Preserving Autumn

Yesterday’s adventure in the kitchen was canning applesauce. 

On Monday I picked up a big box of apples from one of our local orchards.  They were having a sale, so the box of red delicious apples (over 25 pounds!) was only $5.  Being a bargain shopper, I fell for it, thinking I’d can it into applesauce.  Never mind the fact that I’ve never canned anything before.  With the wonder of the internet, you can go from novice to expert in just a few clicks.  After reading up for a bit, and begging the loan of a canner from my friend Melissa, I got out some pots and pans and set to work.

First, I peeled and chopped the apples and put them in my biggest pot.  After a dozen apples, I could hardly see a dent in the box, and the pot was getting pretty full.  I added a few more apples for good measure, then put in about a cup and a half of water and turned on the heat.  Meanwhile, I filled the canner with hot water from the tap and put it on the stove, and stuck my jars into the dishwasher to sanitize and stay hot while I was cooking.  The lids went into a little pan of water on the third of my four burners where they heated up at a low simmer.  As the applesauce cooked, I added a squeeze of lemon juice and a bit of brown sugar and cinnamon.  When the apples were soft, I used my immersion blender to blend the applesauce to a smooth consistency.  At this point, I found I needed to add a bit more water to make it look just right.  Time for a check:  Hot water in the canner?  Hot jars in the dishwasher?  Hot lids on the stove?  Hot applesauce in the pot?  Yep!  Ready to go.  Now I filled the hot jars with hot applesauce, placed a hot lid on each and secured it with a (not hot) ring.  Then I placed the jars into the hot water canner, crossed my fingers and waited.  After sitting for 20 minutes in boiling water, the jars were ready to be removed to a towel on the counter to cool.  About two minutes after I took the jars out of the canner, I started hearing the ping of the lids sealing, and felt the pride of accomplishment.

Oh, you want to know how it tastes?  Nu-uh!  I canned those babies to last through the winter, so there’s no way I’m cracking the seal today.  But I do have about 15 pounds of apples left, so it’s pretty likely I’ll make another batch today.

New Undies

The little man is getting bigger!  At three-and-a-half, his size 2 undies were getting a bit snug on him.  So, this week I whipped up a new set of undies in size 4.  Now, the hardest decision of the day is which pair to put on in the morning.

Check out my pattern here if you’re interested in making undies for your little ones.  Both boys and girls styles are included in sizes 2-4-6-8 for years of comfy and cute little tushies.  Once you try them, you’ll be convinced that there’s nothing like mama-made undies.

Yikes! Stripes!

How many striped shirts does a boy need?  Apparently, five is not too many.  

I sewed up this quintet of striped tees for E-Boy the other day.  I got most of these wonderful striped jerseys on clearance from Chez Ami, where you have to buy a two-yard cut of each print.  As I was cutting out the shirts, I realized that a toddler sized tee doesn’t make much of a dent in two yards of fabric.  We may have matching shirts for years to come.  Oh, yes, for those of you with a long memory, the one in front is a duplicate of one we had last year.  Fortunately, I’m the only one in my house who remembers (or cares) what clothes the boy wears from one year to the next.

Long Sleeves.

Here are some of the shirts I’ve been sewing for the girls this Fall.  I’ve been hoarding this purple campan stripe since I bought it this spring, just waiting for long sleeve weather.  The pattern is from the latest issue of Ottobre.  I used knits for the butterfly applique, leaving the edges raw to roll a bit when they’re washed.  The rhinestone antennae add a bit of bling, and I used a reverse coverstitch with woooly nylon for the hems (you can just see  it on the sleeve in this picture).  The two shirts are identical (no wonder people think my girls are twins) except for the tags; one has pink striped ribbon for a tag, the other has pink polka dot ribbon.  Wouldn’t you know, the girls both wanted the one with the polka dot ribbon tag.

I love the stripe/dot combination on these tunics.  I used another Ottobre pattern for these, the “strawberry tunic” from Otto 3/08.  I lengthened the sleeves since I’m sewing for Fall.  I also had to alter the back to have a yoke, since I was working with half-yard lengths of fabric.  The girls had to flip a coin over these shirts, since they both wanted the pink/blue one.  Me, I prefer the red/pink version as I had both coordinating solids for the yoke/binding.

