Busy days

Enjoying the mild winter here, but am anticipating planting the garden.  I am yearning for fresh produce and I just can not bring my self to pay the ridiculous prices the stores are asking for shipped in fruit and vegetables!

I have been buying a few things that have been on sale...but not much.  I bought 2 pineapples the other day at Aldis and made 8 (4oz) and 2 (8oz) jars of pineapple jam.  It is so good!  I also made 7 (8oz) jars of grape juice jelly.   Right now the PC is jiggling with 3 pints of chicken gizzards and hearts, hoping that they hold up well enough for frying.  Chris said that his grandma always pressure cooked gizzards before frying to make them more tender.  Trying it as an experiment.  Going to open 1 jar tonight and fry them up.

We have decided not to do a canning kitchen... instead we are building a 19x12 addition onto the kitchen! I am so excited.  Worried about how this will effect my canning this summer, but I guess I could always move all my supplies to my mom's if needed.  Hoping to plant a VERY BIG garden so I can can up most of it.  Hate running out of food!

In my addition I will be getting new cabinets, open shelving and a new DISHWASHER! I cannot wait and am getting more and more excited as I think about it!  We don't know for sure yet how much it all is going to cost, but we got quite a bit back from our taxes AND mom and dad are going to help with some of it since it is their house after all.  Our construction guy came and looked at it, we are waiting on an estimate.  I think we are going with a concrete floor to save some money and luckily we have plumbers and electricians in the family.  Also Chris can do sheetrock... so that will help tremendously.  We are going to buy unfinished cabinets and stain them ourselves.  Going to go with a laminate countertop.  We can't afford to go super fancy, but I am going to have things how I want them - such as taller cabinets than standard because of my height.  I want my cabinets to be at least 4ft tall.

Chris bought me a new ring the other day.  My diamond wedding ring is so bulky it is always getting snagged on things.  Plus if I don't take it off while cooking it gets so nasty between the diamonds and in the cracks.  It is also too tight.  We are going to get it resized but then I am going to put it up.  I wanted just a SIMPLE band to wear around home.  I love it. It is made of titanium (so very durable) and says Forever Love around the outside of it.

Top left: New ring
Bottom Right: Regular wedding ring

And a few more recent pics:

Sophia and her toothy smile! She will be 3 in just a few months!

If you look really hard, there are Canadian geese on the bank!

Beautiful Sky!

I just love this sky!

Long Ago forgotten...

6 more weeks of winter...

Wait! What Winter? Today it is 60 degrees, sun is shining and it is beautiful outside!  We could use some rain, it is already the 2nd month of the year and we are already 1/2" behind for the year.  Hopefully we aren't dry like last year, I am planning a HUGE garden!  Ordering my seeds today!!!  Need to get some of them babies started! YAY! Some pics to show that everything thinks it is SPRING!

I have been bit by the canning bug once again.  Aldi's  last week had baby carrots on sale for $0.49 a pound...so silly me goes and buys 21 bags.  They also had pineapple for $0.99 each.  I bought 3.  I canned carrots Saturday and Tuesday.  Today I am canning pineapple with grapefruit! 3 pineapple and 2 grapefruit made 7 pints! whoo baby!

Also I have a recipe to share with you all.  Tuesday night I made what I call Stuffed Noodles, it is a recipe I made up a few months ago and my hubby and I really like it!

Ingredients:
2 packages cream cheese, room temp
1 box frozen chopped spinach
bacon grease and 2 pieces bacon
A little bit of heavy cream
salt, garlic powder, onion powder
noodles either JUMBO SHELLS or MANICOTTI, cooked and cooled
mushrooms are optional

Fry your bacon (I usually just fry a whole package to get the grease) after your bacon is done add the spinach to your grease, cook it until heated through, crumble 2 pieces of bacon in it. Meanwhile in a mixing bowl add 2 packages of cream cheese and a bit of cream (I really don't measure this I just pour a bit in here and there) add your spinach, mushrooms and mix it all up. Add seasonings to taste.

After cream cheese mixture is well blended add mixture to a gallon sized ziplock baggie, cut off the corner and squeeze mixture into noodles (think pastry bag). Lay noodle in a casserole dish, pour a jar of Spaghetti sauce over the top. Sprinkle cheese (any kind of shredded cheese really - I use Mozzerella mostly though)

Bake at 350 for 10 minutes or until cheese is all melted and bubbly. Serve.

This is a great way to get the kids to eat spinach!