Dane County Fair

Monday already. So glad I don't have school on Monday's anymore- well at least for another 3 weeks before I start up again. Did everyone have a good weekend? Yesterday was a pretty lazy day around here. Made 4 jars of Bread & Butter Pickles and wrapped a bunch of presents, that's about it.

A couple of weeks ago was the Dane County Fair. We've gone on Sunday the last couple of years but not always with the same people. This year we went with the Moore family and with Scott's parents. I got some sugar covered nuts (yum), the Moore's purchased some tastey chips, and Jim & Pat bought some yummy wine slush stuff. And of course Connor had to go win his "fishy" friend! We only ever stay a couple of hours but it's always a lot of fun. I really wanted to take one of the cute bunnies that I saw home! The animals were probably the kids favorite part.

Disney

Got some Rhubarb today from a co-worker, can't wait to make some Strawberry Rhubarb Jam! Will start it tomorrow morning so I can can it tomorrow. Last year I only got 2 - 16oz jars of this, I'm making them 8oz jars this year so I'll probably end up with only 4 (unless I get another batch of rhubarb later). This tasted so good and the kids liked it too so I'll probably end up using a bunch of it next fall for Connor's school lunches.

It's been 3 weeks since we were in Disney - we were down there Sunday-Thursday. Sunday night we went to Downtown Disney, Monday was spent at Animal Kingdom, Tuesday at Magic Kingdom and Wednesday at Hollywood Studios (formally MGM). We had a blast every day and it was a lot of fun and I'm so glad that John & Carol took us - however I should have listened to them and just taken Connor out of school for a week instead of going during Spring Break, it was just too busy to really enjoy all that Disney has to offer. I'm glad we went though and I can't wait till we get to go again - just not during the week before Easter. Oh, and FYI - sports star sighting - Gregg Jennings from the Green Bay Packers was at Magic Kingdom the same day we were!

Pizza Sauce

Can you believe tomorrow is February already? And guess what? We already have our taxes done and they will be mailed out today, so excited! Going to be paying off the CC, put a chunk of change in savings for Germany (hopefully going there June 2013), and now we're looking into replacing our flooring on most of the main level in our house, yay!

So on the 22nd, Jessica came over and we made pizza sauce! We had 15 pounds of tomatoes left in the freezer, and with removing those I was finally able to unplug the fridge in the garage which will hopefully save us some money! So after thawing, removing skins, removing as many seeds as possible and blending all the tomatoes we added 2 packs of Mrs. Wages pizza sauce (and all the ingredients it asks for), garlic powder & some oregano. We ended up getting 12 - 8 oz jars from the batch, so we each got 6! We actually just used our first jar last night and made a pizza, and it was AMAZING! That brings me down to 5 left. If anyone is interested in purchasing one through AJsCanning, let me know and I can get it posted on the etsy site, otherwise I'll just eat it all myself, yumm!

Christmas With Betty

So I just heard the Packer's lost their first game of the year, lol! Awesome! They will probably go on to win the Super Bowl but to be faithful to my dear hubby who is a Dolphin's fan and holds the record of being the only team that's undefeated, I'm glad the Packer's lost and can not take that record! Plus I hate Rodgers!

So on Thursday we went over to Jim & Pat's house to celebrate Christmas with Betty since she goes out to Colorado to visit with her sister for Christmas, so we always do it early. We got some Little Cesar's Pizza for dinner and then got to open presents! Both boys got an awesome Imagainex Dinosaur along with How to Train Your Dragon Movie. The Girls got the Zany Zoo toy, which is awesome! Matt & Scott both got new jerseys and a case of beer, Chrissy & I also got some team apparel! We gave Betty some Christmas Pictures, some canned goods (pickles & banberry jam) and I also made her a UW Wisconsin fleece blanket that had pictures on it. We also do Secret Santa, I had Pat, Scott had Betty, Jim had me, and Chrissy or Matt had Scott (can't remember, and I'd ask Scott but he's currently taking a nap with Savannah, lol). It's always a lot of fun and of course the kids love getting presents early! Now onto the next Christmas event! This season is going by so fast! Only a week left until the big day!

Pumpkin Butter

A pretty relaxing day around the house. Scott & the kids went over to the Moore's for the football game while I stayed home and made some zucchini bread, took a bath and read my current book. The weekend is almost over but thankfully this is a short work week, only 3 days. Scott has all week off, lucky! And hopefully he'll be getting some last minute things outside done and also get new brakes on his truck.

