Mother's Day

Tom and I had just a crazy, busy weekend.  Saturday was supposed to be Sarah's last softball game for her recreational league, but the game was cancelled, which saved us a long round trip road trip, because Sarah was camping.  Instead of staying  home and getting caught up on the laundry, Tom wanted me to go to our friend's daughter's softball game, I am glad I did, it was a beautiful afternoon (laundry will always be there, right?).  Saturday night we went to our friend's house for dinner, that is always nice because usually everyone comes to our house and my house stayed clean!

On Mother's Day, we decided that we would plant flowers flowers at my mother-in-law's house, go shopping, cook and have everyone over at our house for dinner.  Sometimes I am not really sure how we get everything done, but we do, I'm sure glad that my wonderful husband helps out, he's the best.

Our dinner menu consisted of BBQ Teriyaki Pork Tenderloin, BBQ chicken breasts marinated in a Santa Cruz Lime marinade, homemade potato salad, green beans that were cooked al dente, cooled and tossed with sea salt, pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and chili. Dessert was homemade strawberry shortcake, the shortcake biscuits were made from my grandma's recipe.

Slowly, our backyard is getting into shape for the upcoming summer months, we like to spend a lot of time out there.  A few years ago, we decided to build an outside kitchen, so we could do our pickled jalapeno's out there.  We have a group of people that come over, usually on a Saturday, and we pickle jalapeno's, green beans, carrots, asparagus and whatever else we can get our hands on, we call it the "Pickling Shed", I will post more of that later when our vegetables become ripe.  That is how this all got started, one year I had a ton of jalapeno's and didn't really know what to do with them, so I pickled them and it just turned into something we do every year, lots of fun!  I will also post about jam's that I make, my mom has an awesome plum tree and I hate to see the fruit go to waste.  I have a nectarine tree, however the squirrels get most of that fruit, little stinkers and I have an apple tree that they also raid every year.  Usually if someone brings me fruit or vegetables, I will find some way of cooking it, canning it or baking it, I probably should have lived on a farm.