Bless My Heart I Married A Yankee

It is strawberry season here in North Carolina. I love strawberry season.  Nothing quite like a fresh strawberry hand-picked from my own patch.  I love to watch them grow and mature to delicious red ripe berries.   Our grandson, Jace, loves to sit there and eat them, dirt and all.  He is so cute.  He loves strawberries and blueberries.  I guess that is a good thing.  He tells me all the time he wants berries.  As I was picking Sunday he told me, Oh Grammy I love strawberries.  He will be 4 on Halloween.  He is our little pumpkin.   We put our patch in 4 springs ago.  I had tried to grow them before many years ago and I did not do too well.  This time our patch has been great.  I remember the first year how excited I was to make jam with my own berries.  Now a few years later I have come up with a wonderful low sugar jam that allows you to really taste the strawberry goodness.  Plu...

I thought I might have a normal ordinary day.  I have no clue why the heck I would think any day of mine would be normal.   You know a day where you can get stuff done but not be rushed or have anything in particular to do.  Alas, that was not to happen for me.  Instead, I decided to work on some those onions I was gifted a month or so back.  A while back one of my friends mentioned a beer pickled onions recipe that I found very intriguing.  I normally can stuff but this one was not a canning recipe but one that goes in the fridge.  That held me off for a while but I decided to try it this morning.   Since I had a stout beer left from one of the  apple relish  I made I decided to make the beer pickled onions with the leftover beer.  I mean why not, right?  I have onions, a good beer, and all the other ingredients.  It really was a spur of the moment for me to do this recipe.  I do not know why I ke...

I can not help but be super excited about new things.  I love learning and I love that my blog has already taught me so much.  I hope it has you too. Is it not crazy how you start something because you think you will enjoy it and it winds up teaching your stuff?  I am stoked.   I hope to post some of the following in the next few weeks and months. Strawberry Preserves ~ Several Way Strawberry Wine The Most Amazing Rub Ever Sweet Grilled Onion Lemon Blueberry Concentrate Blueberry Butter Leftover Sourdough Starter Blueberry Jam Stout Beer Pickled Onions Blueberry Wine Selena's awesome pickles Herbs and More Herbs Plantain Salve Hot Onion Relish Thyme Salve Homemade Lotion Cajun Chicken and Shrimp P asta (oh my how good) I want for you guys to get to know me better.  Who I am.  What I like.  More of where I came from.  I have no clue if you will be interested but I want my blog to be more.   ...

I probably do my best when I sit down right after I have made something.  Believe me, I am not a writer, photographer or a trained chef.  I am just a Southern chick who loves to play around in the kitchen, in her herb and vegetable gardens.   We have had a crazy spring here in NC.  We went from snow in mid to late March, tons of rain in April and then hot steamy scorching heat with no rain for a few weeks now in May.  Today brought us rain that will stick around for a few days.  I think it is due to an early tropical storm which is supposed to bring the temps back down from the 90's to the high 70's.  Yeah, it might cool it off some but it is really steamy outside. During the hot hot days, I love to eat salads of every kind.   Panzanella , pasta salad, and even just a garden salad.   I love to cook out or as my husband calls it bbq.  HA, now that is a story.  Here in the south, we cook out.  A bbq i...

These last few days have been sweltering hot outside.  While I love the heat I do not enjoy the sticky humidity.  I tend to think about invading my neighbor's pool because the chilly water looks so inviting.   I also can not think about eating a hot steamy meal.  I want to have something cool to enjoy but also filling.  When it is really hot outside I love to make a meal that is refreshing.  I tend to stick with the same ole same ole stuff to fill our bellies though.  We eat a lot of pasta salads and  panzanella .  Both are a lot of fun to make because you can be as creative as you wish.  Just throw in whatever and you have a meal.   It really has been hot for about a week now and while the temps are going to go down to the 80's and maybe even the high 70's this week TODAY is going to be steamy.  Which made me think what do I wanna fix this week to eat.  First thing came to my mind was a pasta salad....

I am still over the moon with my stash of rose petals.  They make me so happy.  I know that sounds silly but I have seriously been wanting to make rose jelly for a long time now.  I think my timing is perfect too because it is Mother's Day.  What a great idea for Mother's Day.  Instead of roses give her rose jelly.   While my mom and I were picking them she was talking about how pretty they are and how a bride would love to have them for her wedding.  A sweet little flower girl tossing them down the aisle.  What a lovely thought.   I made  rosewater  on Friday and I love putting it on my face.  I have it in the fridge and it feels so good to apply it cold.  I know I have only used it for 2 days but I swear I can tell a difference in my skin.  It is not nearly as dry as it has been.   There's so much I am looking forward to making with the rest of my petals.  I really can not wa...