Pickleliscious

I love the fall! I love the cool breezes, the falling leaves and freshly picked apples. Its a great time of the year to bring out all the mason jars and try to capture a little taste of the summer to get you through the long cold winter. I was recently gifted some cucumbers from somebody's garden. Sadly, I have not yet developed a green thumb and my garden clearly reflects that. I dug out my cookbooks and settled on this recipe:

Curry Pickle Slices

2 quarts pickling cucumbers
4 small onions, sliced
1 TBSP pickling salt
2 1/2 cups cider vinegar
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
1 TBSP curry powder
2 tsp pickling spice
1 tsp each celery seeds and mustard seeds

Cut cucs into thick slices. Place with onions in non reactive container and sprinkle with salt. Let stand 24 hours. Drain and rinse twice.

Combine vinegar, sugar, curry powder, pickling spice, celery seeds, and mustard seeds in large saucepan. Bring to boil. Remove from heat.

Add veg and return to a boil. Remove from heat.

Pack into sterilized jars leaving 1/2 inch of headspace. Process for 10- 15 minutes (depending on size of jars)


Smells great, tastes great. I like it. I think, for me, the best part is the smell of the raw onions and cucs after they have been resting together overnight. One of my favorite fall smells!

Cake Hangover

This weekend we celebrated #1 son's birthday with cake. Not one cake. Not two cakes. Three different kinds of cake ladies and gentlemen! I started with chocolate cupcakes with buttercream icing for the children's party. Next, came my mother's frozen peanut butter pie for the celebration with my family. Sunday's celebration was a combo party. Ben and his auntie have birthdays one day apart. It was his suggestion to make a boy/girl cake. I made a coconut layer cake with seven minute frosting and let the boys arrange the cake toppers. Fun and delicious! The best part is that we now have three different types of cake leftovers to enjoy all week long! Cake anyone?

We have a winner!

Congratulations to whimsical creations! You are the proud owner of a new headband!
Thanks so much to everyone who entered the contest. It was so fun to visit all your blogs. You are all a very cool bunch of gals! Come back and visit me again.

Cheers,
Michele

Fall Blog Give Away!

I am busily working on some new items for my etsy shop. Among them are a line of headbands as well as some cool wristlet purses. I would love to give this little beauty of a headband away for my first blog give away.

If you are interested, leave a comment on this blog and I will draw a name to win on Friday September 5. I will ship the headband (at no cost to you) to anywhere you might live.

Thanks for visiting and good luck!

The Star Wars wars

Star Wars is big in our house. We have the action figures, the lego, several varieties of light sabres, the live action movies, the animated movies, the costume, the music,the vehicles, the video games, the comic books, the t-shirts...

And so, it was with great anticipation that we waited for the theatre release of the new Clone Wars animated movie. We were not dissuaded by the negative reviews. We NEEDED to see this movie. We have, in our own way, supported this franchaise thus far. There is no turning back now.

Long story short. My review-Liked it, didn't love it. As with all of George Lucas' movies, I love the overall universe but there is always a little too much CHEESE for me. In this movie, the character of Uncle Zero made me cringe everytime he spoke. Ugggh. The new padawan was a little too 'smartalekey' for me as well.

As for the kids, they ate it all up with a big spoon. They laughed at all the corn ball dialogue and were transfixed by all the battle scenes. I guess this is Lucas' target audience.

Of course, with any new movie comes the inevitable merchandaising cash grab. Although it seems to me we have every conceivable variation of clone trooper, there are still more to be had. They're CLONES for crying out loud! Remember the old days when all the storm troopers looked exactly the same and they didn't come with removable tiny little accessories?

The Waning of Summer

Its been a short summer with far too much rain. I have been lucky enough, however, to have enjoyed some really memorable swims. This little moment of time is noteworthy since this is the first time (ever) this particular beach has been warm enough for me to swim in. Normally, this little piece of the ocean is so painfully cold that you run away screaming. On this day, Ben and I battled the surf together for quite some time. We were repeatedly flattened and left gasping for air. There was an unfortunate tankini malfunction that left me more than a little humbled. Ah the sea...she is a cold mistress!

It was a good day made all the more sweet because of the knowledge that it may well have been the last ocean swim of the season. Farewell to summer.....

On a related topic... Please visit my etsy shop for my END OF SUMMER SALE.

Mommy Holly Rocks!

Lucky me! I won a contest offered by the very talented MommyHolly. I have been enjoying her blog for some time now. It is a polished and charming site. It stands to reason that her handmade cards would reflect the same spirit of fun and style. Thanks again Holly! I am thrilled with my goodies!

I hope everyone will check out both her blog and her etsy shop!