snippets // as spring turned into summer

1. stella in her favorite dress on her birthday after we had a mama/daughter taco date.
2. andrew and theodore, just melting my heart on our big swing.
3. a special lunch for the ladies, jammies required.
4. daddy found theo's blankie!
5. the night he took his first swing.
6. just a little selfie for ya.
7. he spotted his blankie on the line and that was that.
8. theo being theo in the mud.
9. relaxing at mama and looking up at the trees.
10. stella and daddy on a weekend ride.
11. every morning, he sits next to andrew and watched his put on his shoes.
12. at our favorite nursery on mother's day.
13. playing with her new birthday stickers.
14. saturday pool hangs in the backyard.
15. we were craving a cake.
16. the face of concentration with a touch of sass.
17. enjoying a nice lunch by myself as the littles napped.
18. reading sister's book upside-down.
19. stella's last day of ballet.
20. lunch made with herbs from our garden.
21. being a turkey and rather determined to touch those birdies in our bassinet.
22. looking so peaceful during an afternoon nap.
23. taco night and a little game of let's run around the island!
24. playing with his yellow car as i folded laundry nearby.
25. all the summer veggie cravings right now.

recipe // preserving summer

if you, like myself, have reached that point in your summer where ripening, split tomatoes and bright, spicy chilies are making homes on various shelves and sills and in wooden bowls on countertops you are probably in need of a few recipes.

last year i preserved bit of our summer by buying heirloom varietals at our local market, turning them into salsas and pasta sauces.  this i made a bbq sauce and a jam and the vegetables to do so, minus a few yellow peppers, are from our very first backyard garden.

there is something pretty spectacular about popping open a sealed jar in the dead of winter to take you back to those long summer days.  that is my favorite part of preserving, the nostalgia it ushers forth with the crisp opening of each jar weeks even months down the road, when your spirits are in need of lifting and a reminder of warmth and fireflies and pool days lies around the corner in one's pantry.

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tomato-chili jam

ingredients:

2 pounds of tomatoes
1/2 pound of chili peppers
1 1/4 cup of sugar
1 cup distilled white vinegar
1 teaspoon calcium water
1 teaspoon pectin

to prepare, peel, core and chop the tomatoes. remove the stems and seeds from the chilies and dice them finely. combine the tomatoes, chilies, one cup of sugar, and vinegar in a non-reactive saucepan.  bring to a boil and reduce for twenty minutes.  add the calcium water.  in a small bowl combine the rest of the sugar and pectin, stir this into the jam and return to a boil to dissolve the sugar.  remove from heat and let sit for five minutes.

to preserve, process for ten minutes using boiling water method.  i would eat this with smeared atop cornbread or slathered on grilled toast with ricotta cheese.

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charred chili bbq sauce

ingredients:

1 pound of chili peppers
5 pounds of tomatoes
1 pound of yellow onions
2 cups of brown sugar
1 cup of cider vinegar
2 garlic cloves minced
1 tablespoon allspice
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon chili powder

to prepare, char the chilies in the oven or on the grill.  roughly chop them and then peel, core, and chop the tomatoes.  combine all ingredients in non reactive sauce pan and bring to a boil.  reduce the heat and simmer for two hours.  puree with a stick blender.

to preserve, process for twenty minutes using boiling water method.  i would put this on anything, honestly.

*all recipes are taken and mildly adapted from the book put em' up!

snippets // shades of our summer

the creaky croak of cicadas and pervading smell of freshly mowed grass.  sipping pink wine out of jam jars on the porch as our last candlestick drips down, down, down into nothing but a whisper of wax.  darkness hugging our bodies as smiley bouts of laughter echo down our street, the impending flip of a winning hand during an intense card game of "golf" on the patio table.  fireflies.  market walks on saturday mornings for flowers and carrots and small, sweet tomatoes.  cut off shorts hanging on the line.  strung bistro lights.  hydrangea clippings.  neighborhood pool swims.  the ever persistent mosquito.  swinging in the front yard from our giant oak tree.  pistachio ice cream giving us the chills.  turning up our record player louder than we should.  supper on the grill.  road trips to iowa.  hugs from family and catching up with friends.

this has been our summer.

and it has been good.  so. ridiculously. good. 

i've taken to instagram more often than not as of late.  with summer's long hours and a good majority of them spent outdoors i feel that my taking note of our lives has been pretty sparse here.  but i'm okay with it because what a lovely little hiatus this has been for me.  sometimes not writing it all down or capturing our days in photos makes our memories all the better.  not everything is meant to be recorded and sometimes, just sometimes, it feels good to live it and let it slip away.

these past few weeks i've been soaking up this fine kansas city weather with my sweets and enjoying our new, lovely home.  i must confess i have turned into quite the hermit, but i cannot find much a reason to leave this beautiful place!

albiet, i am ready to start up again with more regular posts on this here blog about our happenings and such.  so a toast, cheers to what lies ahead for us all, my friends.