Happy new year!

I wish all of you out there a very happy and prosperous 2013 with much success and love!

Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to wish anyone reading this a very Merry Christmas! May you spend it with the ones you love the most!



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Crochet slippers

I recently received a local custom order for slippers....a matching set of slippers for Mommy and daughter.  How cute is that?

Here are the slippers in the colours she chose.  I like how they turned out and I hope she likes them!

I also have other slippers available in my Etsy shop in case anyone is interested in their own custom pair.

Happy Autumn!

I know this is a couple of days late but I thought I would post anyways.

Autumn has arrived!  We have been lucky that it has been warm every day during the day since autumn has arrived.  The farmers are starting to get close to the end of harvest which always means autumn is here.  We are hearing and seeing lots of geese too which to me is also a sound of autumn.

It has froze here a couple of nights and the leaves are starting to change to their lovely fall colours.  Here are a couple photos I captured this morning of a vine I have in my yard.  It turns this lovely shade of red once fall comes.

Tomato harvest and homemade spagetti sauce

The tomatoes in the garden have produced a fair number of tomatoes this summer. I have been harvesting them and they have been ripening like crazy.

Today's project is homemade tomato sauce. I will freeze it and store it for winter pasta dishes.

First off, I scalded the tomatoes so I could peel and seed them.





Then I added the tomatoes to onions (also from my garden) and garlic that had been sautéed. I also added some sweet peppers to the mix.




I let the tomatoes cook down until they broke down completely. Then I added tomato paste and spices (oregano and basil). I cooked it a while longer until it thickened.

After it cooled a bit, I puréed it in my blender. This is so the kiddos can't tell that I added onions and peppers to the mix.

Here it is all puréed and cooling. I can't wait to use it over pasta this winter!



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Back to School Baking.....muffins!

September is back to school time.  It is usually at this time of the year I contemplate what sort of baked goods I am going to make for lunches.  I scour the internet and my recipe books in search of new recipes.

A few weeks ago I bought some great B.C. peaches (for those of you not knowing....B.C. is British Columbia - another Canadian province.).  These peaches are so sweet and tasty.  I have made a few peach pies with them.  We also have enjoyed them fresh....cut up and served on ice cream.

I still have some peaches left over and wanted to try to make some muffins out of them.  I am always trying to get my kids to eat fruits and veggies and I have found muffins are a great way to do this.  I have never made peach muffins before so I was up to the challenge.

I came across a recipe here at food.com.  I always am modifying recipes and thought I could tweak this one a bit to suit our tastes.

Here is what I came up with:

Peach Muffins

1 c. all purpose flour

1/2 c. whole wheat flour

3/4 tsp.salt

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 c. granulated sugar

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

2 eggs, well beaten

1/4 c. vegetable oil

1/4 c. applesauce

1 tsp. vanilla

1 1/4 c. chopped peaches

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350F. Grease your muffin tins lightly.

Combine dry ingredients.  Mix well and add the eggs, oil, applesauce and vanilla.

Stir in the chopped peaches.

Distribute batter into your greased muffin tins.  Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes (this depends on your own oven of course!) until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Here are my muffins.  I think I might up the cinnamon to 1 tsp. next time...we like cinnamon here!  I sprinkled a little sugar on the top of each before baking but think maybe next time I will make a cinnamon streusel topping to go on top of each muffin....YUM!

Update:  After DD got home from school she tried one and they are a hit!  I definately will be making these again!

Summer produce!

I love early summer when the garden starts producing all sorts of great things from veggies to fruit and flowers. Yesterday the kids and I picked strawberries and lettuce and some lovely smelling peonies.

Now if I can only find a way to keep the birds from getting into the berry patch!






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