Busy Day In The Kitchen

Today was a cool rainy day, and I could think of no better way of spending it than doing some serious cooking.

I picked today to make one batch of my yearly two batches of Cabbage Bread. The other batch will be made later on next month.

Thought I would share how I make this with all of you. It is a recipe that has been handed down on my Father's side of the family for many years....and if there really was a writen recipe it has been lost over time.

Hmm, where to start. Perhaps with the ingredients. You will need bread dough (I cheat and buy the frozen loaves, it saves time). Thaw and let rise. I usually do this over night.

Here is the dough nicely risen in my biggest bowl. I used 7 loaves this time.

Next, saute at least 2 chopped onions in a small amount of oil. Add about 3 pounds of ground beef as well as salt and pepper. Stir mixing and breaking up the chunks of meat until browned.Then take a nicely cleaned cabbage and slice it into thin slices.

I usually slice pieces off the cabbage and then cut it up as if I am making slaw.

Now take all that lovely thinly sliced cabbage and put it on top of the hamburger and onions cooking on the stove.

Allow the cabbage to cook down and then mix it with the cooked meat.

Once the cabbage is tender. Take it off the stove. Punch down the bread dough and cut pieces off it as if you are going to make buns. Roll the pieces out into a square on a lightly floured board. Put a few large spoonfuls of the ground beef/cabbage mixture on each and form into buns.

Place these buns on greased baking sheets and lightly grease the tops. Cover and let rise until doubled. Then pop them into the oven at 350 for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Here is a picture of the finished product. I ended up making 4 dozen today. Hopefully I will be able to make another 4 dozen later on. These make a nice quick meal when I am tired from work.

Off to visit you all now.

Everyone have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Busy In The Garden

It has been a busy few days around the Phillip's house. Harvey was busy painting and refurbishing on of my outdoor benches. Here is a picture of the ends all nicely spray painted black. I will post a picture of the finished project once he gets it together and set up under the cherry trees

Then this morning I got to go out and pick some more peas from our garden. Mmmm, nothing quite tastes the same as fresh peas.

My mint and oregano needed to be trimmed back....so I cut them back and dried the trimmings for use throughout the winter. I think tomorrow I will trim back the thyme and bring in the trimmings to dry.

Thank heavens that I have two dehydrators. They get a great deal of use at this time of year.

Well off to make supper. I will be by to visit all of you later tonight.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Silent Auction Items

Well it is time I posted the items that we managed to bid on and win at the reunion.

First is this lovely bird feeder. It was made by a gentleman in a small town near Weyburn. We put it under the tree in our front yard. So far no birds have found it but I am hopeful.

This ornament was made by Harv's brother, Loran. Loran does lots of work on his lathe and Harvey really likes everything he does. This is project is called "Inside Out" because a person works from the inside out.

The last thing is this lovely basket. It is a spa pedicure basket and I can't wait to use it. Lots of lovely things to soak and use on my feet.

Today is a special day. It is Harvey's birthday so supper was something he loves, grilled smokie sausages and a Caesar Salad with Romaine lettuce from our garden. Dessert was Saskatoon Pie and Vanilla Icecream.

We actually picked enough Saskatoons for two lovely pies. One of which will be going in the freezer for later.

I think that they turned out very well, with just a little boil over. To make matters even better I have enough frozen berries to make another couple of pies this winter. Mmmm. A taste of summer when we are up to our armpits in snow.

Well off to visit all of you.

Everyone have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Unexpected Meeting

My priest called an emergency Parish Council meeting tonight. Guess my Silent Auction items will have to wait until tomorrow to be posted.

I will visit everyone when I get home from the meeting.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

More Family Reunion Pictures

I guess that I should keep my promise and post a few more pictures from our family reunion.

This is a picture of two of Harvey's sisters and our great niece Devenay, better known as Devi. The little darling had me playing hop scotch with her most of Friday evening.

The sister talking to her is also her Grandma Dinie (oh would she ever be upset to know I used her nickname instead of her whole name, but that is what Devi calls her). The other sister is Jocelyn a single woman who works for the government here.

This is a picture of my favorite niece Melanie. She is expecting her first child in just a few weeks! This is also the young lady that all the nephews fell in love with including my two sons. The boys would follow her all over and her patience was boundless.

This is a picture of Harvey's oldest brother Vernon and his younger brother Kevin. Vernon is wearing a hat and both brothers are farmers here.

This is another brother Lorne and his significant other Wendy. He is also Nathan's Dad. Lorne lives in the north of the province and works for the Federal government in the penal system here in Saskatchewan.

