Kitchen Projects:
Painting - The first thing I did this summer was paint my kitchen! I absolutely loved the previous color (Wet Cement - a deep purple/grey color) but my kitchen was starting to feel too dark and gloomy. I decided to brighten things up a ton and settled on a cheerful yellow! Originally I planned to do a more muted color, but I've never been "muted" in my color choices for the house, so why settle now! I love it! It's very cheerful and bright and doesn't feel cave-like anymore!
Baking - I've been baking up a storm! From Bread to Bagels to cakes, muffins, cookies, flatbreads... I've been trying it all!
Canning - Before this year I would have never thought of canning my own foods. I didn't think I'd be very good at it. I didn't know if I'd enjoy it. I didn't know anything about it. Well... inspired by my sister in law, Lindsay, I decided to give it a shot. Mom and I have become experts in homemade jams! We've made strawberry jam, triple berry jam, peach jam, and pepper jam. I also made a few different kinds of plum jam with my friend Nikki.
A couple weeks ago Mom, Andrea, Keira and I went to a Peach "u-pick" set on bringing back about 20 pounds of peaches. Little did we know that the peaches would be the size of softballs.... and would be the best looking/smelling/tasting peaches we have ever seen! We also didn't realize that there would be hundreds of them tempting our little taste-buds and beckoning us to pick them! We ended up leaving the farm with over 75 pounds of peaches! Now... what on earth do you do with 75 pounds of peaches you ask...... you make some of the best peach recipes you can find! 3 batches of Fresh Peach Cobbler, Peach Pie, Peach Ice Cream, Peach Sorbet, and Peach Salsa! And you'd think after all of that you'd be out of peaches? Well you'd be wrong! We have sliced frozen peaches and some fresh peaches left.
Once I was able to come up for air after the peaches were taken care of, my neighbor gave me about 15 pounds of tomatoes. I decided to try my hand at canning some tomato sauce. I found a few different recipes and decided I could "wing it" based on what I had on hand at home. Here's what I did:
Blanch all the tomatoes (30 seconds in boiling water, followed by an ice water bath), remove skins.
Chop 2 onions, 3 carrots, 2 green bell peppers and put in a saucepan with 1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp olive oil. Cooked until onions were transparent.
Chop up tomatoes and added to saucepan.
Add 1/2 cup red wine and 3 tbsp tomato paste
Add 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil, 2 bay leaves, and 2 tbsp Italian Seasoning and 4 minced cloves of garlic.
Add 3 celery stalks (quartered... leave bigger pieces as they are removed later)
Bring to a boil, then simmer for 2 hours.
At this point, I took my immersion blender and gave it a couple quick whirls in the sauce. I then ran the sauce through my kitchen strainer. I pulled out the celery, carrots and bay leaves. Once all the sauce had been strained, I took some of the onions, peppers, and all the tomato pieces and pureed them with the immersion blender with a little bit of the sauce. Once the mixture was pureed, I ran it through the strainer again and discarded any of the pieces that didn't go through the strainer (mostly tomato seeds). At this point, I stirred the sauce and added a touch of salt and pepper and then canned it.
I am very excited to try some of the sauce in a recipe. I'll be using some tonight in my "Sloppy Bombay Joes" that I'm going to make! I'm also going to be making the Massaged Kale Salad! I'm so excited for dinner tonight!! I love new recipes!
Something else that I've been doing to keep busy....
Dusted off my bike! I've been wanting a new bike for a couple years now.... and I keep complaining to Jason that my bike isn't "for me." I received it as a hand me down and because it isn't exactly what I want in a bike... I haven't been riding much. I have been wanting more of a road bike / commuter bike and not a mountain bike. Well, for as long as I have been whining.... Jason has been saying.... Show me you are interested in riding and then we'll revisit getting you a bike.
Well... I was being lame for a long time about it. I didn't want to ride the mountain bike because it's not made for the road. Well... that's just lame. Bikes are made for riding... and not collecting dust and taking up space in the garage/shed. So... I've been riding.
I try to ride Keira to school at least 2 times a week. We have both a trailer and a trail-a-bike and she loves them both! It's a nice little 3 mile loop taking her to school... and if I take her and pick her up, that's 6 miles a day!
I've also been going on a weekly ride with my mom. Sometimes we set out to just do a little ride along the trail (going to Lexington Dam and back from her house) and sometimes we decide to ride to lunch somewhere or on an errand and we make a decent ride of it. No matter what we set out to do, we end up going anywhere between 20 - 25 miles.
Mom caught the "Bike bug" pretty bad mid June! Chandra convinced her to do the San Jose Bike Party ride in June. She hadn't ridden her bike in years and the 25+ miles was a tough one for her. Well, since then she went an bought herself a new commuter bike and started riding her bike to and from work. She's also gotten active with the Bike Party Volunteers and does the Trial/Planning Rides.
Well, Mom's new found appreciation and enjoyment of riding is rubbing off on me. I've now gone on one of the Trial Rides and took part in my first official Bike Party ride this weekend.... a little 30 mile ride... "Hot August Lights."
I've been keeping track of my mileage and the different rides that I've been on and so far in just over a month I've ridden 165 miles. I have signed up for a couple different personal challenges....
300 miles in 30 days
1000 miles in 100 days
100 miles in 2010
500 miles by Labor Day
So far, I'm doing pretty good towards my goals.... but I do need to get a move on if I'm going to meet the Labor Day goal!
