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Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Whats Being Canned: Blackberry Jam and Blueberry Jam

It's jam time! We made double batches of blueberry and blackberry jam. Both are delicious and I'm so excited to stock up our pantry!

Each makes about six 8-ounce jars

Blueberry:

4 1/2 cups crushed blueberries
Grated zest and juice of 1 large lime
1 package regular powdered fruit pectin
5 cups granulated sugar


Blackberry:

5 cups crushed blackberries
1 package regular powdered fruit pectin
7 cups granulated sugar


1. Prepare canner, jars, and lids.
2. In a large, deep stainless steel saucepan, combine berries and pectin (and lime zest and juice for the blueberry recipe) using a whisk until pectin is all dissolved. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently. Add sugar all at once and return to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Boil hard, stirring constantly, for 1 minute. Remove from heat and skim off foam.
3. Ladle hot jam into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch head space. Remove air bubbles.Wipe rim. Center lid on jar and screw lid on.
4. Place jars in a canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for 10 minutes. Remove canner lid. Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool, and store.

We used all the blackberries, but had a TON of blueberries left. So with those left over berries, we made blueberry pancakes, blueberry muffins, and a blueberry loaf. I'll post those recipes soon!

With love,
Mama Hauck

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Pinterest Win - Dry Erase Message Picture Frame

Sammy likes to leave the kids and I little notes in the morning for us to wake up to. When I found a photo on Pinterest of a simple picture frame with lined paper in it with the instructions to use a dry erase marker to write messages on the glass, I knew I just had to make one for ourselves.

The pin:


Our creation:


We love the beach, so naturally I chose a more beachy looking frame and glued some shells on it. It now sits on our kitchen counter, in easy sight for the kiddos to see if Papa left us a morning message. :) 

With love,
Mama Hauck

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Our Last Summer Getaway

This past Friday thru Monday we were at Sam's Godmother's house. We like to cap off our summers with one final weekend away and it's usually here. Grandma (Cathy) and Joanie were close childhood friends, and this is the first time in 7 years Cathy has been back at Joanie's for a visit. 

We all had a great time, with the pool being the focus of all our fun. I'm really proud of the kids. Anthony was a champ at putting his face and head under water and loved the goggle set we bought him. This was also the first time he ventured out of the shallow! And although it took him being in a little kiddie float, it was a big step for him as he has a fear of the deep. We bought Molly a little life vest and she wasted no time jumping in and swimming around with our help, and then eventually all on her own all over the pool. Even little Timothy enjoyed the pool! 

We did a little shopping as well, stopping at a few stores to get all the kids new school shoes. We also stopped by a few fruit stands and picked up blueberries and blackberries as we will be canning jam soon! It was a relaxing, fun filled couple of days. With summer drawing to a close and the new school year quickly approaching, it's now time to reinforce an earlier bed time and an earlier rise time. We've got to launder and put away all the new school clothing and double check our school materials list to make sure we've got everything. We've got to go grocery shopping and stock up on all our favorite school lunch snacks and get our head in the game for the start of soccer season (coming VERY soon!!) 

I can't believe summer has come and gone as fast as it has. I feel like it was just yesterday it was the middle of June and Mols was gone away at Grandma's in CA and we were picking Anth up from his last day of school. I'm a little sad to watch the carefree days of staying up late and do-nothing-days come to a close, but I am actually very excited to send the kids back to school and get a bit of quiet around here. I've got some project and craft plans coming up that I'm looking forward to working on.


With love,
Mama Hauck

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

What's Being Canned: Salsa and Apricot Orange Conserve

We recently hit up our local Saturday farmers market (it was awesome....nothing beats local produce from local farmers) for some yummy veggies so we could make and can our own salsa. And when I say "we" I really mean Sammy and Grandma took the reins on this one.....because I spent that entire time cleaning, moving, organizing and taking stock of our two food pantries. However, I did participate in the taste test, and may I just say that our salsa is amazing.

Now, I was going to share the recipe with you, but it turns out the recipe they were going to use from the canning book was thrown right out the window and they basically made one up themselves with little memory as to amounts used. So you'll have to settle for just drooling over the photos. 


