Can You Make Pickles....

...with zucchini?

So, if you have a whole bunch of zucchini...and if you planted zucchini you will...like me can you make pickles?  It turns out that YES YOU CAN!
You make them pretty much like you make them with cucumbers.  Unless you harvest them very small (one inch in diameter) then you make them  into "chips".
I found a few recipes that specified zucchini but they were pretty much the same as any other recipe so I felt pretty good about making them.

Here they are after soaking and in the seasoned brine.   

TA-DA!  dill zucchini pickles!  I only did 4 pints as with just 3 of us in the house it seemed that would be good for now.
Before I made the dill I also made a recipe that my mother used to make and I remembered it fondly...Chop Suey Pickles

I also had to experiment with using Stevia/Truvia to replace the sugar as well but in the end they taste wonderfully similar to the original recipe.
Next up...dill relish!  Why not?  LOL

A Foodie Post

When you are inundated with zucchini anything new or different is worth trying  LOL
Here you see something that is both...Zucchini Chips Low Carb Style

Very yumm-o when warm but kind of "ok" when cooled off
The original recipe called for bread crumbs and which I subbed out for Parmesan cheese.  I also added a bit of smoked paprika and Italian seasoning to the mixture and it was great.
Then youngest son A has gotten all the supplies to make his own sushi, which he loves, and did some rolls Friday and Saturday.  This is is first attempts

Now, to find something new to make with the remaining 100's of Zucchini  LOL

Lot's of Progress

I thought it might cheer me up to layout my in-progress Victoria's Friendship Quilt to see where I am either behind or lacking.  Having it all together so that I can see the progress it so wonderful for me.  I tend to be a streaky crafter and a typical Magpie who is looking for the next "shiny thing" and will leave projects languishing for years at a time  LOL
So except for a block I need to re-make I think I am caught up strangely enough. 

Garden Update

Mr. C did a bit of harvesting on Saturday...he was excited to pull up some carrots...he hasn't been too successful with carrots in the past.  LOL  You can also see our first little mini pumpkin, purple beans and more beets.  Of course there have been more and more squash and tomatoes not in the pictures.

36 Years as Husband and Wife

Mr Creative and I celebrated out 36th Anniversary, or as he says 3 dozenth, of marriage.  He always asks me if I would "do it again" and I always say of course.  LOL
But this year he asked what was the hardest time of our marriage...that one was kind of hard but I think he was reassured that I didn't remember those early years as being so awfully bad...I think he agreed when I told him what I thought...not gonna share that one but I often think that I have been very blessed and just plain lucky that my decision to marry Mr Creative at the age of 20 has remained one of my very best over all my ups and downs of life.
Thanks dear!

First Smiles

Our little K is starting to smile....she has just passed her 3 month birthday and I knew it was coming any time.  I love her little crooked smile and bright eyes.  she looks sweet in her blue summer outfit and bow.

August Garden

As you can see the garden is coming into the best time of the year for the veggies.
Above Mr Creative shows off his birthday present from DD B and her family.
He is really enjoying the garden seat to pick the beans and pulling weeds.  He wanted to show his grsons A and T that it makes a great "pillow" when he gets tired from bean picking 

Abover you can see l to r
cherry tomatoes in a pot, volunter tomatillos
summer greens and sunflowers

Last of all in our three sisters garden the first mini-pumpkin has ripened a bit early!  It's a bit small even for that variety of pumpkin but it's great to see them do well.  Along with the pumpkins we have started harvesting spaghetti squash and ate the first one last night along with beans and more summer and zuchinni squash.
Still waiting for the rest of the tomatoes but hopefully we will be seeing them sooner rather than later.

