To Do

This week:
Dehydrate apples
Make room in freezer
Freeze pumpkin
Freeze butternut squash
Wash laundry
Finish unpacking

Apples

This week my son and I are visiting family. Today we are at my parents. We went to a local apple orchard where we picked up apples for baking, drying, saucing and, of course, eating. My in-laws have already made applesauce and have saved some for us, so I will be getting to take some of the drying apples home. We are going to try to make and can apple pie filling before my son and I leave Wednesday for my in-laws. I did have one of the eating apples, Jonagold, and it was delicious!

Quilting Fun

This post is a little late (trying for every Monday), but I am posting. I have been practicing hand quilting. I have started going to a quilting group through the church we've been attending and the ladies were more than happy to teach me how to hand quilt. I'm very excited to work on this new skill and hope to be able to help them quilt soon!
This week I'm going to try to work on my mother-in-laws quilt. I need to cut squares but have limited space to cut right now and it seems fairly limited time. It's hard to keep the little one entertained long enough to get a good amount of anything done some days.

Freezer Cooking

This past weekend I spent cooking for our freezer. I cooked nine recipes total and have one more to do. The last recipe I have to make is a soup recipe. Seeing as it has once again warmed up, and I'm running low on freezer space, I've decided to wait until the menu says to have the soup, then make a big batch to freeze. It's hard to make soup while it's warm outside!
Here are some pictures of the hard work I did:





I picked ten recipes and did triple batches. My menu is for 42 days, so there are some days for roasts, leftovers, pasta with sauce and pizza. Our son was very good for me on Friday while I did the first batch of baking. My husband watched him on Sunday and also picked up supper for us. (I completely recommend not cooking supper the day you do the most of the cooking. It really wipes you out!)
I'm still washing some of the dishes, but I run out of strainer space quickly when I use the big bowls, skillets and pots. I'm sure I'll see the end of the dishes soon!

Culinary Delight

Last week I made ham and cheese calzones (picture to be posted later). This weeks culinary experiment is muffins. I have two recipes I'd like to try, Pumpkin Oat Bran and Chocolate Almond. The recipes sound like they'll taste really yummy, and the best part is I can freeze them for later! I made ham and bean soup Sunday night and made some yummy pasta tonight. I've been playing with different flavors and coming up with new ideas to keep our menu a little less boring.

Pretzels

This last week I tried my had at a recipe I found in one of the magazines I subscribe to. It is called "Sweet Chipotle Pretzels" and they are really good! I made two double batches and bagged some for my mother-in-law to sell at the farmer's market. Each batch makes four cups of pretzels, so there isn't a whole lot to share, but it's a nice change from some of the snack food I've made, and one I will be sure to make again.

Update

So, we've decided that we will no longer have a garden. We don't have the room to have a garden in our yard if we want to have any play sets for our child. We will still have our rhubarb and possibly and herb garden, if I have time to tear us part of a flower bed. We still have our raspberries, but I don't think they're doing very well. It's somewhat overrun by weeds and I'm not brave enough to figure out what is a thorny raspberry vine and a thorny weed. I am working on some recipes that I would like to try out. Hopefully they will be really yummy!