Summer Yum!

The blackberry bushes are ripe and ready to be picked on part of the route where the gals and I walk each morning. After we walked our 5 miles, we grabbed our containers and bags and started picking. We picked about 4 quarts of yummy sweet juicy berries, got a few scratches, have purple fingers and the makings for some delicious food.

When I got home I made gluten free blackberry pancakes for breakfast. In fact, I was so excited about the blackberry pancakes, I forgot to brew my coffee. Quickly I discovered my loss and got some brewing.

For lunch, I had the rest of the berries with some milk. One of my favorite meals in summertime is fresh fruit with milk. I eat it like cereal and I can have it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, a snack, or for dessert.

God has been so creative in the foods He has created for us to enjoy in California.

YUMAHUH!

Jammin'

Soon as a cool and free day comes around, I'll be making jam, jelly, and syrup. My freezer is packed full of prepared strawberries, apricots and plums. Not all the frozen fruit will be used for jam and such but will kept frozen to make a crisp or pie. YUMMY! In this picture you can not even see the 3 gallon bags full of strawberries, they are behind the apriocots.

Back to the Blogging World

Thank you for hanging in there with me, I hope I have not lost some of you. The desire is back to spend some time blogging. I have posts lined up in my brain and I will try to do some "ketchup" and squeeze them out as time allows.


There have been birthday celebrations, mini trips, preserving, changes in seasons, pounds lost, miles walked, books of the Bible read and so much more. My little sister has been urging me to get out a post and I thank her for her encouragement and motivation. So, here is just a "briefing" of some of the highlights that I have time for this morning (Jen, Joe and the kids are in town for Thanksgiving and almost every daylight moment is spent with them).




A few weekends ago we celebrated Trinity's 4th birthday. She is growing up so fast. She is such a beautiful little girl. In the below picture we are waiting for Trin's friends to show up at Pump it Up.

Trinity is learning how to ride a bicycle with training wheels!

Trinity fondly calls Joey "brother". Brother is taking a ride on his scooter, with assistance.

Back in mid-October we celebrated Grandma's 95 birthday. This is our 4th annual birthday celebration up in Apple Hill. Grandma is still doing wonderful and defying age.


At the place I like to buy apples and pears, there were all of these old box labels that I thought were cool.

I'm learning how to take pictures and interesting shots.

This cart could barely contain all the goods that I purchased. Along with good eats for the next month, I canned 28 quarts of apple sauce. YUMMY!

When Life Gets Busy, Blogging Takes The Back Burner

Over the last few years my friends know when my life is on the busy side just by the lack of posts on my blog. The odd thing is usually when my life is busy I am away from home, out on evenings and occupied during the weekends. This time around my busy life is around or near my home. At least 3-4 times a week, I am trying to go out and get my exercise in, always after work either late afternoon or early evening. Exercise is only one part of my attempt to be more healthy, I am trying to eat more fruits and vegetables and cooking a better dinner (sometimes successful at the cooking part, sometimes not). Another part is getting to bed on time, 9:00-9:30, so I can get up on time in the morning, so I can have my quiet times with the Lord. It is all a cycle and part of my busy life.

Talking about the back burner, my back burner of my stove top has been used greatly recently. I think in the last month and half I have canned peaches, made tomato "pre-sauce" and made home made Concord grape jelly and canned it.

When I have a chance, I have about 3 blogs waiting in my brain.

The Low Down and a Few Pics

A glimpse into what has been going on in my world over the last several weeks, in no particular order, rhythm or reason.

• The is a deep feeling down in my gut that the Giants will not make the playoffs, or if they do the Dodgers will be hard to overcome. At least it's a winning season.


• School has been in session for 4 weeks now. First progress report grades are due on Tuesday. Time is flying on by but it is a long stretch now until my next day off, Veteran's Day. I think I have another good crop of students this year. My worries are not so much my students but all of the students who have 6th period PE. Between the 5 teachers in my department there are 250 students. Of these students, about 50% of them are "disciplinary repeat offenders". Daily I need to take time to pause and pray to my heavenly Father for His grace and wisdom to deal with these students and that I would always respond in a way that gives glory to God. Last week my school was put in lock down for an hour and half due to a shooting at the high school.



• End of August always means peach picking at Carol's family peach farm/ranch. Last week, I finished eating the last peach. For the first time I canned fresh peaches, using both the raw and hot processing method. Thank you Carol for always inviting us to go peach picking and to hang out with your family.
  
  
• Dawn and I took a little drive up the Silverado Trail from Napa to Calistoga. Just a drive to do something different for just a short amount of time.



