Of Gardens and Zucchini

When we were young marrieds with two tiny children, we moved to the valley where summers are HOT. Dan put in a garden and we had a wonderful crop of corn, beans, squash (summer and winter), beets; you know, all the standards. And it was a good thing because we didn't have much money! The first year we froze everything but in those pre-microwave days, it was not always easy to thaw what was needed unless one thought ahead. I usually didn't. The next summer, we invested in a pressure canner and from then on, veggies were processed that way.

Zucchini was always a good producer and both Dan and I have always been fond of it as a vegetable. Steamed, breaded and fried, no matter--we love the stuff. The summer of 1975 my friend Roxy offered me a loaf of zucchini bread, which I had never eaten before. Yum! She copied the recipe for me and I've made many loaves over the years. Every summer when I get it out, I see her handwriting and I miss her--she and her family moved to Oklahoma twenty-five years ago and there they've stayed. I'm reminded that handwritten recipes are a double gift--the recipe and memories of the friend who wrote it.

Zucchini has a reputation. It has long been believed that just a plant or two will produce more zucchini than one family could eat in a year. Sadly, our plant production the last few years has forced me to repudiate that claim. Last year we got nary a one. This year we have grown a few, but not nearly enough to satisfy me. What gives?!? And I really needed them--our supply of zucchini relish gave out last winter, an unheard of disaster in our home since 1979 when our pastor's wife gave me the recipe. So, the few zucchini that managed to set were left to grow to giant size for their noble purpose: to be shredded, mixed with onions, peppers and spices, cooked, and canned. I am happy to report that twelve jars are now in my pantry; they should last us until next summer. I made two batches, six jars each, and used the extra shredded zucchini to make double batches of the bread. Yay! Here's a picture of the first batch.

The first years I made both the bread and the relish, I grated every cup by hand. Then along came my first food processor and I was thrilled! This year I used my new Cuisinart and I must say it made even shorter work of the shredding process. And so quiet!

Only the mess in the sink remained. It's such a blessing to have the right tools! ♥

Chicken for A Cold

Thursday morning I hurried through all my morning chores so I could get to Ann's house to watch Daniel while she took Cameron to get braces put on his lower teeth.  (He's had the uppers on all summer and it's amazing how those teeth have straightened.)

When I got back home around noon, Dan was sitting in his recliner moaning that he had "the crud."  (And here I must tell you I hate that word, but I also subscribe to truth in blogging, so...)  And it did, indeed, appear that he was suffering from the start of a cold, so who was I to quibble?  

A little while later, I was perusing the internet and happened upon The Pioneer Woman's recipe for chicken pot pie.  Aha!  An answer to my unspoken question of what's for dinner.  And, sort of like chicken soup, it would be good for my sweetie.  I checked the list of ingredients, read the reviews (all excellent), and saw I only needed two items to make it happen:  turmeric and a potato. And I realize that a potato was a strange thing to need, but somehow in the summer we use very few potatoes and I realized buying a bag would only result in waste, so one potato it was.  After printing the recipe, I headed to my nearby Safeway and had fun wandering the aisles just seeing what was to be had there as opposed to my usual grocery shopping haunt.  

I had fun making the recipe and my only oops was in not thawing a pie crust soon enough and then overdoing it in the microwave.  The resulting topping isn't pretty, but it was truly all cooked and crispy.  

The only changes I made were to cook my chicken breasts in water and use that water for my broth, add the potato (suggested in one of the reviews), and use a dash of poultry seasoning instead of added salt.  It was delicious!  Dan loved it, too, and it will definitely be made again and again, and soon.  Oh, and I did add more flour because I like my filling thick.  

Here's a link to the recipe: Chicken Pot Pie

And as Ree would say, I was not paid for this endorsement, she doesn't even know who I am, over and out, amen. ♥

Vacation Part Deux

My last post was getting so long that I decided to spare my readers and do a part two (but doesn't deux sound so, so much cooler?) later in the week.  Guess what?  It's Thursday and I work tomorrow, so I guess later in the week is now!  

Really, I just have a few pictures taken last Tuesday when we made a trip down 101 to Tillamook, Oregon. What a nice little town!  And home to the Tillamook Cheese Factory!  If you live in the west, Tillamook cheese is the premier cheese.  They have a lovely facility with large viewing windows and we watched the big blocks of cheese move down conveyor belts as they were cut and wrapped.  

We didn't get any samples because the place was packed with people and the lines were long, and well, we had a two-year-old in a stroller with us, but we did all enjoy ice cream cones filled with delicious Tillamook ice cream!  In a word, yum!

While at the cheese factory, we took a few minutes to check out their gift shop and I scored!  I've been wanting to find some decorative pieces for summer to go with my patriotic decorating theme and I found this perfect Williraye figurine (click to enlarge so you can see how cute he is):

Our other stop that day was the Tillamook Air Museum, housed in a huge old blimp hanger from World War II. There weren't very many visitors so we enjoyed roaming around inside the gigantic space seeing the planes on display.  Dan had read that they had a Skyraider and he was thrilled when he found it.  (Whenever we're watching a movie on a DVD or DVR that features one, he always rewinds so he can hear the engines over and over.  He says he loves that sound!)

