Oh my golly, Rachel & Nick, family is adorable! It was SO delightful to get to come up, see your home, meet your kiddos and get updated on your life! And I LOVED hearing your kids talk and chat... it was so absolutely precious!
Summer Garden Greens
I've never really been the gardening type. Don't get me wrong, I love botanical products and greens on my dinner plate and in my smoothies, but the actual working of the dirt has never been my forte. In fact, my thumb is anything but green. I kill cacti and air plants. Basil plants hate me.
My husband, on the other hand, loves working the ground. He can grow anything. So, when we started our garden from seed, I had no doubt that he would be able to make fresh, green food spring up... so long as I didn't bring my brown thumb into the equation.
Taylor is the kind of man who loves hard work. He has strong and calloused hands that till the earth, and with those same hands, he delicately plants seeds and cares for the tender shoots that spring up.
I love those hands. I love this man.
boots...not cats
my husband likes boots, but not cats.
Pickling Cucumbers.
Well, my kitchen experiments continue with a chapter on dill pickles. During our dating relationship, my husband introduced me to a very special sort of sandwich—one to which, apparently, every Reavely is particularly partial. As an aspiring Reavely, I was quick to join the pickle-mayo & peanut-butter sandwich enthusiasts. That is, after I overcame my natural skepticism of the Reavely tradition.
I have come to crave these strange sandwiches, typically between the hours of 3am and 6am. Ever since my sister-in-law gave me the book, Food In Jars, I have been eager to test these pickles on our special sandwich! Our late night snacking just got more epic.
If you would like to try your hand at home-made pickles, here is the recipe I used!
Strawberry Vanilla Jam
Taylor and I decided, on a whim, to go berry picking with two of our dear friends. Without thinking through what we would do with the berries once we got them home, we picked as many big, beautiful, red strawberries as we pleased! Before we knew what happened, we were holding several overflowing boxes, amounting to thirty-pounds of perfectly ripe happiness.
Thankfully, my sister-in-law came to my rescue! We spent the next day washing, slicing and cooking down every pound of berries that we had gathered.
After the ensuing rushed mayhem of pots boiling over, lava berry burns and pinging jar lids, we ended up with quite a few beautiful jars of strawberry-vanilla jam and strawberry syrup (for italian sodas!).
My, what a whirlwind.
