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I hate to inform our many devoted readers (all 3 of you) that my blogging has been interrupted by a baby with a cold.  I know you were all waiting with bated breath for my latest breathtaking peek into the world of a housewife and sadly my next post will be delayed until I can get little PJ well.

Here's a hint of what you're waiting for:  my next two posts involve 3 of the things in this picture:

Adventures In Canning

Since we have a small garden this year, we have been overrun with cucumbers, tomatoes, dill, oregano and basil.  I've done some canning in the past and have all the gear so I've had a few canning parties this summer (We party like rockstars around here!)

I was able to use everything we grew because I made pickles with the cucumbers and dill and I made stewed tomatoes with the tomatoes, basil 

and oregano.  Yum!

Our friends Andy and Felicia have a huge garden and they let me come over and pick fresh green beans in July.  I canned half of those and froze half.

This year I got to make something new, though, and it was a pretty interesting process.  My awesome in-laws grow grapes over their arbor and Linda gave me a huge ziplock bag full of grapes.  They have been overwhelmed with grapes this year, but we don't really eat them because they have seeds (Hello...Jackson only has 9 teeth, we don't want to break any of them!).  So since we eat a lot of pb&j sandwiches around here and the grocery store jelly is full of high fructose corn syrup (GASP!), I decided to try making grape jelly.

You have to start out roughly chopping the grapes in a food processor to get the juices flowing.  Then you move them to a pot on the stove and simmer them to break them down a a little.  After this, you have to strain them A LOT through a fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth to seperate all the gunk from the juice.  I was surprised at how much was left behind after this process.

Next, you have to put the juice back on the stove and boil it with some pectin and SEVEN, yes SEVEN, cups of sugar!!!  Check it out:

After all of this, it's time to can the jelly.  You just ladle it into hot, sterilized jars and process it in a boiling water canner for about 10 minutes.  I ended up with about 5 cups of juice-that's the perfect amount for one box of pectin and I ended up with 2 pints and 5 half-pints of jelly with a little left over for tasting.  

Jackson definitely approves and I'm happy because now I can feed him jelly that is free of preservatives, additives and corn syrup.  Yay!

Little Miss Suzy Homemaker...

That's what I've been lately, in a weird way.  I've felt the urge for lots of new project, unfortunately my day-to-day housework has kind of taken a hit.  

In case any of you are interested or can find some inspiration or maybe just get some new material to tease me about (...Jerrod...), I thought I could have a few blog posts about my adventures in canning, sewing and saving the planet.

Stay Tuned!

Here's a picture of Jackson's crazy morning hair to satiate some of the suspense.