Keeping My Hands Busy

 Do you remember these?
Way back at the beginning of July I finished this set of arcs for my All Mixed Up NY Beauty blocks

 Ah, but these are new!  The second set of arcs for those NY Beauty blocks.  As you can see nothing orderly about them at all!  LOL

 This is what they are on the way to becoming, sort of.    I am loving all the different fabric combinations that are showing up as I try really hard to NOT make any that match or for that matter have the same fabrics in the same block. 
While I have been glued to the Olympics on TV I made most of the smaller arcs and have now begun piecing the quarter circles and last arcs together.  After they are done I will lay them all out again and choose the last piece that will be used to finish off the corner of the blocks. 
Congrats to all the winners but I have to admit to a bias for all the team USA and especially the women's gymnastics team! 

At the Bird Feeder

Yesterday Mr Creative noticed a new visitor to the feeder.  We think it is either a Pinion Jay or a Mountain Jay.  No crest on this bird and it is pretty dang big compared to the finches and Chickadees that usually are at the feeder.
It's always fun when we get a new visitor and hope they will come back often.

Who doesn't love a baby in her bouncy seat?
July 22

Some Time with Grdaughter K

 

 

Awww...nothing sweeter than a little baby with her Papa. 
Just a few seconds with our little K

Garden Report and a Little Weather

 It is mid-summer now and things are going quite nicely in the backyard veggie garden.  Above you can see the corn tasseling and some ears forming.  We need to keep our eyes out for earwigs and grasshoppers who love to eat the corn silk while it is young and tender.
Below you see the second planting of lettuce, spinach and I think mustard greens.  Told Mr Creative that the lettuce is ready so I need to start eating large salads at my meals!  LOL  He has been using newspaper to mulch the gardens, cheap and eco friendly too.

Saturday afternoon we were in the south part of Provo eating lunch at a Texas style BBQ place, Tommys BBQ, which was very tasty indeed, when I saw the grey rain clouds hanging on the mountains out the window.  Considering it has been so dry here the rain was very welcome even though it kind of spoiled Saturday at the Payson City Scottish Festival.  I just loved the look of those heavy clouds and the mountain peaks together.

Visitors to Nana's

 

While their Daddy worked Nana got to have the "kids" come play and spend some time with me. 
Grsons B and I got out the Tinkertoys (among lots of other toys) before we went to the AF Rec Center to swim and grd K took a nice long nap.  K just had a shot and her vitals done and she is now 9 lbs 7 oz at about 12 weeks old.  Pretty good from her low of 4 lbs 13 oz a couple of days after she was born.  You can see she is healthy!

What Were These Bees Up To?

I came home from Zumba and this is what I saw on my rose bush.
It really puzzled me a lot...maybe they were building a new hive with a new queen?
Maybe they were sick?
But, I think I finally figured it out...this morning I noticed that the hummingbird feeder just above this spot was completely empty and it has been only about 1/4 way empty before.  Somehow I think it had been tipped or leaked all that sugar water and the bees thought this was a new strange source for nectar  LOL
They were gone this morning and the sprinklers had been on last night so I think the sugar water was washed off the leaves. 
Anyway...kind of interesting

A Couple of Funnies

OK, so I don't drink "Sweet Tea" anymore since I am a Mormon but....
I can so very much relate to this cartoon in today's paper.  LOL

 This one is for the mothers of my three grandsons!  Who wouldn't want to "invite" in a caleypillar?    Gotta love boys!

NY Beauty Arcs Finished

Well, there they are the first pieced arcs of my NY Beauty project.
As you can see it's going to be a real mix-up of fabrics with enough going on to keep a quilter on he toes!  LOL
I love how they are going to each tell a different story.  I have started piecing the second arc and it's going pretty smoothly.
I can't tell you how much I love using INKLINGO to make projects like this just come together so easily and since I am working by hand I don't end up stuck in my sewing room all the time.  One thing great about doing these blocks is that each one will be a new surprise when I put them together.

