pick a peck of pickled peppers

i put up 6 jars of bread and butter pickled peppers last night. 4 were jalapenos, and 2 were what looked like cubanelles. i added some onion this morning. in about a week, we'll have some tasty pickled peppers!


bryan also has a pepper sauce in the works, with some cayenne, tabasco, and habaneros from dad's garden. dad used a pepper mix seed packet, and ended up with 5 habanero plants. what to do with so many habaneros? bryan added a few to his sauce mixture, and that sucker is gonna be HOT this year! no idea what else can be done with the rest... i have some research to do, that's for sure!

i think that next year we'll have a little more focus in the garden overall. bryan will plant a few cayenne plants for sauce purposes alone, so we can start making bigger batches. that sauce is so delicious, it always goes so fast!

so what have we eaten & done lately?

last thursday, bryan made cast iron grilled wild salmon with garlic aioli, a vinegar dilled salad of cucumbers and tomatoes, and vera cruz style vegetables (onions, kholorabi, tomatoes, and yellow squash) with cream. the salmon was so tasty. i'm usually iffy on my salmon (i prefer it smoked or wood grilled with balsamic), but i really liked how salmony it tasted without being fishy.

friday night for dinner, bryan made a lamb steak with pan gravy, and israeli couscous with raisins and an eggplant from our garden. the lamb tasted pretty much like beef, which surprised me; i expected it to be a bit lamby. don't get me wrong, i was happy with it!

oliver had some watermelon with his dinner. he has determined that watermelon is a LOT of fun to suck all the juice out of, then spit the pulpy mess that remains all over yourself. fun for everyone except mama.

saturday morning, we decided to take a bike ride. we had planned on finding a trail and testing oliver's endurance in the kiddie trailer, but realized we didn't have our bike rack. we saddled up anyways, and rode around the neighborhood for 20 minutes or so. oliver *loved* it. every time i rode up next to him, he'd give me a big silly grin. i can't wait to take him on a longer ride!

after we got home and oliver conked out for his morning nap, i made bryan some beignets, which i had been promising to do for awhile. i didn't have any powdered sugar, but found that normal sugar topped them just fine. i tossed some shredded coconut on a few as well, since bryan loves coconut. i didn't hear any complaints!

after oliver's morning nap, we headed over to the zoo. they were having a "family farm" weekend, and had a guy from a maple syrup farm, a farmer with vegetables and flowers, a bee/honey farmer, basket weaving, etc. we had a lot of fun walking around and looking at all the animals, though i think oliver had more fun looking at all the other little kids. we also finally went on the zoo train, which bryan had been dying to do. oliver had a BLAST on the train! cutest baby EVER! he was fascinated with it and hung out the window the entire time, letting the air blow through his hair, looking up and down the train to see the other kids hanging out, and generally taking in the scenery. lots more cute train pictures in the september gallery.




that afternoon, we headed over to mom & dad's house and ended up staying for dinner. oliver had a lot of fun having somewhere else to explore for awhile, chasing kitties and climbing the stairs 400 times.

sunday was rally day at church, which is a pig roast and i'm not sure what else, really. pot luck and hanging out, i guess. oliver woke up around 6 that morning but then went back down until 7:30, which is totally abnormal for him, but it meant he wasn't napping at 9 and could go to church. so it was nice for him to get a chance to play with some of the kids. he and bryan headed home while i stayed to work the kids' games for the rally thing and eat some pig. that afternoon, i *finally* matted and framed the painting adrianne made for us for last christmas. now let's see if we get it hung before this christmas! it looks really good and i can't wait to see it up.

while bryan made dinner, ollie and i took a quick spin in the stroller around the neighborhood (he was in the stroller; i pushed). we both wore our sunglasses since it was a gorgeous 75 degrees and sunny, and to my amazement, he kept them on his head the whole time. he usually only lasts about halfway with them on, but perhaps with the sun he wanted them on. he looks pretty bad ass in his spiderman shades, no?

that night for dinner, bryan and i stuffed ourselves with steak. he had a porterhouse and i had a rib eye, which he topped with some grilled peppers (which were pretty spicy!). he also roasted one of his heirloom tomatoes, which was so sweet, and tasted great with the steak. he baked some potatoes with a salt crust, which were to die for as usual. we had left over vera cruz veggies as well. brownies would have made a great dessert, but it's ok i didn't make any because we were too full to eat them anyways!

that night, oliver didn't get into bed until nearly 8pm since his schedule was off for the day, but then he slept in until nearly 7am yesterday, so go figure! he was up a few times last night, as his allergies are kicking in. he was pretty miserable this morning, with red, watery eyes, red splotches on his face, and a runny nose. poor kid, i wish there was something i could do for him!! i guess tonight is a benedryl night.

in other oliver news... he is trying very hard to walk! when he's not paying attention to what he is doing, he can stand without holding onto anything. he will try to take a step and fall, but he is getting there. any day now that kid will be running everywhere! scary!

the weather here has turned to TEH SUCK. cold and rainy, WTH? i'll have to write a letter to wisconsin. i want a nice fall, dammit!