Ultimate Mega Awesome Pie Dough Recipe

For anyone needing a great pie dough recipe this holiday season here is THE one. None other are needed.

Inappropriate Vegetables!

With all my luck, this was the squash I got the other day...

Back to the Future!

Some people have blasts from the past, but it seems like I caught a glimpse into the future...





















Jason and Sarah: 50 years from now.





















Happy LATE Halloween.

I'm an Auntie Again!

Congrats to my brother and sister-in-law, Tom and Liane.

Kamora















She was born 9 Oct, 2010 at 9:58 PM. (6 lb. 8 oz., 19.5 inches)
















My brother got the best birthday present he could wish for!

Looks Like I'm in a Pickle...

What to do with all these cucumbers?
















The obvious solution...




















PICKLES!!!!

My Time as a Chef

Been doing some cooking lately. The exciting part is that we have been pulling a lot of the vegetables out of the greenhouse to add t0 the mix.

Here is a wonderful quiche that we made. I got some pie dough from my work and this is what I have come up with:
















The lovely ingredients: Eggs, broccoli, peas (from the garden), and BACON!


The next adventure was round two in jam making. We went and picked some wild raspberries again and had another successful batch of raspberry jam:
















The boiling of the jam and sugar.


















The blending of the jam.

















And the wonderful outcome.


Finally.
Peppers.
I have become a pepper farmer apparently. These are the ones we grew from seed:
















A jalapeno and a banana pepper.

Here's one for size comparison:
















Pretty decent sized!

And this is what we did with them:
















PIZZA!!!!!

So far it's been a good batch of cooking... let's just not bring up my attempt to make my own corndogs from scratch... not a good experience :(

But all in all, its been good. I've got a chicken pot pie in the oven as we speak... so I guess I'll have to keep you posted on how it tastes!

A Slew of Updates

So I've been a bit lackadaisical in my blogging lately. It seems a lot easier posting the pictures that explain themselves, rather than me ranting a mini dialogue.

I fear, however, the time has come to get pictures up that tell what I've been up to lately... seems only fair, right?

I've been having a lot of visitors lately. Something about being so close to Mount Rushmore ... an well, they probably wanted to see me, too, my sister Susie and her girls came to visit in June.

We went to Mount Rushmore.




















These girls are pretty silly.

















I'm not sure how many of these shots I have, but I should make some sort of collage with all the Mount Rushmore pictures I have.




















Susie was taking A LOT of pictures... curious how she hasn't updated her blog either...Hmm.
















Then we left.


We went to Crazy Horse Memorial next.




















We didn't stay there long because I had to get to work...

And Susie, Afton, Erin and Jason all surprised me at work. They had to get some yummy pie, I guess.




















But Susie is in A LOT of trouble for sneaking a picture in my very unflattering purple shirt.


We had a lot of fun visiting and playing games, but it looks like Afton got all worn out. She is getting some training from her aunt Sarah of the art of sleeping in weird places. Here is my favorite napping chair.






















The girls also had tons of fun in our GIANT tree in our backyard.






















And it had come to the deciding moment of what to do with my mop of hair.
To cut or not to cut...
































CUT IT!!!! I'm always a fan of cutting my hair.

So were Afton and Erin.












































































I think their faces get better and better as they go along. Erin just looks worried the whole time.


Here's the final product. Have enough hair to donate. I've just got to figure out who to donate to.
















We ended our travels with going to Jewel Cave. I think we all enjoyed that a lot.




















So we had tons of fun with Susie's family and we were glad they could come and visit.

The latest of the food adventures, we made some pierogi. They were pretty tasty.

































In July, my other sister Angelic and her sister in law Cyndi came in a big RV to visit as well.
Can you guess where we all went? If you guessed Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse... well, you're right. I think I'm going to apply as a tour guide at those places soon because of all the times I've been there :)
















Here's cute little Henry. My camera doesn't even do him justice and how stinkin' cute he is.
















Here's Calvin posing with his Pokemon. I have learned A LOT about Pokemon. It's amazing.
















This is when the Jackson boys thought that they had found silver. I'm pretty sure the ground is just really shiny. Sorry boys.















Here's Mississippi. She was taking some really great photos.




















Sweet little Henry.





















Owen.















Jason and me... of course.

















And the two headed Sarah/Missi monster.

Then there was Crazy Horse.
















From the clouds in the pictures I could tell we were about to experience a weird South Dakota isolated thunder storm. Its there one minute, all sun shiny the next.




















While we were at Crazy Horse Memorial, Henry wanted to ride the crazy horse. I think this was as close as he got.


We made spaghetti tacos for dinner. And then the next day Angelic and Cyndi went on with their crazy RV trip. We had a fun time being tour guides and host.

So I think that about sums up my life thus far. I'll leave it off with a picture of the first "fruits" of our garden.

Latest Development

Just because I'm really excited about the garden's progress, here is another update:



























































































































Still no tomato fruit, but I'm totally excited with all the progress. Everything is doing great.