At a loss on what to do with all that zucchini?

Well, you're not alone! We're just about ready to start blanching ours and freezing it for the winter.

I saw an ad on craigslist this week for free zukes. We shared some with our neighbors today. I spend a lot of time visiting recipe zaar for zuke recipes and trying out new dishes.

Thankfully most of our family LOVES summer squash, so I can serve it in various ways and they will glady eat it - with the exception of our four year old who doesn't care for it too much.

One of the simplest ways we eat it is to simply roughly dice it and then fry it up in our cast iron pan, add some seasoned salt, black pepper and garlic and then cook 'til just tender. It's prettiest if you have a mixture of summer squash, like yellow ss, zukes and white scalloped ss. Throw in a few pieces of ripe tomato for a splash of red.

Good eating!

Playing catch up!

We had family visiting again for three weeks in August and we've been busy this summer as usual.. we don't seem to spend enough time *inside* to update our blog.

Our chicks have just starting laying and are proving to be extra noisy, I'm guessing they've learned well from our three older hens! We tried to put them in one area together but I had to break up a big fight so they are staying separated.

The chicks (okay, I *really* need to stop calling them chicks! ha!) are still little compared to the other 3 hens, but we'll take what we can get :)

Our garden is incredibly productive right now, we can go out daily and collect produce, it's great! Here's a photo of a small sampling from our garden.

Let's see, in the basket we have scalloped summer squash, zukes, yellow summer squash, yellow crookneck squash, a japanese cuke, various tomatoes, a poona keera cuke and a gem squash. There are other various veggies as well, not pictured here though.

What a blessing to be able to go out into our backyard and pick food for dinner... or go out in the morning and gather eggs for baking!

Jam, jam, jam!

We made some blueberry jam and raspberry freezer jam today, eight jars of each.

I love making jam, it looks so pretty in the jars and tastes so good! I can't wait until we're growing our own berries instead of having to buy them.

Happy Father's Day!

My own dad has passed on, but we called my FIL for Father's Day. I love him just as much as my own dad and have the greatest respect for him, and I'm so thankful to him (and my lovely MIL!) for raising up the wonderful man I am married to today.

To my own dear DH, thank you my love for being the wonderful Father and Daddy you are to our children. I love you so much.

For Father's Day hubby chose to spend the day at the reservoir. We started off with homemade cards, gifts and then a "Farmer's Breakfast". At the reservoir we spent a bit of time on the water, a bit of time swimming and had our wonderful "Fishing Sandwiches" for lunch, yum! We didn't actually get to do any fishing because we ran out of time, but there's always next weekend!

A wonderful day was had by all!

Useful Kitchen Gadgets: Part One: Tupperware Hamburger Press

There are so many kitchen gadgets available on the market today, many of them quite useful, many more of them not. I thought I'd write every now and then about some of my favorite kitchen gadgets.

First up is my Tupperware Hamburger Press system. As far as I know you can't get these new anymore, but there are many available on Ebay and other sites. Now, of course you can make patties by hand, but when you have seven people to make patties for these make the work a lot quicker, easier and cleaner!

The set includes a press, sleeve/ring, patty freezer keepers and lid(s).

Start off with your ground meat mix. A perfect mix is made of either ground beef or turkey, egg and spices.






Insert sleeve/ring into one of the patty freezer keepers. Scoop out some of the meat mix (about 1/3 cup) into the keeper.





Get your press....








And press and turn gently.








The result :)








Remove sleeve/ring.








Snap another keeper onto the bottom keeper.








Repeat, and then snap on the lid. If you plan on using the burgers immediately, put them in the freezer for half an hour or so to firm them up before grilling. Otherwise, put in the freezer and remove when needed.

Memorial Day Weekend

Our Memorial Day long weekend has been quite the busy one. We decided to buy a dog run kit as a run for the chicks. At least this way we can easily break it down and take it with us when we move. It is 7.5' x 13', and 6' high and was quite easy to put up, everybody helped :)

Getting it located was a little bit of a mission, but we managed okay and finally got it where it belongs. We had to bury the one side a little to get it level, but all in all I think it looks great, and the chicks think they are the bees knees! Once they were released into it they ran around like hooligans chasing each other and attempting to fly all over the place. Funny chicks :)

Because of the roof overhang on the front of the coop and the height of the run, we couldn't have the run right against the coop, so we had to make a caged tunnel from the coop to the run. Hey, you do what you have to! LOL!

We left as much greenery as possibly for them to peck at, I'm sure it won't be long before it's all gone and just dirt.

I also took some time to plant the pots out front.... because of our huge tree I can only put in shade plants. I LOVE hosta, and got two different types.

I think I prefer the first one, but variety is the spice of life, or so they say! We've also reseeded the grass out front, so it should be looking real pretty this summer!

And, as always, Impatiens in the two big wooden barrels :) I also love Impatiens, so pretty.

I found a stripey pink one, pretty eh?


Well, that's our news for this weekend. We hope those of you in the USA have had a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend, and took a moment to remember the fallen.

Chicken coop - complete! (Well, almost!)

We finished painting the coop inside and out, still have to add a bit of framing here and there to pretty it up, but it's in place and the chicks went into it this morning for the first time.

We still have to build their pen for outside, but they have to stay in the coop for the first couple of days anyway, so this works fine. The poor chicks are convinced they are going to fall through the mesh on the bottom... in a few days they should realize they are perfectly safe!

Hard to believe they were tiny little bundles of fluff just a few short weeks ago!