One More Camping Trip

Last weekend our family headed up to the lake for one last camping trip of the summer.  It almost feels like we’re cheating when we go camping in September, eeking out an extra bit of Summer.  The weather around here is gorgeous in September, and since most of the tourists have gone back home, the lake is quiet at this time of year.

When we got in on Friday we set up our campsite.  The weather report predicted that there could be rain showers on Saturday morning, so Hubby and I strung up a tarp over our picnic table, just in case.  It turned out we didn’t get any rain, but we had a monster windstorm on Saturday night.   The tarp didn’t blow away, though, and neither did we.

Saturday morning was cool, so we started out by taking a little hike above our camp.

Here’s my attempt at getting a candid shot of the family hiking.  I don’t think the kids know the meaning of the word “candid”.

 After our hike, the weather had warmed up a bit, so the kids had fun paddling this raft around.  Hubby took E-boy for a ride.  Me, I sat in my camp chair on the dock and knitted on a sock.

Do you see that nice rock wall around the fire pit?  We built that!  By the afternoon on Saturday the wind was starting to blow, so we needed to make a little wind break for our fire.  Here’s Hubby building up a fire for me to bake a birthday cake for E., who turned seven on Saturday.  The plan was to bake a chocolate-raspberry cake in the cast iron dutch oven.  It was a good plan, but next time we’re going to use a different recipe.  Luckily, the birthday girl enjoyed her cake.

 Here’s the finished cake, complete with pink candles.  I didn’t keep track of how many were blown out by the wind before the birthday girl started blowing.  Inside the pretty pink box was a new webkinz unicorn, which E. thought was a pretty good gift.  This picture makes it look like the unicorn is whispering a secret in E’s ear.

E-boy still has a thing for throwing rocks in the water.  I don’t think there are any more rocks near the beach that are throwable by a three and a half year old boy.  You can see here how the wind is starting to whip up the water.  It kept blowing all night long, and didn’t die down unitl late the following morning.  It was a pretty crazy night, lying in the tent wondering if it was going to blow away in the wind.  The kids didn’t seem to have trouble sleeping, but Hubby and I didn’t get much rest.  Luckily, we’d battened down the hatches and were prepared to wait out the storm.

This last picture is of our dinner on Sunday, beef stew cooked over the campfire.  Seriously, this was yummy!  I precut most of the veggies at home and brought them in a ziplock.  The beef was leftover from the last dinner cooked at home.  At camp, all I had to do was put the meat and veggies in the pot, and cut the potatoes.  Then I tossed in a packet of seasoning and some water.  It only took about half an hour over the fire to cook the carrots and potatoes.  I’d brought along a loaf of homemade bread which we sliced, buttered and garlicked, then wrapped in foil to heat over the fire.  It made a delicious dinner served at a lake-view picnic table.

Date Night

We live in a small town.  Okay, it’s not teeny-tiny, but it’s small.  The restaurant choices are limited, as are the options for entertainment.  For us, date night consisted of driving through the local burger joint on our way to watch a junior league hockey game.  Hey, at least I didn’t need to get all dressed up fancy, right?

It was an exciting game against our division rivals.  The game was tied up going into overtime, and our team ended up winning in a shootout.  My voice is still hoarse from cheering on the team.  I brought along the camera and took about 150 pictures trying to figure out how to shoot fast-moving hockey players through the glass.  Here are some of the highlights of the game.

Yes, I said the teams were rivals, it wasn’t long before a fight broke out.  I think this is Hubby’s favorite part of the hockey games.  I think both the players involved were ejected from the game after this fight.

Here’s a nice shot of the other team attacking our goal.  Unfortunately, they made the shot.  Fortunately, we won anyway.

And, the winning goal in the shootout.  Thanks to Hubby for these perfectly timed shots.  Can you see the puck in the back of the net in the second one?  Cool, huh?

The Official Summer Wrap-Up Post.

This weekend, the weather has taken a turn for the worse.  Yesterday, the kids and I headed for the waterslide park for our last trip of the season, and ended up swimming in the rain.  We had fun, though.  We soaked in the hot tub for a while, then headed home early.  Reality set in that summer is at its end.

