Plain and Simple

at the cottage....

Last week we learned some very simple techniques to decorate cakes. A good friend of mine taught us some simple ways to spruce up a cake and to ice it beautifully. We placed plastic tableclothes on the long tables and let the women practice away on the tables. Heres Ash trying her hand at it.

On the way to the farm Saturday I spotted  animal life in abundance and had to share with you what I saw...a black snake crossing the road was to fast for me to catch on camera.

Yesterday, the kiddos made new pajama pants for youth conference this weekend. Yguy had my sewing machine at the table and Ash had hers at the sewing table. Such fun... The table was full of fresh picked tomaties and yummy fruit. The box has Trail of Tear beans drying they were a little damp from the rain the night before. They are  black beans and I am looking forward to saving them and building my supply of seeds for someday to grow our own black beans to eat.

tomatoes from the garden and sweet chocolate peppers.

Roasting them for Roasted Salsa. I also roasted two onions and garlic for this yummy goodness.

For this all you would do is roast your tomatoes for your favorite salsa recipe. Very easy they can be done on an open fire which would give them such a good flavor, but it's to hot for a fire. Or in the oven or on the grill.

Sorry for the blur, little dryed ornamental Chinese peppers these little babies have a bite to them, but are so cute in this spice bottle. Even though it says ornamental you can eat them and they dry very fast.

The jelly and jam behind them the kids made Tuesday,  Watermelon jelly and Sugar free blueberry jam.

Watermelon Jelly

4 cups pureed watermelon. (take the seeds out before pureeing)

3 1/2 cups sugar

3 tbsp lemon juice

1 package of no sugar pectin ( I use this anyway but this recipe stated this kind, you can add sugar when using this pectin though you don't need to. But for this recipe you do.)

Follow package directions.

The cake our instructor decorated for us while teaching us how to make these lovely flowers.

We have been getting quite a bit of rain in the evenings and it as been so hot we have had heat index advisories the last few days.  Hubby has been very busy at work funerals seems to pile up when there is a heat wave or cold snap.

Garden is doing great the butternut squash are loving all this rain and are spreading their vines out. The strawberries are multipling like crazy which I love babies everywhere, I hope to pick our first berries next year.

Nothing to exciting going on around here except the normal summer activities though they keep us very busy. I hope to sew today maybe a skirt, maybe a blouse or two, or some zipper pouches for my purse to organize it some.

Hope you all have a wonderfully delicious day...

Love,

Erika