Two more sisters helping with the making of salads for supper on Saturday. Sylvia is manning the salad tongs and Janice is getting reading to take a photo. The salad was scrumptious and there was nothing left by the end of the meal.

Some of the youngsters playing with a small kitten they found. Emily is the young girl and Alex is the boy. Alex's mom Melissa is watching them to make sure they behave nicely with the kitty.

Tomorrow I will post some pictures of my Silent Auction wins.

Everybody have a wonderful evening. I am off to visit you all.

God bless.

Family Reunion

We got back late yesterday from the family reunion. I spent most of the time quietly observing how everyone was behaving. Harvey's family has a lot of latent sibling rivalry, which shouldn't have surprised me, but did.



This is a picture of Harveys family.
They are all standing in front of the hall that was reserved for the occasion. The food was great especially the pulled pork on Saturday night.


On Friday night we set up camp and then went off to Harvey's sisters for a BBQ supper.



This is a picture of the three people who travelled the farthest.

Nathan, Cindy and baby Audrey came all the way from Ottawa to join us.

More pictures tomorrow, I am still tired out! Must be getting too old for this kind of thing.

Well off to visit you all. Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

We're Going Camping....

Well tomorrow we leave on our short vacation.

It is Harvey's family reunion, and while I love his family for the most part......together as a big group they drive me crazy! It is like each one has to out do the other. Harvey and I sort of sit back and watch the fireworks but every once in awhile they are directed at one of us.

Hopefully I can make it through the weekend without saying something that I shouldn't. Perhaps smiling and nodding my head like an idiot will work. Nah, think I will sit and visit with all the young people, that should keep me out of trouble.

I will have lots of pictures when I get back so everyone expect to be bored.

Off to visit all of you now. Everyone have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

The Three Muskateers

I have one more picture from the wedding that I would like to share with all of you. The young man in the forefront of the photo is our youngest son Kris. On the far side of the table are his cousin Jared (the blond) and Nolan his best friend who 6 years ago became a member of our family when he married Jared's sister, Kris's cousin.

These three were inseparable all through high school. Kris met Nolan in one of his classes and the two became best friends. Jared more or less got pulled into the group because he would come to visit Kris and Nolan would be here. The three boys got along great, and many was the weekend that my house was full of snoring bodies....I never knew who I would find sleeping in the spare room.

Over the past couple of years the bonds of friendship have been strained due to Kris's depression. At the wedding once again the three were together and I could see the tendrils of love, and friendship reaching out to Kris. I have not seen Kris this happy in a long time. On the way home from the reception Kris happened to mention that Jared and he are getting together for dinner this week and a trip to the cheap theater. Nolan invited Kris over for supper when Ashley and he get back from their vacation.

True friendship lasts through anything, and lends a helping hand when needed.

Off to visit all of you now. Everybody have a wonderful evening. God bless.

Busy Weekend

Well the weekend is winding down and I actually have time to post.

My nephew got married this weekend and I was quite busy from Friday until early this afternoon.

Meet Derek and Karla. Derek is my sister's youngest child and my godson. It was very strange to see him get married as to me he was still the chubby little fellow that chased frogs with me. Just goes to show a person that people (youngsters especially) grow up really fast!

Here is a picture of my sister's family. Derek and Karla are of course front and center. My neice Ashley and her husband Nolan are on the left side, Jared my sister's oldest boy is the tall fellow in the center and then come my sister and her husband Gerry.

When I heard that Karla made her own wedding cake, I just had to take a photo of it to share with all of you. It was absolutely perfect, and to think that with all the other wedding plans she still had time to make it is mind boggling to me.

Well off to visit all of you.

Everyone have a wonderful evening. God bless.

The Weather Outside Is Frightful

The last two days has seen us going through some very strange weather. One minute it is very cool and breezy, the next hot and humid. Then of course there are the sudden downpours of rain, with lots of thunder and lightening. As long as we don't get the golf ball sized hail that other places have gotten I will be happy.

I spent the last two days cleaning areas of the house that I have been unable or perhaps I should say unwilling to tackle until now. I never thought having a clean coat closet would give me so much pleasure!

I have also been busy doing some baking. Have to take advantage of the cooler weather, and at least I don't have to turn the air conditioning on full blast while baking. In fact the air conditioner has not been on for the last two days. Yippee, lower energy costs!!!

So what have I been baking between bouts of frantic cleaning.....

These are some Oatmeal Muffins. One of the ladies on the Frugal Living Forum posted the recipe and I just had to try them. These are so

good warm with lots of butter. They make a wonderful breakfast.

Next my chocolate cravings got the best of me and I just had to make these unbaked Chocolate Cookies. I may make another batch tomorrow if the weather is cooperative.

