P.S. Canning with Happy Girl Kitchen

We also made one recipe that didn't require a hot water bath: Pickled Lemons. You basically slice lemons into wedges and pack them into a jar along with one tablespoon of salt per lemon.

We added bay leaves, a tsp of whole peppercorn, and crushed red pepper in the jar - optional but a nice added flavor. The finished product looks beautiful and tastes like a tart, spicy caper! Great for using on top of fish.

Now I am resisting the urge to pick the fruit from my neighbors' trees!

Canning with Happy Girl Kitchen

Today I took a class on canning winter fruit with Happy Girl Kitchen. The workshop took place in an old Victorian house in Oakland - seven students and two instructors. We met at 10 and learned an overview about preserving fruits and veggies before entering the kitchen to slice and seal. Jordan (the owner) made the entire process fun and relaxing- much less daunting than my strawberry jam experiment. A few snapshots because the citrus was so beautiful...

Lemons for the Lemon Ginger Marmalade:

Blood and Cava oranges for the Honey Orange Slices:

The marmalade cooking down:

The finished marmalade:

A sampling of Happy Girl's products:

If you live in the Bay Area or are planning a visit, consider taking a class in their series!

Paint the Bedroom?

I have been considering a new color for our bedroom walls. The current color is very soothing, but it really limits our options for sheets, pictures, etc. Thinking of going with white which might make the bedroom look larger and let the furniture's color take over:

Thoughts?

Bedframes- 2

One last one! I also *really* love the color of the walls in that room. Considering repainting mine... probably white not brown, but keeping this one in the back of my mind...

(four posts in one day is a record... making up for lost time)

Bedframes- 1

In the market for a bedframe. Luckily, we have a full sized bed which should make finding an antique frame easier since larger sizes are a relatively new fad. Here are some directions I'm considering going in:

I love the simplicity of the iron frame above. Thinking something along those lines OR a wooden frame like the ones below (brown or painted dark-- the white one below is just a wonderful image).

Letty's Paintings are on Etsy!

Fabulous Letty Samonte just uploaded some of her pieces to Etsy. Click here to check them out!

I feel like a lucky gal to have three of her pieces already. You can see two of them in this previous post.

another year, another post

Taking a "financial sick day" to get all of our 2009 tax information together and set some goals for 2010. Although the work is tedious, Russell and Hazel help me organize with style. Check out their colorful binders if you haven't already. I use a new color each year.