So last week Jessica & I opened up our Etsy shop - AJsCanning - and going with a suggestion from our friend Carolyn I decided to look into Pumpkin Butter. I had a few pumpkins still sitting around that I needed to do something with so this seemed like the perfect thing! I got the recipe from PickYourOwn.Org like I get a lot of my recipes from. Instead of letting it cook for only about 8 hours, I cooked mine for about 24 hours but that was the only difference I made. I made a total of 12-4oz jars and 8-16oz jars. All 12 of the 4oz jars are now on our Etsy site waiting for you to purchase it. My house now smells like Thanksgiving and Pumpkin Pie!

Spaghetti Sauce

So it's Sunday night. I really should be reading some of my homework because I am a few chapters behind, but I really don't feel like doing it. Instead I'm sitting here watching a movie with the family and also reading my current book "Creating Healthy Children". Buffalo Chicken Pizza is in the oven and then pretty soon it'll be time to get the kids ready for bed. I will force myself to finish reading one chapter for school tonight, just not yet!

So yesterday Jessica and Justin came over and we made Spaghetti Sauce. This was the first time we've done this so we didn't know exactly what to expect. We started off pulling 36 pounds of tomatoes out of the freezer and purchasing 6 packs of Mrs. Wages Pasta Sauce packs. I also asked a co-worker if she had any advice and she said to just throw in a little "extra" stuff with the packets, so I put in 1.5 pounds of green peppers (from the garden, in the freezer) a large onion that I had and also about 3 garlic gloves that I had. It should have gotten us approximately 30 pints of Spaghetti Sauce, but we only got the equivalent of 19 pints (7 quarts, and 5 pints), it would have been nice if it would have yielded more but not much we can do about it. We did take a little taste and I thought it tasted great so hopefully it'll taste even better after it sits in the cans for awhile. I still have 15 more pounds of tomatoes in the freezer so we'll have to come up with a project for those, either more spaghetti sauce or a different type of salsa maybe.

Apple Butter

It's finally Friday! WOHO! :) Today is Connor's Fall Festival at school, so Scott has the day off and we're going to go meet Connor there in a little bit. After that we're going to head to McDonald's for lunch, and then I'll have to head to work while the rest of the family gets to go home and take a nap.

So after picking apples and making applesauce this past weekend, we used some of the applesauce to make Apple Butter. Apple Butter reminds me of going to my brother's grandma's when I was little, I remember eating it all the time. It was SO GOOD! I really hope mine turned out 1/2 as good as I remember it being. we cooked it down for about 24 hours (we were going to finish it Sunday morning before the baseball game, but it wasn't finished yet so when we got home we had to finish it). I can't wait to try it, and I will also be giving some of it away to a few select individuals for Christmas.

Applesauce

Sad news today.......... I tossed out my favorite pair of shoes....... I've had them for over 6 years. You may ask, why did you toss them then? Well they were a pair of chunky black sandals, and the tops of them were starting to peel really bad, so I really couldn't wear them out anywhere...... so in the trash they went. Probably should have tossed them a long time ago, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

So after picking apples this past Saturday it was time to make all those apples into applesauce. 42 pounds of apples takes a long time to cut, core and cook. Then we ran it through a meat grinder, and since we don't have the type of grinder that separates the skins from the good stuff I (well mostly Scott) had to run all of it through a food mill. It took awhile and we didn't finish until almost 10 p.m. I sure hope it turns out better than last year. I didn't realize the skins weren't taken out last year, so they were left in. I realized it when I finally opened a jar this past week. I'm so sorry to those who I gave a jar to, if you get one this year I promise it'll be a heck of a lot better!

Zesty Salsa

Sitting here watching some football, even though I don't really want to..... I honestly don't care if the Packer's win or not. Trying to decide if I really want to make dinner or if we should just kind of wing it and make whatever. It's almost 6 so I guess we should decide soon......

So yesterday was the big salsa day with Jessica! We followed the same recipe as last year (except we had a different mixture of hot peppers). We quadrupled the recipe, and we were suppose to get about 24 pints, but ended up getting 28! Which is awesome, because if it's anywhere near as good as last year I'll be glad to have those couple extra. Last year I gave away all the salsa except 1 jar, which I wanted to kick myself for after I tried it. I will not be making the same mistake this year, we'll be keeping almost all of it for ourselves! The recipe called for 24 pounds of tomatoes, 6 pounds of onions, 8 pounds of green peppers, 4 pounds of hot peppers, 12 cloves of garlic, some cilantro, some apple cider vinegar & a little hot sauce. Can't wait to try it! I really hope it's close to as good as last year!

Habanero Jelly

It's Tuesday, and there's lots to do today! After dropping Connor off at school I cleaned up the kitchen, cleaned pumpkin seeds (going to roost them tonight), cleaned the kids room a little and folded some laundry, and read some of my Employment Law Textbook. After work tonight I have to roast the seeds, make zucchini bars for work tomorrow & deviled eggs (pot luck at work!), plus Scott has homework to do and I'll have to take my 1st Employment Law test.......should be fun I guess, lol.

