Dresser

Adam's newest woodworking project is a dresser. If you remember the nightstands that he made for our room, he made a dresser to match. We needed a dresser for the baby's room so this was as good of an opportunity than any!



As with the nightstands he inlayed some walnut on the top.


This holds our stuff a lot better than our old one. Probably because it's custom made for our needs huh? :)

When he put the knobs on, the standard screws were too long for how thick the drawer faces were.


So last night he went through and replaced all of those. It's now officially finished!

Livingroom Floorboards

This weekend we finally got floorboards in the last room to need them!



These are oak stained with 1 coat cherry and then a light coat of mahogony. They look pretty nice against or hickory flooring.

Canning Jalepeno and Banana Peppers

I use jalapeño and banana peppers in my salsa so I have them planted in my garden but my tomatoes aren't ready for salsa yet so I have a bunch of extra peppers. Since these are things you can use in or on many other food items I figured I'd give canning them a go.

I found recipe's on the internet.

For the Banana peppers I pickled them.

10-12 banana peppers
1 hot pepper
1 C. white vinegar
1 C. water
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. dry mustard seed
1 t. peppercorns
2 cloves garlic

Bring vinegar, water, salt and mustard seed to a boil.

Sterilize your jars. For this I just stick them in a glass dish w/ a little water in the bottom and stick them in the microwave for 5-6 minutes.
This is a pic from when I was doing pickles but you get the idea:


You'll also want to sterilize your lids. To do this I stick them in some boiling water.


While things are boiling/sterilizing cut up your peppers



Also cut up one hot pepper.

When all that is done, grab a jar, fill it with the peppers, the slices of your hot pepper, peppercorns and garlic. You might want to layer in the garlic, hot peppers and peppercorns. Pour boiling brine over. Leave 1/4" headspace.

Wipe the top of the jar to make sure there isn't anything to hinder your seal and put your lid and ring on.

You should give them a water bath at this point. I didn't and they sealed just fine. If you aren't going to give them a water bath, make sure you work quickly enough that everything is all nice and hot.

I think this recipe will give you a pint jar.

I however don't use a ton of peppers and only wanted a few at a time for putting on a pizza or nachos or something like that. I used the 4 oz. jelly jars.


That's it for those.

For the Jalepenos I also found a recipe online.

10 cups jalepeno peppers sliced (you can also use this recipe for banana)
2 cloves garlic
4 cups white vinegar
2 tsp pickling salt

Sterilize everything and boil your vinegar and salt.
Pack jars w/ peppers and 1/2 clove garlic
Pour brine over and leave 1/4" headspace.
Wipe top of jar, put lids and rings on.
Water bath (or not if you so choose)

I did little jars again but I'd guess this recipe is going to make you maybe 3 pints.

I would leave both of these sit for a few weeks before eating.

Freezing Corn Whole

I've done a couple batches of sweet corn this year. I posted instructions on how I do my freezer corn last year here, but this year I also decided to freeze a little on the cob.

All you have to do is shuck your corn and clean it.


At this point you might want to blanch the corn if you are going to be leaving it in the freezer for an extended amount of time. I plan to leave it in max 3 months so I didn't blanch.

Then just package!

Once again I'm using the Ziplock Vacuum bags. That way I can open the bag, pull a few out and reseal.

Busy Weekend

We had a busy weekend accomplishing lots! I'll have many posts coming up but I'll start out by saying that there is a new blog linked up over to the right.

My down with technology hubs finally decided to start a blog. His might not be as exciting to many of you as it's named Code & !Code. So there you will find information about programming. BUT he'll also throw in some not code stuff. Hence the !Code. You'll have to visit his blog to find out what that means. :)
Check it out:
Code & !Code

Here's project #1 that was accomoplished this weekend. Organization!
I don't have before pics but just imagine a mess :)
Since this is right when you walk in the house the mess of stuff under our desk in the kitchen drove Adam nuts. We also had a trash can beside the desk for recycling but it seemed to always be overflowing.
The first thing we did was get a couple larger containers that stack for recycling which seem to be holding a LOT more! Then Adam built a shelf so that we could stack the stuff under the desk.


Adam also built a couple shelves for in the baby's closet. Instead of buying something like this that is all the rage right now:


I figured I could just get some cheap baskets and put them on shelves.
So my cheap solution looks like:

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 :)

Humidity

This is how gross it is in Nebraska today.


All the windows in your house fogged over is not normal. Maybe in Hawaii but not here. :(