What's Up Wednesday

I was starting to blog more regularly but it's slowed down a bit.  Ooops!

So, here's an update from the last week....

I turned my cucumber harvest from last week into a big jar of refrigerator pickles.  I made sweet pickles and they're delicious!  I'd like to figure out how to make the next batch a little less strong though.  I'm wondering if it's ok to add a little water to the vinegar?

Here's my harvest from this morning...more cucumbers, and a couple of Meyer lemons to flavor my water today.  The cucumbers are growing like crazy!  The vines are loaded with tiny ones that'll be big in no time!  I may need to learn how to do canning!

The pumpkin plants are exploding in size!  Here's what they look like this morning...

A couple of tomatoes are just about ready to pick!

We now have three baby eggplants.

It's been pretty hot lately.  But, one of my friends and I decided to go to a winery one day last week.  We found a nice spot to sit in the shade and the misters kept us comfortable....along with a cold glass of one of their delicious white wines!  We enjoyed relaxing and knitting so much that we have another outing planned this week and more of our knit friends are going to join us.  That should be a lot of fun!

On Sunday, hubby and I took our tandem bicycle down to the Carlsbad and went for a long ride along the ocean.  It was wonderful!  The temps were in the mid 70's, the sky was clear, and the ocean was calm and gorgeous!  We stopped for breakfast at one of our favorite places in Encinitas, The Potato Shack.  It's been there for a really long time and has great food and friendly service.  They even have gluten free pancakes and French toast!  Yum!

After breakfast, we headed south a few more miles.  We stopped to take in the views and snapped a photo of our Tandem.  We've had this awesome beast since our daughter was little.  Hubby and our daughter and hubby and I have even used this in mountain bike races!  He pulled it out last week, tuned it up, we took it out for a spin, and we're in love with it yet again.

On our way back north to Carlsbad and where we parked, we stopped at a place I've been following on Instagram for a while and was anxious to try, Lofty Coffee in Encinitas.  They roast their own coffee beans and make their own almond milk and hazelnut milk!  Not only were our drinks delicious but they were also pretty.  Here's my hubby's cappuccino with hazelnut milk...

And, here's my latte with almond milk.  They treated us to a homemade goody (not sure if it was a cookie, a muffin, or ??) that was gluten free, vegan, and yummy!  Their coffee grinder was acting up and delaying our coffee.  So, they brought the treat out with an apology.  How nice is that?!

We sat outside right along Pacific Coast Highway / Highway 1 and enjoyed the cool weather and our treats.  So nice!

These beauties were in the parking lot.  Plants love it down there and grow so well in that awesome weather!

What have you been up to this last week?

Harvesting and a Happy Kitty

We're starting to get veggies from our Summer garden!  Woohoo!

Here's my harvest from this morning...a couple of Patty Pan squash and some pickling cucumbers...

I picked our first three cucumbers a couple of days ago.  I plan to make some pickles today.

Penelope got her staples out on Tuesday.  I think it felt a little funny and starting driving her a little crazy as she kept whipping her head around and trying to get to the area they'd been.  I distracted her with her new mouse toy.  It worked!  She had so much fun playing with it.  And, she even wrapped her paws around it at one point and laid her head on it.  So cute!

She's a much happier kitty now that those staples are gone!  She's able to relax a lot more.  Here she is hanging out with me this week as I worked on trying to finish up some old WIPs.

I caught her looking in the mirror.  So cute!

I can't believe this week is almost over already!  Seems like it was just Monday!  How's your week going?  What have you been up to?

What's Up?

I missed posting yesterday.  So, here's an update of my weekend and what's up.

My sweet Penelope went in for surgery this morning.  I'm trying hard not to worry about my sweet girl.  I found a lump where her microchip normally is.  I Googled to see if tissue can grow around microchips or if they can cause tumors.  I was shocked to see that tons of stuff came up about microchips causing cancer and lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies that manufacture them.  YIKES!  I took her in to have it checked yesterday.  The good news is that the lump doesn't seem to be attached and can be moved around.  And, her lymph nodes seemed to be fine.  They're going to remove the lump today and send it in for testing.

Poor baby was so scared this morning.  It was so hard to take her in for this but it seems to be the right thing to do.  I don't want to wait and take a chance of it being bad and spreading to the point of not being able to do anything.  I love this girl SO much!  She's the sweetest and most loving kitty we've ever had.  She's so attached to me and wants to be with me almost constantly.  She comes to me often for snuggles and looks at me with ooey, gooey, loving, eyes and always has lots of kisses for me.  Fingers crossed she'll be just fine!

I snapped this pic over the weekend of her enjoying the morning sun.  Looks like she's meditating.

I bought a crock over the weekend that I'd had my eye on at my favorite antique shop.  They were having a sale, it was still there, and I got it for less.  Woot!  I put my antique rolling pins in it.  I love the rich color of it.

Hubby and I went to Oceanside for a bike ride on Sunday.  It was a cool, cloudy day with temps in the mid to high 60's.  Ahhhh!...a nice break from the heat wave we had for a few days at home.