Three Sisters and the Kitchen

The gardens are doing very nicely this year despite the lack of rain we keep them watered with the secondary irrigation water system from the city.  It has been a blessing to be able to use the untreated water on the gardens and lawns saving the treated water for household use.
We planted a "three sisters" plot which mimics what the Native Americans did back many years ago.  You plant corn, pole beans and squash together to use the strengths of each to help all...the corn provides something for the beans to climb, the beans add nitrogen to the soil and the squash acts as a natural mulch to keep down the weeds for the others.  If you click the picture you can see that the corn is tasseling (popcorn for us) and the beans are starting to climb the cornstalks and the squash (a mixture of spaghetti and mini pumpkins) are doing well in the mulch department.  So far a big success! 

I had to show off my new burner covers...when I saw the chickens I just had to add them to my growing stash of covers  LOL  and then Mr Creative thinned the beets and this is the greens and mostly baby beets that we will have for supper tonight.  He loves greens and I can eat them so it will be a nice addition to the grilled chicken tonight!

What Belle Sees

I thought it would be fun for you to see what Belle and I see as we walk in the mornings. 

You can tell this is the beginning of the walk as Belle is anxious to go-go-go!
Funny thing, why are weeds kind of pretty when they aren't trying to take over my flower beds and veggie gardens?
click on the pictures to make them larger.

Independence Day Fun with Family

I am lucky that I have some of my family close by so that we can get together for holidays like the Forth of July. 
Here we are gathered before prayer ready to eat!  Even Belle wanted to be in the picture but she had chased DS D over as he pushed the camera timer buttons  LOL. You can almost see our little baby K in my arms.
I made normal stuff like brats, hamburgers (regular and turkey), pasta salad etc but I had a little fun with some treats.

Jazzing up some store bought ice cream sandwiches and fudge stripe cookies with colored "chocolate" melts.  It was fun to use a spoon to drizzle the microwaved melts onto the treats. 

Belle and I say Happy Independence Day everyone!

Home of the Free Because of the Brave!

Olympic Trials

For the past few days I have been watching the men and women do their very best to qualify to be on America's team by participating in the US Olympic trials in several sports that always are exciting.  Anyone who knows me can say that I don't watch sports much at all but the exceptions are gymnastics, figure skating and BYU sports  LOL
Somehow when it is an Olympic year I find myself not wanting to miss all kinds of sports that I would NEVER even care about...soccer, wrestling, cycling and so-forth.  But, I have to say that I am always impressed by the men and women who are so dedicated to their chosen sport that they sacrifice years and years of their personal life to have this usually once in a lifetime experience (unless you are very lucky and blessed genetically). 
Tonight it was track, swimming and gymnastics for the women.  So enjoyable and there were a few surprises along the way. 
How much I enjoy it I can't stand to just watch constantly so this is how I kept my seat

Quilt binding!  Not my favorite thing but I love that I can sit and just stitch without having to think or match anything. 
I didn't realize that my messy room would show up in the picture but so it goes!
Congrats to all the new team members and best of luck for the upcoming games in the city of London.

LIving in Utah in June

So, I do a lot of complaining about HAVING to live in Utah...it's hundreds of miles away from the nearest ocean beach, it's a couple of thousand of miles away from my parents, siblings and DD and family.  It gets dang HOT in the summer and snows often in the winter.  My skin gets dried out from the low low humidity (less than 10% today for example) but.....
There are some wonderful compensations.  Being a paper crafter  this is one of the perfect places to live for crafting sales  LOL  There are quite a few major companies headquartered here in UT and we do get the advantage of their warehouse sales. 
One of those companies is DCWV.  I love this company because they are always innovating and changing to the trends but still offer most of their classic items for a long time after they first are introduced.  So, here was my latest sale purchases

$5 and I got all this!  back 4 vinyl quotes about Family, 3 complete stacks of Cherry Limeade pp, large stack of Recollections basics, pkg neutral colors chipboard set, and 25 various but mostly cupcakes and chocolate themed cs paper.  Yep I am a lucky lady to live here.

And I wanted to show you some of our summer garden harvest already!
Peas and summer squash fresh from the garden.  We had the squash last night and will eat peas for supper tonight.  Mr Creative has worked really hard on the garden this year and we are seeing the rewards!