Mandoline V-Slicer premiere

I finally purchased a mandoline v-slicer by Good Grips. Every year when I was slicing onions, zucchini, potatoes, and squash I was wishing for one of these.  Now life in the kitchen will be a little bit easier. 

I love evenly sliced vegetables - they cook evenly

 potatoes with garlic, parmesan cheese and a little bit of olive oil tossed in the oven on high broil

Canning Green Beans

 I canned green beans this week.  I showed a more step by step version last year - see HERE and HERE. It's finally starting to become second nature.

Boil the beans for 5 minutes and then place them in the colander. 

  

Added a tsp of canning salt per quart

Add boiling water and remove air bubbles with spatula.

Add the lids after simmering them.

Can you see the steam coming out.  Once it pops up the steam starts coming out of the right vent.  Then it's 10 minutes of venting before applying the weight to build pressure.

Kiwi hung out on my harvest basket while I canned.

Beautiful Flowers

Kiwi wasn't too fond of posing with the flowers. 

How would you caption this?

You'll see echinacea

black eyed susans

day lilies

astilbe

clematis (what's left)

penstemon

hydrangea

allium (going to seed)

and rose of sharon

(and I didn't write that in order - sorry)

Kiwi just wanted down so I took a photo and then he hopped off.

Harvest Monday - July 30, 2012

Kiwi is sneaking a a Victory Freezer pea just seconds after I dumped them on the table. 

I gave him this one and then I put him in the living room on the window sill to snack on it.

I had several little helpers.  My son and Kiwi both thought that they needed to shell peas.  My son was a great big help.  Kiwi was not although he was very cute to watch.

My daughter was all excited about the new oven mitts I made.  I should not go into the Bernina shop in the old Main Street area.  It's a fun little quilt shop, I think it's called Stylish Fabrics or something like that.  I purchased the patterns, two fat quarters, the rick rack, hobbs 80/20 batting, and the insul-batting. Now I'll be making some more for Christmas gifts ...

My son said it looked like an angel.

Just having fun with the 50 mm lens.

Here they are all spread out on the silpat in the cookie sheet.  This way they freeze individually.  I don't blanch them before.  I learned this from Stoney Acres. They are so tasty this way.  If I get a craving for something sweet, I can just grab a handful of frozen peas.

 I like to cover them up before I pop them into the freezer just incase someone tries to dump them on accident.

I also picked 12.5 lbs of green beans.  Thankfully my husband helped me snap the ends off.  I'll be canning those this afternoon. I grew one 15 foot row of wax beans and 90 feet of Jade Bush green beans. They are my favorite green bean after trying several different types.  I will get two more pickings off the plants before the grasshoppers mow them to the ground.

 Where has this summer gone?  At least we have plenty of fun memories.

BHG Photo Contest

I've entered this photo of my garden in the BHG Garden Photo Contest.  

(BHG as in Better Homes and Gardens magazine)

Will you VOTE for my photo please?

Go HERE

You can vote once a day from July 9th-July 20th

You can help even more by sharing the link on your facebook page or Twitter.

I'd definitely put the $2000 in prizes to work but I can't do it without your help.

Thanks so much! 

Today's harvest

It's been so hot that I just didn't want to risk this cabbage bolting so I harvested it today.  It's supposed to be 97 degrees.  

And this romaine lettuce was just about a day away from inedible.

I grabbed some Little Finger carrots while I had the floating row cover open.

I love the texture of the carrot leaves.  

I cut the leaves off the carrots and put them in this bag and in the fridge to chill so that I can use them in stir fry tonight.

The cabbage weighed 1000 grams or 2.2 lbs