Sunday Quotes....Sunny...90's

Have you observed that so called "naysayers" and pessimists often turn out to be "truthsayers" and people with foresight? 
Bonney Bresko from L.O.L.A.

Blackberry/Zucchini Freezer Jam...Sunny and HOT!

One of our Favorite summer recipes, it freezes wonderfully uses up Zucchini and any extra fruit you may have on hand too :) Try it you just might LOVE it!

 

12 cups zucchini , seeded and grated

4 cups sugar

1 cup lemon juice

9 Oz ( 3 boxes) black cherry OR grape Jello ( see note)

1 quart blackberries

 

Place grated squash in large pan with 1 inch of water. Boil for 6 minutes, drain well and return to stove, over medium heat add sugar and lemon juice and blackberries, return to a gentle boil for 6 more minutes. Remove from heat and add Jello, sprinkling evenly over surface of pan, then stir well, till completely dissolved.

Spoon into sterilized canning jars, allow to cool and freeze. Or cool first and then spoon into plastic freezer containers and freeze.

 

**NOTE: In some locations you can find Blackberry Jello, if so by all means use it, but since I can’t always find it I have used both black cherry and grape and liked them very well with the blackberries  *** This is our favorite jam to use during the winter in our Jam bar recipe (see it HERE) and your adding a veggie and a fruit to your dessert!

 

**Use this recipe as a basic recipe and use whatever Jello/Fruit combinations you like some of our favorites  I’ve made are Strawberry Rhubarb with Strawberry Jello and 3 cups strawberries & 1 cup Rhubarb

Cherry with cherry Jello and fresh or jarred cherries

 Bumbleberry with Black Cherry and Strawberry Jello and blackberries, strawberries, raspberries to total 1 quart of fruit

Raspberry with Raspberry Jello and Raspberries................

You get the idea!

 

**** Also this works quite well with frozen fruit so if you are inundated with fruit before the zucchini starts just pop it in the freezer in quart bags to make later!

 

Snippets & Snatches...partly cloudy...80's

                                                            Snippets & Snatches

 

 

Our Rose of Sharon's are blooming and I thought of Willene today.  She was an independent  spinster in her 70’s and 80’s when we knew her, years ago when we owned a business in town, and later worked at another one, she would come to visit us. 

When she noticed my daughter's interest in gardening, she  began sharing a sampling from her hordes of accumulated plants . She had a beautiful old home with a gambrel roof and a tumble down barn tucked in back, on a corner lot. This was right in town. All the folks, with manicured lawns and one complimentary evergreen shrub, would complain about "her jungle" as they called it. Some would hint what young boy would be available to help her "clean it up", and others would come right out and say it was a disgrace.

The current ‘town fathers’ would be assigned the task of "talking" to her. Once in awhile she'd thin out a little or make a few passes with a lawnmower, but her heart was never inclined to disturb her gardens. 

 But, through the years, nothing much changed and as she grew older the yard grew up into even more of a jungle.

One time we’d stopped by her yard, at her request, to pick up a few starts for yet another planting. 

 I noticed a very large and unique stone laying haphazardly in the yard, when  I commented on it, she said

 “ My daddy carried that home for me when I was a teenager (she must have been 80 if she was a day when she was telling this story to us) boy, he sure was strong, carried it home cause I liked it, and right there is where he threw it down, we never got around to moving it!”

 

Another time she asked us if we’d go with her out in the woods on a piece of property she owned but was afraid to go alone, we hiked down a long old logging road, badly washed out, to an old pond deep in the woods, the reason for the trip?  she wanted to dig a start of Vinca Minor that she’d seen there years before, she shared just a couple of sprigs with us that day ( nearly 20 years ago ) and now I have more of the stuff than I know what to do with and share it with anyone I can.....................

The same can be said for my Rose of Sharon’s that line my garden fence (well at least the original ones she gave us line the fence, now they also spread throughout the garden, the back yard, the front yard, my daughters house and several friends and neighbors yards......she didn’t tell me they were invasive....come to think of it she probably wouldn’t use the term invasive.....looking at the things she grew and shared and knowing more about plants now.......she LOVED things that were ‘easy to grow’ (read: invasive).