So Sunday Jessica came over and we did some canning. We decided to make some Habanero Jelly - this was her idea, and I loved the idea, so I jumped on the bandwagon! I got the Habanero's from Gary (in-laws neighbor) - 8 of them to be exact - but they were pretty large in size. We didn't even actually measure how much we had, we just used them all, since the recipe called for 1/2 cup cut up. Thankfully Jessica brought over her food processor, so we didn't have to sit there and chop everything! The recipe made 11 of the 1/4 pint jars (didn't even know that size existed until that day). I think this will be the perfect size to use the jelly. I'm really looking forward to putting it on cream cheese and eating it with crackers! Since it was Jessica's idea to make the jelly she got 6 jars and I got 5 - and I gave 1 of them to Gary since he provided the Habaneros. Can't wait to eat it! Yumm!

BBQ Sauce

Today might be another lazy day around the house...........we've managed to eat breakfast, clean up a little of the kitchen/living room, but that's about it........and i'ts almost noon......hm........we should probably get outside sometime this weekend, but this is like the first weekend we've had nothing really going on, so it's kind of nice to be a bunch of bums....

So yesterday I decided to use some of the tomatoes in my freezer and make BBQ sauce. Normally I wait until Jessica can come over before doing any canning, but my freezer was getting pretty full, and it'll be a few more weeks before we can make salsa or spaghetti sauce, so I had to do something. So I took out 20 pounds of tomatoes, peeled them (put frozen tomatoes in a bucket of warm water for a little bit and the skins will just fall out), then I cut them in half, squeezed them & put them in a large pot. After that I got all the seasonings together and mixed that in. I followed the recipe pretty closely, just used a little bit more of the hot sauce & cayenne pepper to make it more spicy. After that you let it simmer for awhile (I did it for about an hour), then you run it through a food mill (thanks Carol for letting me use yours). According to the recipe you can put it in a crock pot for about 2 hours to cook it down....I did it for over 4.5 hours and it still seemed a little to thin..... but after starting it at about noon, and it was already past 9 o'clock I decided to just process the jars anyways. I'm hoping after they sit for awhile they will thicken up a little bit more......only time will tell I guess. I normally love the website that I got this recipe from, but I think they need to proof-read this one again..........it's pretty contradictory...........in one spot it says 15 pounds, in another it says 25 pounds.........so I used 20 (I was using quit a few Roma tomatoes which are thicker anyways). Also in one spot it says 4 pint jars, but in another it says 7.............I ended up getting 9.5 pints..... I think if I do this again, I'll let it sit in the crock pot over night to hopefully get a little more thick. I'll let you know in a couple of weeks when we try it what my final judgement of this recipe is.

Garlic Dill Pickles

So it's Sunday. Going over to GG's later to celebrate her birthday and then Aunt Missy's (I think, still gotta call her). Going to make some zucchini bar things and decorate them with pink letters for Katie's birthday. Still have to make both of their birthday cards and wrap their presents.......usually I'm so ahead of things, it's kind of weird to do things at the last minute!

So yesterday Jessica & Justin came over and Jessica & I made some Garlic Dill Pickles. We doubled the recipe and ended up getting 14 pint jars even though we should have gotten 16. Our cucumbers were pretty little, so that's some of the reason we didn't get the 16. We did have a little bit of the brine left over, but I'm not even sure it would have been enough for 1 more jar or not. 4 of the jars we put some of my jalapenos from the garden to make them a little spicy. Can't wait to try them in a few weeks or months to see how they taste .

Bread & Butter Pickles

So Monday night we realized it was a little warm in the house. Sometimes our a/c doesn't work the best, but it's been working for awhile. We had a suspicion that something was wrong though but didn't want to admit it. Unfortunately when Scott got home from work Tuesday night it was 86 degrees in the house. Thankfully Cardinal Heating & Air was able to come over right away and fix it. $160 later it's cool again in the house.........hopefully we don't have to fix it again before we sell the dhouse!

So Saturday afternoon Jessica & Justin brought me some cucumbers! I didn't have a chance to do anything with them Saturday, but Sunday morning I made some pickles out of them! I found the recipe on cookes.com that I decided to try. Scott wanted Bread & Butter Pickles, so that is what I made. The portions of the recipe were kind of messed up. I used 6 large cucumbers like it says, only used 2 onions (they were huge), and it probably made enough for about 8 pints of pickles. However the liquid part of the recipe only made enough for 2.5 pints........thankfully I had some more vinegar in the house, so I was able to make 5 pints of pickles, and just tossed the remaining cucumbers & onions. I can't tell you if they're any good or not, can't eat them for at least a few weeks, but I figured I'd share my notes about this particular recipe in case anyone finds this recipe and decides to try it out.

