I'Ve Been Busy and Productive Lots of Photos

Most of all I love that I was productive today. With the hot summer temps with humidity it's just been difficult for me to get things accomplished outdoors.

Yesterday, for most of the day I got allot more gravel shoveled around by the fire pit. This time I remembered that I had been given a couple rolls of that weed barrier fiber so I laid that out first this time-in hopes it will keep down the weeds in this area. With the weather the way it is and rain almost every day the weeds and grasses are growing fast too fast for me lol
   I had been using my wheel barrel to bring in this gravel but hubs got out his machine for me-really saved my back and knees.
   This was full to the top when I started

My peppers grown from seed in the plastic bottles are big enough that I can get them into the garden, and finally my indigo dye plants are perfect for planting out too-really hoping to be able to dye with those this year. I probably won't get to those til Monday morning.

This morning I canned up a batch of pinto beans.  With my husband on a very very restricted salt intake now I decided to can up a bunch of dried beans-and with no salt. I can make our Mexican dishes now like refried beans and not be concerned with the very high salt in those store bought cans.  
   A friend of mine who is new to canning told me last fall that she was canning up allot of different dried beans and at the time I thought that was wierd-lol  but searching online for a recipe many canners are doing this for the convenience, low salt, and much cheaper as well. So I am excited.
   I filled up the canner with 7 quarts of pinto beans. I plan to gradually can up all of my dried bean packages which I discovered I have a 5 gallon bucket full. lol This gave me allot of freezer space back.

First photo-I soaked the beans over nite-drained and rinsed, and then brought this big pot up to a simmer and then canned it in a pressure canner-this has to be canned done in a pressure canner and not a with a hot water canner.

I followed the recipe in the latest Ball canning book-except I did not cook them for 30 minutes before canning. One article I read said this extra cooking made the beans to mushy. Here is a link to the canning recipe I used and I love the look of the jars-lots of bean with a little water.

Wow while I was typing up this post a big big storm just blew in-very dark out there right now and lots and lots of rain coming down.

Hubs had a request for homemade Belgian Waffles ( I had copied this recipe from online years and years ago and it was still there-the best one I have found) early in the week. So I suggested the weekend would be perfect to make them.
   I really love that recipe that I linked too and I now split the recipe in half and make a batch for him and another one gluten free. This is actually a recipe that works really well converting it to gluten free flour.
  We have some really nice fresh fruit on hand so waffles is perfect along with homemade maple syrup-yum. 

The Belgium waffles below are the gluten free version

   Our Wisconsin friends brought us down venison bacon so I am going to cook that up and see what it's like. Anxious to see what it tastes like. and Wow I was very surprised with this bacon-very delicious, tender, little fat, not heavy on the salt-this would make some awesome-bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwiches.

  It's about 3 in the afternoon now and I have been on my feet most of the day it seems. So I am off to clean up the kitchen, feed the hummers and Miss Calico Kitty and then put my feet up and watch the Royal Wedding that I taped.