Joy in the Kitchen!

Mmmm!!!   Fresh!   This week the weather has cooled off.  We've had rain and the leaves are turning to a beautiful yellow and orange celebration of fall!  Most of my garden is finishing up but the tomatoes and cucumbers are still producing well!  We live in a cooler climate so we are thrilled with any tomatoes that have time to ripen!  I have had a terrific crop of cucumbers this year, but not fresh dill to can dill pickles at this point.  That's ok as I love the crisp texture of a fresh cucumber from the garden! This little salad is easy to fix for just one, or for a crowd.  It is quick to arrange and if covered with plastic wrap, will hold a few hours until time to serve.  If desired you could add mozzarella balls or some type of olives to your plate.  Lately I love Kalamata and Castelvetrano olives.  I've had a struggling basil plant in the garden that is finally starting to thrive and I'm happy to have fresh basil to use ri...

  Summer is winding down here and one of the best parts is that it is time to enjoy the fruits (or vegetables!) of our earlier summer labor planting a garden!  I love garden harvest season!  We are harvesting cucumbers right now.  So far I've canned several pints of Sweet Sticks and several quarts of my Mom's old recipe for Dill Pickles. The recipe I'm sharing today should really be named Linda's Fresh Dill Pickles.   I got the recipe from my Mom and her neighbor Linda gave it to her.  I have no idea why it is called a dill pickle as there is no dill in the recipe and there is sugar in it.  However, it does not have the usual turmeric, mustard seed, and cider vinegar that is often in sweet pickles.   The mystery may continue as neither Linda nor my Mom are around to ask.  If you prefer a traditional sweet pickle taste check out my mother-in-law's recipe Shirley's Sweet Refrigerator Pickles . Today I only mixed up a half batch so I c...

  Our little garden is producing!  We didn't plant most of it until Father's Day weekend due to weather and crazy schedules but it is on now!   When we moved to this home, we left a large garden plot and a slightly warmer climate.  Gardening really helped us feed our large family on a budget.  I remember several years canning close to 100 quarts of green beans, freezing 50-75 3 cup packages of corn, canning several quarts of tomatoes and up to 30 quarts of salsa in a year.  Whew!  I had several children at home so along with many mouths to feed, we had many hands to help!   The garden at our current home has a small garden plot with several raised beds on the side.  This is enough for just a few of us and I don't miss the busy days of canning until the wee hours of the morning when the house was cooler.   We had a fabulous red raspberry crop this year.  I have no idea how many we ate fresh (as we picked), but we weigh...

Early this spring, my friend called asking for help!  A swarm of bees had landed in her yard and were collecting on the base of her lilac bush.  I called my niece, whose husband (Andrew) is a beekeeper and he was here in an hour or so.   He brought all of the equipment needed for capturing a swarm.  He was excited when he saw how large this swarm was!  A prime swarm!  HUGE!   I wish I'd videoed him scooping the bees up by handfuls and shaking them into their new beehive home.  Pretty cool from a distance! We have sev eral apple tr ees, pea r, plum trees and a fairly large garden.  Alfalfa fields are nearby as well so our little hive of bees have plenty of blossoms to stay busy all summer.  Andrew told me bees gather nectar in a 5 mile radius of their hive.   When the hive was fully capped off (the bees had filled all their little honey holes and sealed them), Andrew and his wife Cassie brought their honey separat...