These gorgeous Matilija Poppies were growing near where we parked.  The bushes were about five feet high and loaded with these beauties!

Our garden has some veggie babies!  Yay!  I snapped a few pics this morning.

A volunteer butternut plant seems to be doing well...

More tomatoes!  I'm so excited for these tasty treats!

Zucchini...

We have an eggplant blossom!  :-D

I plan to stay busy crafting and working around the house today to stay really busy and keep my mind from worrying about my sweet Penelope.  I get to pick her up sometime this afternoon.

Sweet Harvest

We harvested out sweet potatoes this week...

We're actually amazed that they grew!  We don't have the greenest of thumbs.  In fact, the only things we've been successful at the past few years are herbs and some tomatoes.  Oh, and the lemons and figs that seem to grow no matter what.  Everything else we've tried has failed.  So, this is pretty exciting!  And, they're quite yummy!  So far, we've had them steamed and made some into baked French fries.  I have a few other ideas I plan to try.  I'll keep you posted!

Backyard Harvesting and Preserving

What a weekend!  It was wonderful and scary and productive...all at the same time!  

We had rain and quite a bit of it.  That was wonderful!  We need it so badly and we'll take every drop we can get.  It's rare here and we savored the storms...opening windows, watching and listening to it fall, and breathing in that wonderful rain smell.  Ahhhhh!  My daughter and I enjoyed a little antique shopping on Saturday morning with the cloudy and cooler weather.  We even went for a walk in the rain with our dog yesterday.  And, late last night the rain poured hard...enough to wake us.  It was wonderful!  There are a few clouds in the sky today but I think the rain is over...for now.

The scary part of the weekend happened mid-day on Saturday.  Hubby had gone for a long bike ride.  It's something he does almost every weekend.  And, luckily it's often with a group.  Extra lucky this time!  I got a call from him around noon letting me know that he'd crashed and wouldn't be able to drive home.  Someone was giving him a ride to the bike shop and my daughter and I needed to meet him there to pick him up and drive his car home.  The pain was so bad that I needed to take him to an urgent care.  It turned out that a rib under his collar bone was broken and some cartilage next to his sternum was banged up.  It even hurt him to breathe!  The doc gave him a brace to hold his shoulders back.  That helps with the pain and will help the bone to heal in the right position.  The pain meds are working but he's needing to take it really easy until those stabbing/piercing/burning pains stop happening when he moves.  I'm taking good care of him!

While he was resting in the recliner on Sunday morning, I went out in the backyard to enjoy the cooler and moist air from the storms.  It turned out that a lot more figs had ripened.  I started picking them and ended up with a big bowl full.  There's still a bunch more on the tree that are green.  

The colors are incredible!

I quickly got to work preparing them for the dehydrator.  And, this time, I remembered to take some photos.  I used the same technique of dropping them into boiling water.  It weakens the skin to allow moisture to escape easier during dehydration.  Look how dark the water got...

After just 30 seconds, I scooped them out and dropped them into an ice bath.

It's interesting how the blanching turned parts of them green.

My daughter helped me slice them.

They were so pretty that I posted a pic on Instagram...

 My daughter suggested slicing them into quarters instead of halves.  She thought they might dry better and be easier to eat.  She was right!  They're already done and so delicious!  Some are sweet like brown sugar!  And, I love that delicate crispy, crunch of the little seeds.  Yum!

My Basil plants were big and lush...perfect for harvesting!  So, I cut a bowl full of basil to process into freezer cubes to use throughout the winter.  I try to do this several times every summer and it works great!  This year, besides the standard, green Basil, I also have a variety now with purple leaves.  It has a slightly different flavor but still has the delicious basil taste that I love.  Bugs seem to bother it less too.  It had very few munched leaves compared to the green plants that I have.

I picked off all of the good leaves and rinsed them in cold water.

The colors of the leaves floating in the water were so pretty that I had to take a picture...

After rinsing, I spun the leaves dry in a salad spinner and chopped them up in the food processor with olive oil (I did the green ones and purple ones separately...just because).  I put spoonfuls of it into the compartments of an ice tray.  It's amazing how little there is after it's chopped.  I almost filled a whole ice tray this time though.

I always like to put the tray into a plastic bag and tightly close the end.  That keeps the freezer from smelling like Basil and keeps the basil from smelling like freezer.  After they're frozen, I place them into a Rubbermaid container and keep them in the freezer for convenient use.  It works great in sauces and dressings.  And, best of all, even in the middle of winter, it tastes like I just picked it.

Since I'm sharing photos of food I preserved this week...here's a picture of some refrigerator pickled cauliflower that I made last week.  It should be ready to eat by now.  I think I'll have some for lunch!  I made it in one of my new, green, Ball canning jars.  I love how they're making them in colors now!

It's kind of amazing how much food I'm getting from our yard.  Especially since our garden isn't going so well.  It's so satisfying to eat food that we grew and know exactly what's in it and what's not.

Time for lunch!  :-)