peaches Ripen QUICK!

HA HA!!

I tell you, yesterday the peaches felt okay, not too squishy, like I had a few days to tinker around before I started peeling and canning them and then today, HOLY COW, like OVERNIGHT, they're RIPE and going to be peach jam instead of lovely peaches in jars.  How in the world did that happen??

Heck, the last time my mom and I made peach freezer jam, we couldn't find any RIPE peaches to save our lives.  This fall, I've got more ripe peaches than I know what to do with.
I wonder if they're comin' out my ears yet......

Guess I know what everyone's getting for Christmas this year??  LOL
At this rate, I may be taking orders for Peach Jam this year - any takers?? 

Umm, Yah, so that's my story today and probably tomorrow.

Photos to follow of course :)

A Little Extra Credit...

Scrap-U over at Scrap-Friendzy officially kicked off this past Wednesday and we're having an awesome time with Main courses, Extra Credit and After School Activities (and so awesome tutorials too!!)  If you haven't signed up for your classes yet, you can still join us!!

And today you can even join us for a little EXTRA Credit!!!  Who doesn't love EXTRA CREDIT.  Today's extra credit involves "LUNCH".  Now THAT'S my kind of EXTRA CREDIT!!! :)

Check out the challenge over at Scrap-Friendzy.  In the meantime though I'll share with you my Extra Credit Lunch project!  :)

As you know we've been CANNING like crazy, so it seemed fitting that the LUNCH layout involved our weekends of Canning.

Layout - "CANNING"

Papers - TPC Studios "So Delish" printed papers, Coredinations Green and Red, Bazzill Blue, Beige and Yellow, Kraft, White and Gold textured left over scraps

Tools - Cricut - From My Kitchen (Canning Jars and Pot); MTC to create Canned Title; i-Rock and Pearls; EK Success and Fiskars Punches

Extra STUFF - Making Memories Journaling block, Stickles, Tulle - Red and Green), Dimensionals

Thanks so much for popping by today.  Hopefully you'll join us over at Scrap-Friendzy for Scrap-U.  It's the friendliest place on earth - you won't be sorry you joined in with the Girlz over there!!

Green Beans & A Lake House!

What a wonderful weekend we had - nice and long celebrating with family and friends!
We celebrated our first College Football WIN of the season on Saturday with both Michigan and Michigan State winning.  YAH HOO - GO BLUE!!! 
Sunday, dad was feeling well enough that both sets of parents and Mrs. M (my honorary g-ma) came out for a YUMMY FAB BBQ.  We had some super yummy chicken, brats, homemade french fries, the BEST BEST BEST corn on the cob (yep, gonna be freezin' that this week!!).  We had more food than we knew what to do with!  What a great day!  It did my heart good to be able to clean the corn in the kitchen with my dad helping me.  He even gained 2 pounds!!!  We had such a great time with family yesterday - There's just something about letting THEM enjoy one another's company (our family is a bit different - both sets of parents get along and heck, we even celebrate the holidays together and for that we are blessed!!)

Last Saturday, my folks got what we're jokingly calling their "Lake House" (Sounds better than 5th Wheel) to do a little traveling in.  It will be the "Beach House" if we're parked at the beach :)  We had so much fun with them on Saturday when we met them so we could see it and heck, it was even delivered on Saturday. We didn't know they'd be delivering it that quick. We're already looking forward to a few little mini-trips as my dad continues to recover.

At the dealership

At The Dealership (Dog and All)

(How Happy do these three look?? - Dad, Mrs. M and Mom. . . oh and Royy the dog).

Of course last weekend, we picked more beans and a crazy amount of tomatoes both roma and cherry tomatoes.

So, of course last Sunday we spent the day canning green beans.  Yep, another dozen jars!  WHEW!
Tomorrow we will finish freezing some of the most amazing corn we've had the ENTIRE summer!!  YUMM-O!  Next weekend, we will most likely be canning peaches and freezing raspberries (and celebrating my mom's birthday!!)
I hope you all had a WONDERFUL holiday weekend.  I hope that you got to spend time enjoying your family and friends and the last little bit of Summer.
Of course, it's back to the grind tomorrow....but at least it's a short week.  That's a definitely BONUS!

CANNED - Part Deux!