Banberry Jam

Just got home from the Moore's house. We went over there and made some smore's over their little fire pit, yum! First smore of the summer! The boys also played on their new swing set and Chrissy & I chilled with the girls while they tried to sleep a little. They were all so cute! We even caught a couple of fire flies!

So today we were going to pick strawberries & make banberry jam. Well the picking of the strawberries didn't happen. We drove all the way out there and they sent us away because there were "to many" people there........well fine then! We ended up driving to Copps, where they had strawberries for $1.44 a pound, so it was even cheaper than picking them ourselves! We then came back to the house and ended up making 17 jars of Banberry Jam, so I took 8 of the jars while Jessica took 9. 3 of the jars we didn't even process because we had to get going to the Haack graduation party, but that's okay, they can hang out in the fridge & we can use them right away!

Paddle Boat

So in a little over an hour or so, Jessica will be coming over. We're going to go pick strawberries and then make some BanBerry Jam (Bananas & Strawberries if you didn't catch that). I found the recipe online somewhere, but can't remember where. I sure hope it turns out good, cause it sure sounds yummy!!

So yesterday we made the trip up to Rio to the campgrounds that Scott's family goes to pretty much every year. We left our house just after noon, and it's a little over a half hour to get there. One of the first things we did was get our swim suits out and head to the pond, where Carol rented a paddle boat for an hour. I don't remember the last time I was on a paddle boat, it was a lot of fun, but a lot of work. It didn't help that I had done my work out video earlier in the day so my legs were already tired..........needless to say I didn't paddle for very long and made Scott do it instead, lol.

Applesauce & Salsa

So last night Connor had his first Gymnastics session of the fall! We enrolled him in the 3-5 class instead of the walking-3 class that he's been in for the last year and a half. We were a little worried that he would do horrible and not listen to his teacher, but overall he did GREAT. I was so proud of him, just watching him do what he was suppose to do. It was nice to see him do so good! Obviously he didn't listen the entire time, he is only 3 and it is a 50 minute class, but compared to everyone else he didn't seem to be the worst kid in class, YAY!!!

So on Sunday the 5th me and Jessica decided to have another canning session! In the morning Scott, me & Connor drove out to Door Creek Orchard to pick some apples to make applesauce. Overall we bought just under 10lbs (which is what we needed). Approximately 5 lbs of McIntosh & 5 lbs of Gala. Connor always has a ton of fun with this, cause he can eat as many different kinds as he wants! So after getting the apples, I started the applesauce by cutting & cooking the apples. By the time Jessica came over with all the Salsa stuff I was ready to grind (she had the attachment) the apples and get them in cans & processed. Applesauce was really easy to do, and I would definitely do it again! We managed to make 6 pints and 1 1/2 pint of Applesauce. The Salsa on the other hand....took FOREVER!! There was just so many things to cut & slice and peel...we had to make Scott help us, otherwise we would have never gotten done with it! We ended up finishing at 5:30 p.m. (I wanted to get done by 4:30 b/c we were going over to Aunt Missy's house). We ended up with 12 pints & 3 1/2 pints and a plastic container filled for Jessica to take home. I think we decided if we do Salsa again, Jessica is going to bring over her food processor, and we're also going to wear gloves (both of our hands KILLED for like a day afterwords because of the jalapenos and other peppers we used).

Toppings & Pickles

So it's a Saturday night, and what am I doing?? Sitting here listening to Jessica & Justin & Scott listening to the football game on TV. Also wondering if I have enough energy to watch a movie tonight, or if I should just take a shower & go to bed.... we shall see!!!

So today was the big canning day! Me & Connor went to the Door Creek Orchard today and picked a TON of raspberries. Pretty sure Connor ate just about as many as we picked, but oh well. Scott came and helped with the last 1/4 of them after work because I just couldn't deal with the mosquito's anymore. We were there for almost 2 hours! After getting home & eating lunch, Jessica & Justin came over and we began our canning experience. First we made Chocolate Raspberry Ice Cream Topping. The recipe was suppose to make 6 - 1/2 pint jars, but we ended up making 8. Then it was onto dill pickles. Man did those take FOREVER!!!! The recipe we used was suppose to make 3 quart sized jars, so we quadrupled it so we could each have 6 of them, well.... it ended up making 21 total instead of 12, HOLY COW! Oh well, now we (or should I say I) have lots of pickles to give away for Christmas! It took just under 7 hours to complete all of them, and I'm exhausted! My kitchen is a disaster, oh well, it can wait until tomorrow!!!