When the state highway was widened a few years back, the highway department seeded the new shoulders with pink primrose, blanket flowers, Coreopsis and Echinacea, then promptly began to bush-hog it down while it was in full bloom and before it had a chance to go to seed for next year, Willene was irate! She made a 100 mile round trip to drive to the Highway department headquarters  and  inform the ‘man in charge’ of the road crew that they were bush hogging at the wrong time of the year and simply HAD to wait until the flowers went to seed first!

 

Over the years she'd bring more & more plants for us, old home standards like Rose of Sharon, Forsythia, Irises, Day Lillies, Peonies, Wisteria, Dame’s Rocket, Mock Orange,  Poppies, Resurrection lilies, & October Plums to name a few. At the time we thought we were too busy to be planting, but as we were the first to live here and there were no old homestead plants we kept accepting and planting. 

 

As you might imagine she had a bit of a reputation around our small town, when my daughter married and bought a piece of property in town  just a block away from Willene’s house , she and her husband started planting many things there ( ironically many of these plants were starts from Willene’s place).  

Since  they didn’t live on the place,   they were “warned” by more than one neighbor that they better be careful or their plants might come up ‘missing’, seems Willene was known to scout around town for new starts of plants to add to her collection, and wasn’t at all past stepping up into a yard to take a cutting or gather seeds from a plant she didn’t already have! (one neighbor ‘suggested’ she’d even dug plants right from people’s yards before, but I tend to think this was an rumor that had been exaggerated a bit!)

Though I must say this story did remind me of seeing her driving very sloooooowly around town in her old white Oldsmobile station wagon with the wood paneled sides through  the  side streets of our town.......hmmm scouting for new recruits for her jungle, I wonder?????

 

Now Willene is gone, Her house in town has sold and much of the yard has been “cleaned up” (meaning they took most of her plants out---but when I drove by this spring--guess what? they didn’t get the Jonquils, they were blooming all over the place!) .  We so appreciate her kindness in sharing what she loved with us, through the knowledge and plants she entrusted us with her jungle still  lives on, all around our homestead....................

Snippets & Snatches....cloudy...rain on the way...74*

This is one of my Granddaughters favorite poems......................and one of our favorite recipes!

                            Her First Cake....

She measured out the shortening with a solemn air.
 The sugar and milk also...
then she took the greatest care
to count the eggs correctly and to add a little bit
of baking powder which you know, beginners oft omit
She stirred it all together, then she baked it one full hour
But she never quite forgave herself..........
        for leaving out the flour!
                                                                                                                Author unknown

Old fashioned coffee cake

Cake:

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

4 T. Margarine

1 1/2 cups All purpose flour

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup plain yogurt

6 T. Milk 

 

Topping:

1 cup Sugar

1 tablespoon Molasses

2 Tablespoons all purpose flour

2 Tablespoons cinnamon

 1/2 cup chopped pecans OR walnuts

4 Tablespoons Melted margarine

 

Icing:

1 cup powdered sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1-2 T. coffee (or milk)

 

For the cake, combine sugar, butter, yogurt, milk and egg , beat well. Add flour & baking powder, mix well, spoon into a well greased 13 X 9 pan.

 

For topping, place sugar and molasses in a bowl and using a fork or electric beaters mix until all molasses is incorporated and sugar is evenly colored.

Add remaining ingredients in order given and mix well.

Evenly sprinkle over top of the cake and bake at 365* for 20-25 minutes, until a knife inserted comes out clean.

Cool on wire rack.

For icing mix powdered sugar, and vanilla, and just enough coffee to make a thick glaze. Drizzle over cooled cake and serve immediately.

 

Making your own brown sugar only takes a minute and the flavor is so much richer you won’t mind the extra few minutes it took to make it. If your prefer a milder taste you can use Sorghum instead of the molasses for a ‘light’ brown sugar flavor!

Snippets & Snatches...Partly cloudy...76*

     Rainy Days Blues

Rain, rain go away....

We've had it with you!
Please be through....
You've driven us to shout,
Go help the people in drought!
And now we ask why....
We can't have a blue sky?

To help us mow......

All this hay you've caused to grow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!