I'm sure there will be parts Three, Four, Five and Six too!  LOL

Last week Glen and I pickled and canned the Sweet Banana Peppers we had - we had more peppers than I even wanted to try & count - Really!  Once we got them cut into round slices, it was MORE than 10 cups! 

So, in a few hours, we were listening to the popping of a GOOD day canning!

There's a lot to be said for freshly canned peppers and fresh garlic.  We have to wait 5-6 weeks for them to be ready (we pickled them).  I can hardly wait to taste them when they're ready though.

If you have a crazy amount of peppers like we did, the recipe we used:

10 cups Banana Peppers (we cut in circles - you could cut in strips if you wish)

4 cups White Vinegar

2 teaspoons Pickling Salt (we used Dill Pickling Salt)

1 clove of garlic in each jar

Mix Vinegar & Salt together - bring to boil.

Keep jars warm.  Pack jars tightly with garlic & peppers leaving 1/4" head room.  Add vinegar/salt mixture into each jar - leaving 1/4" head room.  Remove bubbles from jar.  Put hot lid on jar, screw on band.

After this step you can stop, but we wanted to make sure that the peppers were preserved (I'm a germ freak & wanted to make sure there was no FUNK growing in the jars).  You can put them in a hot water bath (boiling) for 10 minutes.  Let them cool & listen to those lids pop!

Thanks for stoppin' by today.  Hopefully I'll have a little something more creative that doesn't involve Veggies to share tomorrow.  LOL :)

Next on the agenda - either peaches or tomato sauce - guess it's good we don't have HUGE plans for Labor Day weekend, huh?

CANNED!

This is what the crazy amount of beans we had looks like after being canned....

We had so much fun doing this yesterday.  While it did take some time (b/c we had to pressure cook the beans), we still had a great time.  Yep, it was our Anniversary, but hey, as long as I got to spend the day with my wonderfull hubby, it didn't matter what we did!

We also blanched, julienned and froze our green peppers.  Now I'm trying to figure out what we'll can next......hmmmm spaghetti sauce sounds good.  Thank goodness we'll be raiding my mom's canning supplies this weekend (and likely picking MORE beans.....she was already picking MORE beans on Sunday after all we picked on Saturday - AMAZING!)  Didn't want to bore you with photos of the inside of our storage freezer looking at a bunch of frosted and frozen ziplock bags of green peppers.  :)

I thought I'd share a quick Graduation card I put together for a family friend whose daughter graduated this spring.  We missed her graduation party a few weekends ago when Dad was in the hospital.  DOH!

Image - Studio G stamps

Papers - White Cardstock, Black Cardstock & some Silver/Black Swirly Cardstock I've had FOR-EVA!

Techniques - Heat Embossing & Dry Embossing (Guess it was an embossing kind of card)

Extra STUFF - Silver Embossing Powder and Scor-Pal for embossed lines at top and bottom of card

I think this is one of the most simple cards I've made in I couldn't tell you HOW LONG! 

Totally love the way it turned out though!

Hope you had a wonderful weekend!

If you have a minute - be sure to pop over to Shelly's Images and check out what the design team has created for this weeks Marvelous Monday Release!  For today only you get the release for a DISCOUNT!  AND WHO DOESN'T LOVE A DISCOUNT?!

Thanks to everyone who stopped by and left such lovely comments yesterday. 

I'm trying to get back into my blog visiting/commenting routine again (I've missed all the wonderful things you're creating).  :)

Can you say VEGGIES?!

So we spent the day at the farm working on the deck. 

Stair railings were a success and so was veggie HARVESTING!!!

This isn't even all of what we picked.  Green beans alone I think we have 3-4 POUNDS.  Peppers, Holy WOW, I think 20 GREEN PEPPERS ALONE.  I didn't even bother counting the Banana Peppers!

So, tomorrow to celebrate our 7th Anniversary, we'll be trying our hand at canning green beans and freezing peppers!!  :)  We can't wait for the tomatoes to really start coming so we can start making Skeddie (spaghetti) sauce.  My mom in law got us this great book called "Complete Book of Home Preserving" which is just absolutely AMAZING with recipes and step by step instructions.  WOW!  Heck, once apple season starts here in Michigan, I'm going to be canning apple sauce AND apple pie filling too!! :) 

Gosh, they may have created a canning monster!!!

Just thought I'd share our little slice of veggie heaven with you!  :)