Alabama Discoveries 6: Bellingrath Gardens for Mother’s Day

04. July 2013 · 4 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,
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I love this picture!

As always, when asked what I want for Mother’s Day, the answer is the same. I want an outing with the family at a location of MY choosing.

It often involves something more feminine. Being in a house full of guys, I usually have to give up the girlier things during the year, but for Mother’s Day I get my berry picking and botanical gardens visits!

This year, I asked for a trip to Bellingrath Gardens near Mobile, Alabama. Again. I had already dragged the family out there over the holidays to see the fantastic light show, but I wanted to see it in the spring with all the flowers in bloom before we moved to Colorado.

I was not disappointed. And Timmy, my little naturalist, was just as impressed with all the flowers and animals.

I took the good camera with us so I could capture the beauty! Enjoy some pictures. Be forewarned, I took over 300 pictures, so I’ve distilled it down to about 30 of my favorites.

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My Modest Little Garden

07. June 2013 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

I know it was silly, but I did start a garden here this spring. In part because we did a Cub Scout den project that involved planting seedlings. I ended up with several leftovers and I just stuck them in my garden plot.

Enjoy some pictures of the modest little harvest I might have had if it weren’t for all the bugs and birds that helped themselves first.

I planted the garden in late March. By May it was looking fantastic! Too bad the birds thought so too.

I planted the garden in late March. By May it was looking fantastic! Too bad the birds thought so too.

I let the birdseed grow some:

Sunflowers!

Sunflowers!

Crookneck squash. Timmy was very interested in how squash grew...too bad he doesn't like squash.

Crookneck squash. Timmy was very interested in how squash grew…too bad he doesn’t like squash.

I have quite a few tomatoes, and I'm sad about having to walk away from them all in a couple weeks.

I have quite a few tomatoes, and I’m sad about having to walk away from them all in a couple weeks.

 

 

 

Canning Homemade Fresh Salsa

28. April 2012 · Comments Off on Canning Homemade Fresh Salsa · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,

I tried canning two pints of fresh salsa.

You know it happens to you, right?  Those food cravings.

Come on…admit it!

Sometimes you just feel like having something that isn’t sitting in your fridge or pantry.  In my case, it was homemade fresh salsa.  I like the salsa that you get in Mexican restaurants.  The kind that comes to you in a carafe and you pour it into a bowl with some fresh corn tortilla chips.

Last year — at about this time — the boys and I made Pioneer Woman’s Restaurant Style Salsa with cilantro and jalapeños fresh from my garden.  Since I put in my garden about 3 weeks late, I had no such freshness in my backyard and I had to settle for the ingredients from my local grocery store.

The recipe makes about 48 oz. of salsa…so this year I tried canning two of the three pints of it.  I had some wide-mouth pint jars, and it was simple to process the two jars in a smaller pot.

I consulted my handy-dandy Ball Blue Book for some guidance on how long to process the jars.  And here’s where I’m in a conundrum: I didn’t cook the salsa ahead of time.  I want “fresh” salsa.  So except for the cooking process during the 15 minutes in the water canner, I otherwise did NOT cook this salsa.

It appears there are numerous guides suggesting that a salsa mix needs to be boiled for 10+ minutes but found this recipe on Food.com where the author didn’t cook the salsa ahead of time.  There was plenty of lemon juice in the recipe (mine had the same amount of lime juice).  Seemed to be good reviews.

Since all of us in the house are blasting through this salsa at breakneck speed, I don’t think we’ll be letting these jars sit for more than a month or so.  The pint that I put in the fridge on Thursday is already almost gone.

What say you?  Do you think the 1/4 c. of lime juice that I squeezed into this recipe is enough to keep the yuckies at bay without boiling the salsa first?