In The Kitchen

Hello Friends!

As of late I've been enjoying more time in my kitchen.  I've been attempting to get more made from scratch instead of leaning on what I can buy.  It just takes a bit more planning on my part...one of the things I'm working harder at.

First off I was blessed with finding a bunch of strawberries on mark down at the grocery and made some jam.  In the jars the fruit is separated, but once opened we stirred it and it all stays nicely mixed.  One of my families favourites.  This year we are attempting to grow more of our own strawberries so we will have to wait and see how that works out.  It's still very early in the season for them in the Yukon.  We have a small patch and hope that there'll be enough at the same time for strawberry shortcake. :)

There will be lots more jam making to come this summer.

Then, there is the usual cookie baking.   Chocolate chip cookies this time, but we love our cinnamon oatmeal, & peanut butter ones as well.

I have been hearing about fermented pickles and thought I'd give it a try.  I found a great tutorial at Back to the Homestead HERE.  I used some pickles that I got at the grocery store since we don't have any of our own yet.  We left them for a week and the liquid turned all murky.  When we opened the jar it all bubbled up and smelled nice and dilly. :)  The pickles taste really good, and we will be doing this again.  They are now in the fridge waiting to be all eaten, which won't take long.

For Father's Day we made a chocolate pie with Reese peanut butter mini cups in the bottom.  It tasted SO good. :)

I made a few pie shells (one cooked and the others un-cooked), put them in freezer bags and tucked them in the freezer for quick deserts later.  I also tucked away some filling in the freezer so it'll be easy to combine them and pop in the oven.

I have gotten into the regular rhythm of making bread, and it's such a comfort food for us.  Buns for lunches and loaves for toast, french toast or garlic toast.  We go through a lot of bread in our house and make it every couple of days.  I make a double batch (two loaves, and a pan full of buns).  I wanted to make larger batches, but my stove is little and they over rise and fall while waiting to bake.  So I make it more often.  I really need to take the time to make more and tuck it in the freezer...on my to do list. :)

One other thing we love in our house are brownies.  How about you?  In the pic you can see I had the oven a touch too hot and it burned the edges of the parchment paper.  But the brownies were perfect.  I found a wonderful recipe that uses cocoa powder instead of the chocolate bricks.  Now they turn out perfect each time for me.  If you'd like the recipe you can find it HERE.  I clipped mine out of an old magazine I had been given but found it online for you.

Thanks so much for dropping by!  I hope that you have a beautiful day!

Sharing with The Art of Homemaking Mondays.

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