Rockin CSA haul

We've been enjoying the fruits of fall lately. Our CSA has been chock full of great veggies and fruits, so that has been inspiring. Brian put together this great "salad starter" with a bunch of tomatoes, peppers, olives, cucumbers and red onions, that we can just ladle over our lettuce. Yum... and easy! I also used these beautiful purple, yellow and green tomatillos in my Mom's green enchilada recipe. It's one of my favorites, and it made a TON. We'll be in enchiladas for a few days and still have two small batches frozen for later. Earlier this week we picked up a big handful (about 20) chestnuts that had fallen from the tree down the street. Who knew, but chestnut pickers can be spotted by their characteristic shuffle preformed to open the super spiky hulls... Anyhow, two tries, and I'm still no good at peeling them, but I think I have it figured out for NEXT time.... slit 'em, boil for five minutes and take off the tough outer hull, DON"T WORRY about the super stuck on inner hull yet. Boil again, 20 minutes to an hour.... then try to remove the soft inner hull. Anyhow, after they were all soft I pushed them through a sieve, added an equal amount of sugar and a bit of water... okay I probably added too much water. In the end (no picture of greyish mush) I ended up with chestnut preserve, it's great with a rich yogurt, on bread and I am sure with whipped cream. Brian's not as much of a fan, but I love this stuff.

jars and jars and jars

This is the first year I have really embraced putting up food... I think I like it. It's very rewarding and I love seeing everything on the shelves. It's a fun thing for Brian and I to do together after Owen goes to sleep... even if it tends to keep us up way too late. They are almost too precious to crack open... almost. I promised Brian that as soon as the season for fresh .... whatever we are canning ... is over we can pop them open. However nothing so far, we've been working our way through some jam from Mom and half jars of stuff. Let's see what do we have (in reverse and slightly overlapping order) applesauce, tomatoes, pasta sauce, pizza sauce, italian plum jam, blackberry jam, Dill pickles, peach jam, cherries, beets, raspberry jam, and some strawberry freezer jam (started jammin' these guys before I got up the gumption to try canning... next year!). We also have a handful of apple pies, strawberry shortcakes, and bean servings in the freezer.... mmm
I can't really explain why this makes me so happy. Maybe because last winter went on soo long (at least it seemed that way, hard to say, it was my first Portland winter), that bringing a bit of summer along with me is reassuring.

I'll fly away!

Well, for our friend James's big 2nd birthday and to celebrate his move to the big boy bed, I put together a pillow with airplanes on it (to match his sheets). As a special touch I added his name and a button from my brother's uniform when he was in the airforce. I hope he likes it. It is a similar inspiration for the quilt I made for his sister.

Shhhh

Been trying out some embroidery, I think these will be christmas gifts for some dear friends. Well, Grandpa Jerry already got the dragon for his birthday. He told me that the Emperors only got the dragons with the five claws, but since he's decended from an emperor... it's okay!The patterns are from sublime stitching... so cute and fun! I gave my very first attempt at embroidery to my Brother, but thankfully don't have a picture, but I was kinda happy with the design, though my skills with the needle were... uh... poor. I also did one for my mom... but can't find the picture (if I took one), but it had the lanterns and pagoda from the chinatown pattern.

We be jammin'

In an effort to maximize and bottle up the beautiful sunshine this summer, we have been hitting the U-picks around here (most recently Duycks pig and peachy farm... loads of blueberries, blackberries, peaches, plums (Mom's new favorite), eggplants, peppers, hmmm.... that may be it on that day... we also love Rowell Brothers and Kruger's. I've had a few evenings filled with jam jars, tomato jars, and brian recently went a picklin (I'll take some pics of those and post 'em later!). We were doing pretty well with the tomatoes at home... until the chickens discovered how tasty they are, now only the highest and most protected ones are safe. Curses... they are so funny to watch and make such yummy eggs, it's hard to hold a few tomatoes against them... much. Thank you Tallulah (our easter egger finally started laying, Goldie and Barbara started weeks ago!)
At any rate, we'll be swimming in jam, strawberry, blackberry (the best!), plum, peach, as well as some blackberry "sauce" or jam that didn't quite set up, some cherries, tomatoes, tomato sauce, and salsa! We'll see how we did when we bust them open this winter.

Swimmy

All folded up and ready to go!
The back reads love truth light peace... a paraphrase of something that Suzi would say at the end of Randall and my yoga classes.
I like these colors, maybe baby girl kimbro can use it as a lap blanket to read under when she gets older. It's based closely on the Easy Lap blanket in Amy Karol's book.
And the back... with lovely mermaids swimming along...

I also want to post the quilt I made for Owen a few months ago... my first quilting attempt as a baby his favorite color was/is still sometimes Orange... so....
I also made him a cute miniblanket that he could take with him, though it doesn't even come close to replacing his LBB (Little blue blanket) that is his companion in sleep!
The back is a cool yellow flannel with a modern flower pattern, you can't quite see it in this picture, but it makes me smile because really... it's like 90dgrees out the day I finished this rather warm quilt project.
Mom and I designed it off of the knitting pattern for some sort of a modern log cabin pattern from Mason-Dixon Knitting (a super fun knitting book).