Salsa

Getting ready to can the first salsa of the summer. I had to dig out my Linda Ferrari book, way way down in a stack of cookbooks - someone needs to come and clean my house while i play in the garden!!

Here's the recipe I use:

5 1/2 pounds tomatoes, peeled and diced (about 16 to 17 medium size)

2 onions, diced (I puree mine because Artie can't find an onion in something I cook) :-)

1 can (7 ounces) chilies, diced (I use fresh banana peppers from the garden)

3 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon cracked pepper

2 tablespoons bottled lemon juice

2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

1/2 cup vinegar

1 1/2 teaspoons cayenne pepper (I use cayenne peppers from our garden)

Combine all ingredients and mix well. Heat salsa just until hot. Ladle into jot jars. Clean rims, seal, and process in a water bath canner for 45 minutes.

Makes 6 pints

Food Week

Beginning last summer we began eating around the produce on sale each week. Our first big week was Blueberry. Here, here and here are more blueberry posts.

Next we had Peach week.

Here is Strawberry week from this year.

We have now added to also eating around the sales at Aldi's - who have great produce. Last week Aldi's had a gallon of milk on sale for .50. I guess they had a big overstock. By the end of the week they were .10 each. I bought 6 at a time, almost every day. I froze some, we cooked

muffins, pancakes, we drank chocolate milk and made milkshakes. It was yummy and cool!!!

Along with the milk, Aldi's had big bags of oranges on sale for .99 each. I started with 6 bags. The children had oranges for snack. Emily and I made Honey Orange muffins for Sunday morning breakfast on Saturday afternoon. We also made a Orange Salad for dinner Saturday night. Tonight we are having an orange pie for dessert. I have already forgotten where I got the recipe but here it is...

Orange Pie, Grape Pie, Key Lime Pie - Same Recipe with different Kool-Aid

Mix together:

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 tub of Cool Whip

packet of Kool-Aid (optional 1 tsp of fruit juice - we used fresh squeezed orange juice)

Pour into pre-made graham cracker crust pie shell

Chill 1 hour before serving

I hope it turns out good...

This one looks prettier, I think I might copy the oranges on the top...

Kraft Food and Family

I was hopping around this afternoon from Like Merchant Ships to Blissfully Domestic and was reminded of a favorite magazine - Kraft Food and Family. I was trying to think back - I think it was my sister-in-law, Glenda, who first showed me this magazine. It's great. We've cooked lots of fun and easy recipes from it. I can't wait until my new Spring issue comes. You can order through the mail free or check it out online.

Flaming Christmas Tree Cake

Here is the before picture of how our Flaming Christmas Tree turned out. :-)

The girls had a lot of fun with this cooking project!!

Here it is flaming!!! Everyone thought this was a hit. It flamed for about 30 seconds to a minute and then was ready to eat. All the little sugar cubes were flaming, I just couldn't capture them all on the picture for some reason.

Here are the directions...

Flaming Ornaments Christmas Tree Cake
1 – 9” x 13” sheet cake
1 cake board to display cake
scissors
green cake frosting
cake knife for spreading frosting
small amount of red and blue frosting
sugar cubes
small bottle of peppermint extract

Place the sheet cake onto the cake board. Place a simple Christmas tree pattern on top of your cake and carefully cut away the surrounding cake. Be careful not to damage the large cut-away pieces because you are going to use them later.

Carefully frost the cake with the green frosting. Arrange the sugar cubes on the surface of the cake to look like ornaments on a tree. Cut leftover cake into small square and rectangular shapes “boxes” and frost them with the red and blue frosting. Tie each one up with a ribbon or pipe a “ribbon” of frosting on each one to look like presents. Arrange the edible “presents” around the bottom of the cake.

For the special effect: Saturate each sugar cube with a few drops of the peppermint extract just prior to igniting. Turn off lights and with a match, ignite the extract on each “ornament” moving quickly from cube to cube. Each “ornament” will burn with a pretty blue flame for about a minute.

I found this recipe at
A Blessed Christmas: A Unit Study Approach To Studying The Symbols of Christmas
Edited and Adapted with permission by Kathryn M. Martinez
November 2002
Originally written by Karen Caroe
1998

http://www.easyfunschool.com/Blessed.pdf .

The Big Day

We had such a wonderful Thanksgiving this year!! The girls took on Thanksgiving as a homeschool project. They totally cooked the whole meal - from planning and shopping to setting the table and cooking. It was a great success. Artie was so proud - telling everyone that his girls (only 12 and 7 years old) were cooking his Thanksgiving dinner for him!! I don't think the men at work could imagine them being able to pull that off!

Here is Brenda breaking up the biscuits for the dressing


and with the cornbread. Mimi's dressing turned out sooooo good. Definitely one of my childhood favorites.


Artie carved the turkey - always his job. He likes to sneak in and eat the turkey skin. I told the children they were gonna have to have their own house and cook there own turkey there before they will be able to try some turkey skin. It's all Daddy's here!!! :-)


I think Terry's ready to eat!!!


The girls did such a great job setting the table. After Artie carved the turkey, we ran everyone out of the dining room to prepare. Artie's job was to clean up the little boys and have them all ready. The girls were busy setting the table, finishing up the rolls and changing into presentable clothes (original clothing slightly covered from the day cooking!!). The candles were lit and the gentlemen were invited in.


The girls pose with their table.


What a pair!!!


Just before the blessing. Troy's dying to eat!!! You would have thought he hadn't eaten in weeks. God's been so good to us this year. It was so wonderful to have all the children around the table.


Me and Brenda


Artie and Brian

Friday's at the Quinn Lovliness Academy

We have dedicated Friday's at the Quinn Lovliness Academy to grandparents. We are rotating each Friday between Bobbie (Artie's mother) and Mimi and Granddaddy's (my grandparents - my daddy's parents). We have had such a fun time. We just had our second day at Bobbie's today. The girls are learning so much from them.

At Bobbie's today they practiced making biscuits and homemade gravy and their first big pot of chain gang potatoes (a staple for Artie growing up).

Bobbie told them the story of their grandfather Arthur's life growing up as a boy (a story all in it's own - Papa Quinn passed away when I was pregnant with Brenda). Brenda is writing a term paper this year on each of her grandparents' lives - a little each week and she will learn how to pull it all together at the end of the year.

They have pressed flowers (of course some of Granny's petunias) and have some projects planned to work on next time with them.

At Mimi's Brenda cooked homemade pudding for the first time and Emily got to use the electric hand mixer to mash the potatoes. They also cooked some creamed corn from Grandaddy's garden. Granddaddy told us the story of how he married Mimi five days after he returned from the war and how it cost him $2.50 to buy her (really the marriage liscence). It was a fun day there too.

I'm so sad that my camera is broke. I hope to be able to take some pictures soon. I think I'm going through withdrawal!! :-)