School started last week.  When I was a kid, I remember always going back to school after Labor Day.  Around here, the kids start the Wednesday before Labor Day.  It kind of crept up on us.  We did the back-to-school shopping, and stocked the girls’ backpacks with folders and pencils, then sent them off on the bus.  The kids were more than ready to return to school, to see their old friends and play on the new playground equipment that was built at their school over the summer.

But before we get to all of that…we did have a lot of fun this summer that I haven’t shared.  A. turned 9, and had a sleepover birthday party with a few of her friends.  Not a lot of sleeping happened, but the kids had fun.

Hubby played softball again this year, so we spent a fair amount of time hanging out at the ball park.  Luckily, the ball park has a playground and a swimming area.  The best part (at least according to my kids) was the concession stand, which sold Laffy Taffy three for twenty-five cents.

Here are the girls helping me make cookies.  Yum!

Here’s E-Boy, flying in the air while mommy tries to figure out her new camera.  He’s quite a daredevil, don’t know where he gets that (cough…daddy…cough).  I promise Daddy didn’t drop him, and E-Boy loved it.  The camera thing is still a work-in-progress, obviously.

Another proof that it’s Fall: football season is here.  Hubby took me for a date to one of the pre-season games.  We enjoyed a night out on the town while the kids spent the day and night with their favorite babysitter.

So it’s Salmon Season!

I guess it’s fair to say Hubby got “hooked” on salmon fishing.  He even went out and bought himself a fishing boat so he’s all geared up to catch the big one.  Yes, we now have a “big boat” to take the family out skiing and camping, and a “little boat” for fishing.  Being that we’re a one car family, I find it kind of ironic to own two boats.  Hubby says it’s just a matter of having the right tools for the job, kind of like I own several sewing machines to accomplish the tasks I want in the sewing room.

Here’s my father-in-law with the 15 pound, 32 inch King Salmon he caught on the Columbia:

Lake Wenatchee Sockeye Fishing

When Lake Wenatchee opens for sockeye fishing, anglers from all over the state come to try their luck for the best-eating salmon around.  This is the second year in a row it has opened, but it had been years prior to that.  Hubby woke up at 1:30 in the morning to drive out and brave the crowds waiting to launch at the single ramp on the lake.  The line was already forming and eventually backed-up out of the park.  A couple hundred boats turned out opening day.  It wasn’t even light out when they put the boat in the water and headed out to their spot.  At an hour before sunrise, they dropped their lines on the downriggers and sat back to wait for that elusive bite.  Hubbby caught his limit in the first two hours and he felt that it was well worth the hassle. 

The next day, he convinced our oldest to head back out to the lake with him.  She got up at 2:00 am, like a real fisherman, and had her first bite at about 6am.  Hubby set the hook and A. battled the fish.  After nearly losing the rod and A. overboard, she was able to reel in her first sockeye.  Hubby netted the fish and A. was smiling ear to ear.   When we ate her fish for dinner that night, she was beaming with pride!  This truly was the best tasting Salmon we’ve had.

Here are Hubby and his dad just back from fishing for Sockeye:

And here are Hubby and A., who caught her first Sockeye this week. 

We will be enjoying salmon for months to come.

How About a Fish Story?

Today was opening day for Salmon fishing in the Columbia River, so Hubby and a neighbor made plans to go out and do some fishing.  They left home at 3:00 am.  Around 11:00, Hubby called me on the phone to let me know they were on their way home.  When he told me he’d caught an 19 pound King Salmon that measured 36 inches long, I didn’t quite believe him.  Turns out, it was the truth.

Hubby cleaned the fish and cut it into steaks.  We froze enough for four more dinners, and grilled some up tonight.

It was delicious!  The salmon on the left was marinated with an orange-honey glaze, the other was marinated with lemon pepper.  I baked some french bread to go with it, and sauteed some of the veggies from our CSA box.  Talk about eating fresh, that salmon went from swimming in the river this morning to our dinner table tonight.

Summer Fun: Slip and Slide

I have to admit that this slip and slide was worth the $10.99 we paid for it.  The kids tried it out and all had a blast, as did half the neighborhood yesterday.  I had fun playing with my new camera trying to get pictures of the water splashing.  Here are my three monsters.

A:

E:

And E-boy: