Pico de Gallo

Last night was Taco Thursday.  This is a wonderful tradition from my husband's family where anyone and everyone comes over on Thursday (it has to be Thursday) to eat tacos, obviously.  It's a fun break in the week for everyone to get together and enjoy a meal and some laughs.

I tried a new recipe last night for the Pioneer Woman's Pico de Gallo.  Now, the Pioneer Woman is pretty much my idol.  She seems like an extremely happy and centered woman that's living a life of cooking, photography and animals.  Basically my dream.  She also has four kids that she homeschools, not my dream, but if I can trade those kids for dogs or something we're good to go.

So, I just re-read through my Pioneer Woman cookbook last weekend and was anxious to make something.  If you've never seen it I definitely recommend you go out and buy it right now.  It's full of amazing recipes, fun stories about her life and beautiful photos.

So, when Taco Thursday rolled around I decided that her fresh Pico de Gallo recipe sounded like the perfect match.  Fresh tomatoes, onions, jalepenos, cilantro, lime juice, a little salt, so easy and so yummy!

I forgot to take a picture in my frantic after-work cooking madness, but it looked almost exactly like the version on the PW website.  Definitely a new Taco Thursday staple.

And just as a side note, I think everyone should implement Taco Thursday or Spaghetti Saturday or Lasagna Wednesday (it doesn't have to rhyme).  I just know that every time we do it I'm happier the next morning.  There's something about family and friends coming together for the pure sake of enjoyment that really makes life special.

It doesn't have to be anything extravagant.  We literally decided to have Taco Thursday late on Monday night.  Grab a few groceries, invite some guests and before you know it you have 13 people at your house making tacos and building dinosaur poop out of play doh.  The point is it's about the people and spending time with those you love.  I'm pretty sure we could have served tv dinners and gotten the same enjoyment, but I'm guessing the chocolate marshmallow cupcakes didn't hurt anything.

Have a great weekend, everyone!  


     

Cooking with Honey

So, as I've repeatedly mention, my hubby is a honey fanatic.  He loves it on anything and everything and sometimes can be caught eating a spoonful directly from the jar.  So, with our recent successes with bees and a honey harvest, I've decided to try dabbling in cooking with honey.  So, you'll probably see quite a bit of posts with honey involved in the next few months.

Since I wasn't really feeling that great last weekend I was pretty much tied to the house.  So I figured it was a great time to start experimenting.  I'd gotten this great honey cookbook while in Savannah at the Savannah Bee Company shop.  This is an amazing company, I definitely recommend visiting their website, or by all means, check out their shop in Savannah.  It's totally worth the trip!

So, I quickly flipped through and found a simple sounding recipe for Honey Oatmeal Cookies.  I gathered all the ingredients and made a few adjustments based on what I had in the house.  The recipe called for peanuts and I substituted pecans.  Peanuts or boring and pecans just seem more Southern to me.  And I substituted chocolate chips for the raisins that were originally in the recipe.  I don't really like raisins, so rarely have them in the house.  I contemplated using dried cranberries, but figured chocolate chips would go over better with the hubby.

The honey looked really pretty as it was being added to the mixture.

And using honey instead of sugar totally made the texture different.  Look at that creamy goodness!

The cookies turned out perfect.  That had a really light and airy texture.  Not at all as heavy as the other recipes I usually use and they had a little bit of a sweet coating on them as well from the honey.

Yep, they definitely got the seal of approval from the hubby and I even liked them even though I'm not a big honey fan.

Now, those of you that know my hubby know that besides honey, he loves blackberry pie.  Since I hate making pie crust he usually gets blackberry cobbler.  I'd made a blackberry cobbler two days before that had already disappeared (not that I had any).  So I decided to go back to that lovely honey cookbook to see what I could find.

What I found was apple crisp.  We have a TON of apples from our trees and I hadn't made anything with them yet, so that seemed like a logical solution.  They're really tart and shiny and beautiful and I'm so proud of my hubby for his success with the orchard (I'm calling it that now).

Super simple recipe, pour in the most important ingredient........

I swear my hand isn't that giant, it's just some tricky angle.

Top it with the crunch crust ingredients.......

Bake until it's a nice gooey, golden brown.....

Now, this was a little too much honey for me ( I like my honey hidden so I can't taste it).  But it looked amazing.  It was all bubbly and beautiful and got a positive review from the honey lover in the household.

I do think I'd peel the apples next time just because those particular apples have a bit of a tough skin and I think it would help to make everything blend.  Overall, I'm liking the cooking with honey sofar.  Everything seems like it's a bit lighter and not so sugary sweet.

Note:  I'm not sure why it appears as though I was cooking in a dark black cave, but the lighting was not being cooperative that day.  :(

Happy Experimental Cooking!

Fall Harvest

I love Fall.  It's my favorite season.  There's just something about the crisp air, dark nights, fire in the fireplace and Fall food that makes me happy.  It's been a very busy month and an especially busy and stressful last couple of days.  So, today was all about a warm house, cooking and relaxing with the puppy dogs while the hubby was out elk hunting.

I just love Fall Harvest foods.  As you saw in my previous posts we harvested the honey and got the bees all ready for colder weather and the apple trees are producing and will be ready for picking in a week or so.  Hopefully there will be some left as the helpful dogs keep picking and eating the low growing fruit.

My mom was generous enough to give me a bunch of apples from her early blooming trees and several kinds of squash that are ready straight out of her garden.  I love that she has a garden since all I can seem to manage are a couple tomato bushes in planters by the deck.  And even those really rely on my hubby for water on a regular basis.

So, since today's focus was food and relaxation I started the day out by going and picking a bunch of her delicious apples so that I could start making some applesauce and apple butter.

Now, there are seriously very few things that I dislike as much as I dislike peeling apples.  That's why I never make apple pie, that and the fact that making pie crust is one of those things that I dislike just as much.  My mother-in-law is my hero because she bought me an amazing apple peeler/slicer/corer that makes life ridiculously easy in the apple department.

It's seriously the miracle gadget.  It makes it so easy and fast to process all the apples that before long you have a pot full of apples, cinnamon and cloves bubbling away on the stove.  And by that time the house of course smells amazing.

Apple butter is my all time favorite spread.  I could eat it straight out of the jar, but usually control myself long enough to toast a piece of bread, but not always.  I just love the sweet and slightly tart flavor and the spices make it just perfect.  Even though I don't like cinnamon, it's a must have for this recipe.

And, before long......that apple butter is in the jars, canned, sealed and labeled.  Just waiting for me to break out the toaster for a taste, but I'll refrain cause it just gets better when the flavors have been allowed to mix together for a couple weeks.  Let the countdown begin.

Applesauce is another easy product to make and can and with the abundance of apples at our house, my mom's house and our friends' houses it's a must for Fall canning.  I like to make mine without adding any sugar and leaving it chunky, so no food processor required.  So that means the only ingredients required are apples, water and a little lemon juice.  What could be easier?  That's what I made with the apples left over after my double batch of apple butter.  Yum!

Since my mom had given me an acorn squash from her garden earlier in the week I decided to experiment with stuffed squash.  I've never made or eaten it, but it always looks good, and really, how hard can it be?  So, I cut the squash in half, put in a pan, filled the pan half full of water, covered with foil and baked it in the oven for about 45 minutes.  This nearly cooked the squash through so that I'd just have to stuff it and cook the remaining bit.

I wasn't really sure what to stuff it with, so I raided the fridge.....extra lean elk sausage, red onion, mushrooms, apples, garlic, spinach, cous cous and feta cheese.

I mixed that all together in my new favorite cast iron skillet and by the time it was done, I was ready to eat it all on it's own.

But no, I piled the mixture into the squash halves, topped them with salt and pepper and popped them back in the oven for another 20 minutes to cook the rest of the way and give the stuffing a nice crispy top.

All I can say is....wow!  It was so good and I had tons of leftovers.  I'll definitely be experimenting with stuffed squash again.

Since I've got another huge piece of some large orange squash in the fridge I think squash casserole will be on the menu tomorrow night.  Wish me luck!

Happy Fall, Everyone!



 

It's Fair Time!!!

It's that time of year again......Quilcene Fair time, that is, Saturday, September 17th.  Come visit us at our booth we'll be sharing with The Picket Fence and Buzzy Bee Creations. 

Below is a sneek peek of what we'll be offering. 

CBM Creations will be featuring:

Locally Produced Honey

Hand-crafted Jewelry

Photography

Aloette Products

The Picket Fence will be offering:

Clothing and Hats Featuring the New Quilcene Logo

Fall Decor and Other Amazing Finds



Buzzy Bee Creations will be displaying:

Handmade Aprons

Rustic Fall Wreaths

Stop by to say hi and check out what we've got.  We'd love to see all of you!

Check out the other exciting events that will be taking place at the Quilcene Fair!

Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch...You Know That I Love You!

So, this is our first year with an official honey harvest from our bees.  And by "our bees" I mean my hubby's bees that he handles completely while I take the occasional picture.  I've only been stung once in my life, I was 7, and don't really want to remember what it feels like.

I came home last Friday to find my hubby and his friend in our kitchen with honey harvesting equipment strewn about on every available space.  Nightmare visions of myself attempting to scrub honey off of my kitchen appliances for the next several months danced in my head.  But, I should have never doubted my boys.  They did an amazing job and even cleaned up after themselves.  They had a moment of panic when they realized that the heated knife had melted bee wax onto my granite countertops, but relaxed when they realized that granite is tough and bees wax can eventually be scrubbed off of it.

Harvesting honey turns out to be quite an interesting and amazing process.  First the "caps" must be cut off of the honeycomb.  When the bees have completely filled the comb with honey they cap the whole thing off with more wax to keep it safe.  Then the frames with honeycomb are put into the extractor and spun until all the honey has been forced out of the comb and onto the sides of the extractor.  Then the extractor drains into a food grade bucket with a filter to purify the honey.



Honey transferring from extractor to filtered bucket

Honey being filtered

Then the honey gets added to jars.  In the case of our friend that means "chunk honey" which includes a bit of the comb in the jar as well. 

Then it just needs to have a lid added and it's ready to be enjoyed. 



Saturday morning brought the processing of my hubby's honey.  He wanted to do a double fliter of the honey which took a little longer so we decided to wait until the next day to put it in jars.

That's a lot of honey and we haven't even finished harvesting. 

It's super clear and beautiful.  I don't even like honey and this made me want to start brainstorming recipes so that I could use it. 

A special half gallon had to be pulled out for our friend Kenna, the highly allergic to bees, honey lover.  Without her we wouldn't have started on this little adventure.   

Not bad for our first harvest.  30 - 9 oz jars and an additional 1/2 gallon.  At this point I was having a hard time keeping my hubby and his sister, Becky, from bolting to the fridge for some yogurt on which to pour this beautiful honey.

It's so pretty I can't seem to stop taking pictures.  Even if they are being taken with my Blackberry. 

All packaged up and ready for the Quilcene Fair. 

I do have to say that this was a super fun and exciting little challenge.  I can't wait until the hubby checks in a few weeks to see if we have more to harvest.  I'm not sure how all these farm-like/self sustaining projects happened, but I'm sure glad they did.  I love that we get to share with our family and friends the little joys that we've slaved over.  

Happy Honey Day Everyone.   



Mmmm....HOT!

I dislike dilly beans, but I love my husband.  He and his friends have decided that the hot dilly beans I make are something they can't live without, in addition to my molassess cookies.  So, because I love them, I make something I don't like and try to remember *DO NOT LOOK INTO THE POT* or I'll get a nose full of vinegar yuckiness that seems to invade the brain. 

I had a ridiculous amount of green beans and an empty house last night so I decided to get it over with.  This is the second batch I've made this month, but they seem panicked that they won't have enough.  And they want me to try them out with jalepenos in addition to cayanne pepper.  Let's hope they don't set their throats on fire. 

There are the requested jalepenos.  They look huge, but they were the smallest I could find on short notice. 

I love the vivid green in this picture.  Shockingly good quality since I took it on my cell phone.  Nothing better than fresh veggies.  I've found that the guys seem to like the smaller green beans and I'm amazed how crisp they stay since they're so delicate.  I prefer these when cooking as well.   

And, there's the finished product.  Garlic, jalepenos, cayenne all visible.  And only one nose full of vinegar for my efforts.  Success!

Strawberries!

So, remember that onslaught of fresh produce I was talking about a couple of posts ago.  It showed up on my front porch last night courtesy of my favorite "Foolish Boy Honey" friend.  He was overrun with strawberries at his house and figured I could find SOMETHING to do with them. 

Such an awesome present to have waiting for me when I got home.  Especially considering I thought I was going to have to go pick them myself. 

Then it was time to start processing them for one batch of jam last night.  The photos I'm not going to show you involve me struggling with trying to figure out my new food processor.  I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get it to puree the berries.  I tried with a little liquid, I tried without liquid, I tried throwing the berries at the spinning blades through the feed tube.  That only resulted in sending the berries flying against the sides of the container (still whole).  Finally, when I realized there was another larger blade in the drawer that I had overlooked that was actually for use with the 7 cup container I was using I was in business. 

Notice the random essential ingredients I have sitting on my counter.  A pineapple, some garlic vinegar, butter, pasta and my KitchenAid mixer.  Wow, I need to get organized. 

And the finished product.....

As you can see I still have 2 1/2 gallons of strawberries left and more on the way.  I think I'm going to have to start canning the jam in quarts and I'm slowly being coerced into making strawberry wine.  All strawberry recipes are being welcomed, so let me know what you've got people!



  

 

Forking Fantastic!!!!

So, my best friend and fellow foodie, Kenna (check out her blog), bought me the Forking Fantastic Cookbook awhile back and I'd totally forgotten about it until I was rummaging through my stack of cookbooks and happened upon it.  It's an amazing book full of fun recipes by two ladies that run an underground dinner party club.  It seriously sounds like so much fun and if I had more time I'd definitely give it a try.  But, those are dreams for another day. 

I love the fact that they are so honest and humerous when telling their stories and describing their recipes.  It makes me feel better to know that other people explode strawberries all over the ceiling or scorch carmelized onions when they answer the phone and forget they are cooking.  Not that I'm admitting to doing either of those things, but don't currently look at the ceiling in my kitchen.

So, after a fun read through their book I decided to try out their Commando Chicken recipe.  It sounded fun, easy and delicious.  It's commando because the chicken sits directly on the oven rack instead of in any kind of roasting pan, allowing the awesome juices to drip down on the potatoes on the rack below. 

So, some lemons, some olive oil, some spices and a chicken and some potatoes later......

 Seriously....YUM!  I can't even begin to describe.  You need to go out and buy their cookbook right away!

It's about that time.......

So, it's canning time again.  We're about to be bombarded with an amazing amount of fresh local produce from our and our friends' orchards and gardens.  I'm super excited as this is one of my favorite times of the year and really gets my creative juices flowing.  First I need to catch up a bit as I've been completely remiss in my posting to the blog.  Now, I'm not going to try to catch up from last November, but I did try some recipes in the last month or so that warrant mentioning. 

It all started with a wonderful find at Home Depot.  The hubby was wandering around grabbing necessary, but boring, items so I found myself in the books and magazines section.  I came across this amazing canning magazine by Homes and Gardens.  It had so many fun new recipes it was a must buy. 

The first adventure from this new resource was fresh corn salsa.  Corn fresh off the ear, tomatoes, onions, jalepenos....goodness.  I think next time I'll make it a little spicier, but it's a great fresh tasting alternative on tacos. 

I like lemons, the hubby has an un-natural obsession with honey.....so, next up is Lemon Honey Jelly.  This led me to realize that I need a new citrus juicer (already purchased) as it was quite a bit of work, but the results are amazing.  We had this on bisuits the other night and it's the perfect combination of sour/sweet lemony goodness.  Definitely making this one again. 



Then came Strawberry Margarita Jam (it has lime and tequila!) that is awesome with huevos rancheros.  It's a nice little detour from traditional strawberry jam. 

And last, but not least, there was cranberry orange spread.  I wasn't sure how this was going to turn out or exactly what I was going to use it for, but it sounded interesting and easy.  I poured it over cream cheese and served with crackers and pita at a girls' night and it got rave reviews, so definitely a keeper. 

Not a bad day's work. :)