We also made and canned an apricot orange conserve made from the fruit of our apricot tree right in our back yard. Can't get any better than that! This is a pectin free recipe and is as follows: 

Makes about six 8-ounce jars

3 1/2 cups chopped, pitted, and peeled apricots
2 tbsp finely grated orange zest
1 1/2 cups orange juice
2 tbsp lemon juice
3 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1. Prepare canner, jars, and lids.
2. In a large, deep stainless steel saucepan, combine apricots, orange zest, orange juice, and lemon juice. Stir in sugar until dissolved. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly. Boil hard, stirring frequently, until mixture thickens, about 15 minutes. Remove from hear and test to see if gel stage has been reached. If not, return to stove and cook, stirring constantly for an additional 5 minutes.
3. Ladle hot conserve into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch head space. Wipe rim. Center lid on jar and screw lid on. 
4. Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for 10 minutes. Remove canner lid. Wait 5 minutes then remove jars, cool and store. 


We hope to do much more canning in the future, and when we do, I will be sure to post about it. 

With love,
Mama Hauck 

Thursday, August 15, 2013

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

Siblings. Friends. I love it. 



With love,
Mama Hauck

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Pinterest Win - Pallet Wood Window Treatment

I'm really thinking I need to start doing posts of all my "pinterest wins".....in other words, recipes and ideas I find on pinterest that I do that turn out well. I am one of those people who actually MAKE and DO what I pin on pinterest. Isn't that the whole point of Pinterest anyway? 

Here is our latest pinterest win. A pallet wood sign made to be a window treatment in the kitchen.

The Pin:


Our creation:


Sammy took apart a pallet to make the board for me. I hopped on the computer and printed out my lettering, blowing it up to the size I wanted using wordpad so I could make a stencil (I wasn't going to chance free handing it!). It took longer than expected to paint because of having to do multiple coats because of the yellow paint, but no biggie. I love it and it fits us perfectly. I sing this song to the kids daily, so it holds a special meaning for us.

With love,
Mama Hauck

Friday, August 9, 2013

Mama's Boy

My sweet little Timothy didn't like the idea of me going into my bedroom to do laundry by myself.....so he cried and cried and cried outside my bedroom door until he fell asleep right there on the floor. The older two kiddos thought it was hilarious. When I finally came out, I couldn't help but take a few photos of his cuteness. He's such a Mama's boy, always wanting to be by my side. I don't mind though....he'll only be little once.  


With love,
Mama Hauck

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Smokey Country Sunset

I wanted to show you all a beautiful, smokey (pics taken during our recent fire), Goldendale sunset. The longer I live out here in the country outskirts of Goldendale, the more I love it. 


With love,
Mama Hauck

Monday, August 5, 2013

Beach Day

Beach weekend day. We were really looking forward to spending the whole weekend at the coast, but unfortunately that's not how things played out. Saturday, while watching a parade, I left my phone in the car and came back to mulitple voice mails and messages on FB telling me about the fire (I talked about fire season and the one burning near Goldendale in a recent post). I did my own research and talked to Grandma....who was at home watching the animals for us....and was pretty comfortable with staying at the beach. However, we just kept getting bombarded with call after call, message after message......from everyone, and we just couldn't relax and enjoy ourselves. Don't get me wrong, I appreciated the concern, but a lot of the information we were receiving was wrong because the people were misinformed themselves or unfamiliar with where are home is in relation to where the fire was. That's why I did my own fire info digging and was comfortable with staying, but alas!! We just could not relax. So Saturday night, at 9pm, we packed back up and headed home. I cried. 

During our short stay there, we did manage to go to the beach for two hours. That was wonderful. The kids enjoyed themselves (well, Timothy didn't like playing in the sand as much as I thought he would) and I managed to get some nice photos. We watched a parade (we go to Garibaldi during their Garibaldi Days) and the kids got to do a little fishing at a fishing booth. We walked around the craft booths they had set up and hit up some yard sales too. We enjoyed delicious blueberry pancakes for breakfast and pulled pork sandwiches and shrimp for dinner. Yum. It's a shame we didn't stay longer, there's a lot we didn't get to do that I was really looking forward to, but there's always next time.



With love,
Mama Hauck