Then I discovered a container of sour cream waaaay back in the fridge. It was almost outdated and so I decided to make this Sour Cream Coffee Cake. It is all sliced up and in a container in my freezer for future enjoyment.

My last concoctions in the kitchen were..... blueberry muffins, using up the last of the fresh blueberries we had been given, and brownies another bowing to my inner chocoholic personality. I would upload some pictures of the finished product but blogger is not letting me. Guess my photos are causing "internal errors" right now.

Kris phoned tonight and he is coming home this weekend for his cousins wedding on Saturday. He sounds a bit better right now, so I hope it lasts. He did ask if I had made any Chocolate Chip Cookies lately, so I think I will make a double batch tomorrow.

Well off to visit you all. Everyone have a wonderful evening. God bless.

My First Real Day Of Holidays

I consider this my first real day of holidays. The house was my own, I could wonder around in my nightie all day if I so chose. But of course the day was so beautiful that the outside called to me. So into my clothes, coffee and camera in hand I ventured outside to take some more photos.

Look what I found growing on one of our tomato plants. Soon we will be feasting on fresh tomatoes. Mmmm, nothing better.

Next. I sat on our deck and enjoyed the privacy that the Virginia Creeper imparts. I love being surrounded by all this lush greenery when drinking my coffee in the morning. Makes me think that I am not surrounded by other houses and people. Nice, quiet and peaceful, just what I needed this morning.

Now on to what I have been keeping busy with in order to keep some semblance of sanity during the last month and a half. I am slowly but surely working my way through my yarn stash. I have managed to make 3 more baby afghans and a fourth is on my needles at this moment. I hope to have it finished in the next two weeks. There are 3 babies arriving in the family over the next few months and I like to have enough afghans on hand to make sure everyone receives one.

This summer Harvey's side of the family is having a reunion. It takes place in just two weeks. It was decided to have a silent auction and each family was to bring at least one item for it. Well I finally got to work (after procrastinating for months) and this is what I made for the auction. Not too bad if I say so myself. Hope they like it enough to bid on it.

Well off to visit all of you and continue my quest on getting caught up on everyone's news. Everybody have a wonderful evening. God bless.

Blogging Break Over

Well it has been a long time since I posted, things just seemed to spiral out of control for awhile. Now things are back to normal (or at least as normal as they get around here) and hopefully I can get back on track.

Spring weather was just so horrible this year. It seemed as if I was forever waiting to plant my garden and once we managed to we spent many a night running out and covering every thing up to protect it from frost. Hence my garden and flowers are just starting to grow and look half way decent.

This is a picture of one of the railing boxes on our front steps. The Cascade Petunias are finally filling out and looking very nice.

These are some lovely hot pink geraniums that I put in a basket beside the front door. They just keep right on blooming and the scent of the leaves keeps the mosquitoes far away from my front door.

Ahhh, some of the MoonFlowers I started in the house. This planter is on the cement patio, I have another on the deck. They aren't growing as quickly as I would like, but they are finally showing some signs of enjoying the warmer weather.

My Impatience corner. These are growing by leaps and bounds. I have mini roses on the deck floor and they are starting to bloom once again.

Now that I have talked about and shown you some of my babies I will tell you all about my last month of working.

I was really contemplating quitting my job by the middle of the month of May. It seemed that according to the teacher I could do nothing right. It made me wonder how I could go from being a blessing to the class to a total failure. She came right out and said I didn't know how to use my down time....then I looked over at the other aide who was sitting there doing nothing and said to her "I always ask you if there is anything you need done or write up reports for you, do you have any other suggestions as to what I could be doing?" This bothered me a great deal until it came to light that the teacher wanted me to quit so that her daughter would be hired to take my place. It was then I decided that I would go to the Principal if things stayed as tense between us as had been, or if my evaluation was not good. When the time came for my evaluation every thing was just fine, no problems what so ever. HUH? What ever happened to all the knit picking of every little thing I did...guess I will never know.

During this time our youngest son. Kris had another serious battle with depression. I spent many an hour on the phone with him and finally got a chance to go up and see him. He is doing better right now, but since it is situational depression it is bound to catch up with him again. It broke my heart to hear him crying on the phone and wondering if he would be living on the street and eating out of garbage cans in five years. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and tell him over my dead body would that happen. I just hope the situation rights itself very soon. I am going to ask you all to pray for him, he really needs the prayers right now.

Well I am off to pay all of you a visit. It will be great to catch up with everyone. More garden pictures in my next post, and perhaps a picture or two of what I have been doing sewing and knitting wise to keep sane. Everybody have a wonderful evening. God bless.