Ant Work

This weekend was scheduled for canning.

Every year we take a weekend (or multiple) and can tomatoes for the winter months. We visit the Farmers Market / CSA stands and stock up on peppers, basil, onions, and tomatoes. It takes a full weekend to processes everything using my pressure canner, but it's so worth it!

Two full boxes of fresh tomatoes

Assorted left overs from our plant and the CSA

Roast them in olive oil, salt, and pepper

Wonderful with peppers and garlic

Blanching station for de-skining

The final products: Roasted Pepper Sauce, Stewed Tomatoes, Tomato Basil Soup, Tomato Sauce

Fresh from the Vine

Back in May when we went on our Greece trip, we had dolomades (stuffed grape leaves).
They were so amazing! we decided to try out some of our own from my mom's vines on the Wisconsin farm.

Here's the arbor view of them growing.

I read that the best time for grape leave picking is early spring (May - July) when the leaves a smaller, green, and fresh. So I went for those even though it was late summer....

We washed them, blanched them in hot water, wrapped them into packets of 25-30 (for one pound of meat), filled them in a acid (4 c water, 1/4 c kosher salt, 3 tsp citric acid) bath and then hot water canned them using a large pot (not pressure cooking) for 20 minutes at a boil.

They sure looked nice and I can't wait to use them!!!!

Rare sighting

Back on the farm we saw a really great sight. Two Luna moths were found by my dad on the light pole by our house.

Luna moths are very rare to be seen since they only are in their final moth stage for 7 days to breed.

See more on Luna moths here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actias_luna

My Grandpa O, a farmer of many years, said that he heard most people are lucky to see one moth their entire life. We got to see two!

I remember when I was younger I collected moths that were around our house in Northern Wisconsin. I had one Luna, a couple Emperor, and some other smaller Hawk moths.

I didn't realize how little time they had.... I feel bad for collecting that one now. Hahaha, at least we didn't take these ones.... although my Grandpa really wanted to!

...and we're back!

Yay! The internet is back up, the sun is beating down on my garden, the CSA veggie shares are filling up my fridge, and we've so many wonderful weddings to attend that the summer is just flying by!

The beautiful foxgolves that I got from my mom are doing wonderful. I am just obessed with foxglove. Even the name is awesome. Foxy foxglove.

The rock path going back into the mulch area is made from flat rocks pulled out of Long Lake, Wisconsin. We're hoping to get back up there before the trees start to turn. Until then I'll just have to enjoy the weather here while it lasts.

Internet Signing off

...well the router at our house decided to shut off permanently after 3 years of good service. Which means no more uploads until we get it fixed.

We had a wonderful 4th of July (insert pictures here)
*** Finally got some pictures up.

*** Here's the Red Velvet Cake I made and Grandpa O. with his festive 4th of July cape!

Are having a busy busy summer filled with delish CSA veggie and cheese shares (insert pictures here)

Warm wishes to everyone out there!

Greece Trip (Day 9 & 10) - Athens, then home

Church in the Square

Our last day in Athens was spent wandering around more of the shops. It was a sunday there and many of the stores were closed for the observed family day and church services. So we sat outside this church, listening to the singing of the service, and had some coffee and spinach pies.

Spinach Pies (Phyllo, Spinach, Feta, Dill, Olive Oil)

We then found a bakery we came back to later that had really amazing cookies and cakes. There was also this open market store that sold tons of nuts and fruit and treats. When we got in it was packed with locals all yelling and pushing through the small isles.

Market

We wondered around for a bit more. Looked through an antique map and picture store. Went to the Cine Paris, which is a roof top movie theater, and bought an old 007 movie poster labled in Greek.

Stopping into a market we got our Greek nessecities; Olive Oil, Ouzo, Honey, and Mastic. By luck we found an old street called Hill that I remembered was supposed to have a nice home style Greek restaurant. We wound up and around the kind of sketchy looking corner to find a huge building packed with locals and tourists. They served family style, bringing out a huge platter for you to pick 6 different items from. We choose the Greens, Meatballs, Fried Zucchini, Pork in Red Sauce, Dolomades stuffed with beef, and one other dish I can't remember.

INSERT RESTAURANT PIC HERE

It was a great way to spend our last night. We got up early the next morning, flew to Paris, were carted around CDG airport forever (it really is as bad as everyone says), were delayed a couple hours on the plane because of a medical emergency, finally making it back into the US.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed! ευχαριστώ!

Greece Trip (Day 8) - Parthenon

The ferry over from Santorini to Athens was much better than the one over from Crete. There was much less rocking and no one got sick thankfully. On our way down to the port we over heard someone talking about the strike that went on the day before. We didn't even know there was a strike!
Later we heard that the people waiting for the ferry the day before waited a full 3 hours before even finding out that there was a strike and the ship was not going to be coming. What they say is true, if you are on an island you won't even know there was a strike or a riot going on.

Which was a good thing in the end, because our hotel, the Grand Bretagne, is directly across from the Parlament.

But it also had an amazing view of the Parthenon and the Acropolis from the roof top dining room.
We toured the Acropolis, Historical Museum, Parthenon, Palace of Zeus, Ancient Agora, and the National Gardens.

We found a great Gyro place and had a mixed pork and beef dish, with really great dolomades (stuffed grape leaves)

Now I just need to figure out how to convince my mom to start growing grape leaves for me to make these....