My Poor Car :(

We hit an animal on Friday night. Unfortunately it did some damage so my car will be getting a new bumper and probably a few other things done. The day after the fan was making a squealing when turned on so they will have to take it apart and look at things underneath before we find out what all needs fixed.





Darn Critters!

Canning Pickles

I have been doing some pickle canning the past couple of weeks. I got a recipe from Adam's grandma that she says is really good and the pickles are crisp. This recipe you can also use to do one quart at a time as you get the cucumbers.

Here is the recipe:

Dill Pickes
Have jar(s) and flats in boiling water
1 quart: Fill jar with dill, garlic and cucumbers
Bring to boil: 1 ½ c. water
½ c. white vinegar
1 T. canning salt
Pour over cucumbers in jar.
Cap and seal

So, I picked my cucumbers. I don't know why mine are doing this but a lot of them are growing about 2 inches long and then growing out. It's weird but for pickle cucumbers you want dark, slender cucumbers with lots of warts.

Sorry the pics are crappy but I took them on my phone.

Wash cucumbers (and jars)


Prepare dill and skin garlic.


Slice cucumbers


I heat up the jars in the microwave with a little water in the bottom of a pyrex dish for 5 minutes.


Heat up the lids in boiling water.


Boil the water, vinegar and salt, stuff the jars, pour juice in jars, put the lid on and screw on rings.


Let sit for a couple weeks to allow the cucumbers to "pickle".

ENJOY! I can't wait to try this new recipe.

Drywall

We spent Sunday at my parents house working on drywall.

Here is how the house is looking these days:




When you walk in the front door there is a long "great room" with two bedrooms directly in front of you.




The kitchen is off to the left


To the north of the kitchen is the bathroom, laundry room and stairs to the basement. The basement will have a bathroom, bedroom, tv room and storage.

The view from their living room is the river. Doesn't get much better than that!


My nieces spent the day playing outside. They love all the cement at grandma and grandpas so they can ride their bikes on it.


Here is the newest addition to their family. Their birthday present from Aunt Cindy.


Her name is Bibbles. She's a toy poodle.

Congratulations Amanda!

We had another fun filled wedding weekend this past weekend.

Here is the beautiful bride and I:


The bride and her dashing groom:


I didn't get a close up of her bouquet but you can kind of see it in this picture:


I also didn't get a picture of how the hall was decorated but it was very pretty. She used mason jars as the centerpieces. We all had mason jars w/ handles to drink out of.

Here's a pic of the hubby and I:


We spent Sunday at my parents house. Pics of that to come tomorrow!

Freezing Zucchini

It's that time of year again. Zucchini explosion.


This year I've decided to try freezing some. I've never done this before so it's kind of trial and error. With this batch I grated some and will use it for bread/bars/muffins. I will later try and do some chopped up for soups.

Of course I started out by washing them and cutting the ends off but I also figured I should take out the seeds.


I used my handy Pampered Chef tool for this and it worked perfectly.


I left my hand in the pic so you could have a reference for how big this zucchini was. I got a little more than two cups with this size.


I used side of my grater that is on the left. I figure this is more grating, the one on the right more shredding.


This is what it looked like when I got it grated.


Now for the dilema. Do I freeze w/ all the juice or not? Since we're going w/ trial and error here I did both. Since I am going to be baking with this batch of zucchini I figured it'd be better to go w/ less juice.

The first bag I just grabbed some off the top here w/ some that was sitting in the juice. I didn't pour all the juice in, just didn't squeeze it out.
Looked like this.


Next I decided to try some strained.


Looked like this:

Still some juice but not quite as much.

Next I decided to press the zucchini w/ my hand while it was in the strainer. Looks like this:


Once again, still some juice but not quite as much.

We shall see how it turns out! I'm using the Ziplock vacuum bags this year. I like them. It helped to let the part w/ stuff in it hang over the edge of the counter while I sucked the air out so the juice stayed out of the way of the hole you suck the air out of.

Congratulations Tami!

I have to say congratulations to my friend Tami. Even though she's been married for over a week now, I still need to do it.

So Congratulations to the Mr. Dr. Tami Logenhardts. :) You're going to have a long and happy life together.

The beautiful bride and I.


We started the day off at the spa.

If you live in or around Lincoln and want a pedicure, the place we went is the place to go! It's called Ambience. It's over by Williamson Honda. They were some in depth pedicures. Much nicer than anywhere else I've ever been. They used orange slices and hot milk, hot stones, hot towel wraps and much more.

Here is a shot of her reception the night before the wedding. She used big paper lanterns as the main decoration and they really spruced the place up.


Here's a couple pics of her bouquet and the bridesmaid's.



The good lookin' wedding party :)