• On the counter top cooling is sitting my very first attempt at making a cheese cake for a co-workers birthday tomorrow. Cheese cake is not a dessert I would choose to eat with all the yummy choices out there but I will enjoy trying what I created. The whole cheese cake was made in the Cuisinart that Suzy gave me. Thanks Suzy, I already love that you are now part of my kitchen. Speaking of Suzy, she had a group of people over last night for one of the most delicious (yum!) home made Julia Childs meals. Everything was so incredibly delicious. Great meal Suzy and absolutely wonderful fellowship!



• Since Memorial Day weekend I have been on a challenge to myself to get into better shape and to lose some weight. I praise the Lord that He has allowed some success and I feel so much better. There still is a long ways to go but with faithfulness on my part and encouragement from my family and friends, I will obtain my goal. The biggest part of my goal once I met my goal is to stay there and not go back to where I have been. Please contact me if you would like to know how I have made some of these changes and seen success.



• My dad and I went golfing over the Labor Day weekend and I managed to drive the golf ball well, stay out of the pond and out of the sand traps. My middle game and putting still needs some refining.



• At some point in the near future I would like to learn how to can tomatoes (including tomato sauce, BBQ sauce and whole tomatoes) and grape jelly or jam. Trin Trin has been asking me for sometime if I make grape jelly and I always have to tell her that I do not know how. The grapes are starting to come in at the farmer's market.



• With no air conditioning in my house I am starting to prepare myself for the big heat wave that is projected to come across the land this next week. I think for at least the next 6 days, triple digits is expected. The fog can return anytime soon for my liking.



• My faithful God is always good to me, always full of tender care and mercy.

Birthday and Christmas Love

Several weeks ago now I had my 40th birthday. Shhhhhh, don't tell anyone. Had a wonderful birthday with most of my family (sure missed Jen, Joe and my sweet loves) and a few close friends. The day was pretty low key. We went to a movie and then we all went out to a yummy seafood dinner at the Dead Fish. What a joy to be able to celebrate my 40th year of life with those I care the most about. God has blessed me richly with my family and friends. I love you all very much.

I want to tell you about a few of the birthday and Christmas gifts that I received this year. My gifts were perfect for me. I captured a few on my digital camera.

I received this apple peeler and corer from a dear family. Sure made my job of preparing apples for sauce or jelly much easier.
You spear the apple on the left end of the crank, and you turn the other end.

As you turn the crank, the apple goes towards the peeler and the corer. A small blade removes the skin as you turn. Then the apple goes through the corer and at the same time spirals the apple. All this is happening and the mess fell right into my sink.

All of my apples were now peeled, cored and spiraled. You can see the core still on the end of the spear that was cranked. As you crank the spear the other way the core is pushed off right into my sink with the rest of the apple waste.

My side sink held all my apple spirals. This was just shy of 1/2 a bushel. I then put all the apple spirals into the huge thick steel bottomed pot that my Grandma got me for my birthday. All I had to do was break up the spirals and separate. Added all of them to pot with about 2" of apple juice on the bottom. Cooked on medium high for about 15 minutes. Added cinnamon. Did a taste test and my apple sauce needed no sugar.

All of my peels and cores contained in one place, no mess and super easy clean up. One day I will learn how to compost (it is on my Bucket List- but we will save that for another post on another day) and this would have been perfect for a compost pile.

As I cooked the apples I also got going the rest of the apple juice to make into apple jelly for my dad. Apple jelly is one of my dad's most favorites. I have not made him my apple jelly yet, so, I know he will be happy.

My sister Jen had my name this year for Christmas and she got me the most perfect gift of all. A home canning water bath and kit. Here you can see that my jelly is in the water bath canning process. It is nice to have the bath at the end of the process because while my jars are bathing, I can clean up the kitchen and wash all the dishes. In the Pyrex dish you can see the leftover jelly that would not fit in the jars.

The final product: 4 quarts of apple sauce and 4 jelly jars of apple jelly.

Oh by the way, the apple sauce was completely sugar free except for the apple juice I added to cook the apples down (it was natural juice with no sugar added). The jelly had almost no sugar added, I added about 1/2 cup to the juice that I turned into jelly.

Homemade Applesauce

It rained almost all day today. This wonderful rain gave me the opportunity to make homemade applesauce from the apples that I got in Apple Hill a few weeks back. I used Fuji, Gala, Pink Lady and Rome apples. With this combination I did not have to use any sugar to sweeten the sauce. It sure turned out yummy. I was able to can several quarts and now have applesauce on hand for the future.

Also decided it would be perfect weather to make banana bread. I had about a dozen super ripe bananas awaiting their destiny in the freezer. I made 3 huge loaves.

I already know what I am going to have for breakfast in the morning, applesauce and toasted banana bread. Yummy.

Photo taken from Google Images (mine looks more chunky. I did not have the energy to take a photo, download and the such).