They also had a Lockheed P2V-7 Neptune.  When Dan was stationed at Cam Rahn Bay, Vietnam, his day job (as averse to his night job in a guard tower) was to work on engines for P2's.  Who knows?  He may have actually worked on the engine attached to the propeller he's touching in the picture below!

They also had "trainers" for various aircraft.  Here's Cam and Keat in one for a helicopter.  (I think they were into it!)

They also had displays featuring items from WWII when the hangar was part of one of eleven or twelve Navy blimp bases in the US.  Here's Daniel giving one display a close look:

Amazingly, the only money I spent on the whole trip was for that figurine.  There was a quilt shop in Cannon Beach, but I've been in it before and it wasn't my style. There were several in Tillamook, but with the whole family in the van, I wasn't about to make them wait while I checked one out.  Truthfully, shopping on this vacation wasn't even in the picture.  It was good to just relax, walk the beach, and spend time with the gang. It was a perfect, relaxing week.  And I even survived Portland traffic, for which I am truly thankful.  ♥

Vacation!

'Long about last spring, Eric said it was time for all of us to go to the beach again.  Our trip to Orcas Island was in August of 2010, and we were due.  Fortunately, not only is Eric a good prodder, he's also a great planner. He cruised the internet and found a number of houses for us to consider and we all got to vote!  We came up with a winner and reservations were made starting Sunday, August 11 at Rock A Way Beach.

As is usual, time passed and all of a sudden, it was time for packing!  We decided to leave on Saturday and just go as far as Portland so we wouldn't have to drive like crazy, be tired and grumpy once we got the beach, and then still have to go to the grocery store for items too difficult to bring with us.  It was an excellent plan! We enjoyed Multnomah Falls and walked the trails, with Eric and Cameron hiking clear to the top.  It was a great break and fortified us for the final drive into Portland where we had hotel reservations for the night. (Photo below shamelessly stolen from Ann.)

We had a very yummy breakfast at the hotel (I'm so glad hotels serve breakfasts as part of the stay now, and not just juice and a "Danish"), and hit the road for the coast. We stopped in Cannon Beach since we couldn't get into our house until four o'clock.  Let me just say that a Sunday afternoon in August is not an opportune time to tour Cannon Beach.  Wall.To.Wall.People.  We were thankful to leave.  

The drive down Highway 101 is spectacular.  The sun was out, the sky mostly clear, the water sparkled.  So beautiful!  And then, we were at our house!  Four levels with the living and kitchen areas on the top floor so we had wide views of the ocean.  We settled in and loved that it was about five seconds from the house to the sand.  The beach was very private--only a few people on it at any given time.  Here are a few beach photos and as you can tell from the photos, we had the most amazing weather!  Sunny--at the Oregon coast!

Daniel loved the water!

Note the empty beach!

We went for long walks every evening...

The great thing about having a house is having a kitchen and this house had a large and light one.  Here are the boys making biscuits as part of one night's dinner.

It takes a group to make biscuits!

Ooo, biscuit fingers!!

Another great amenity that came with the house was a hot tub on the lower deck.  Needless to say, it got used!

All good things must come to an end, however, and on Thursday we packed up and left our happy vacation home.  We spent Thursday afternoon at OMSI where the boys enjoyed experimenting with various things, Eric and Dan toured a real submarine docked in the Willamette River, Ann chased Daniel, and I was thrilled by a National Geographic photo exhibit.  We spent the night back in our same hotel and got up the next morning to breakfast and a visit to the Portland Zoo.

Here's the gang, queued up to buy tickets. (Interestingly enough, I qualified for "Senior" at OMSI, but not at the zoo! We won't mention Dan...).

 What a colorful group--kind of like a bunch of Skittles!

Sure do love this bunch!

On our way home we stopped by the Tri-Cities to visit niece Kirsten and see her new house.  We loved it! Beautiful home, lovely neighborhood.  We gave it our stamp of approval.  After the viewing, we drove to a Mexican restaurant and enjoyed a good long visit with her as we ate a yummy meal.

Cousins!  

And now, we are home, with wonderful memories.  ♥

An Obsession with ...

history.  I've always had it; I was even a history major in college until I realized it wasn't a viable source of steady income should I need to fall upon my own resources. And it wasn't just the history in books; family members who came before me fascinated me.  Names my parents brought up in conversation, names written with old fashioned pen and ink in dusty books--they came alive in my head and I longed to know about them.  

Last year I mentioned going to a family reunion on my father's side and coming away with questions which resulted in my joining Ancestry.com.  I spent countless hours pouring over records and discovered a lot.  I ended up with three different family trees:  one for my dad's family, one for my mom's and one for Dan's. During this time Dan was often out of town, so I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning and the time flew. After a month's time, I had totally burned myself out.  

Every so often over the last year I'd log onto Ancestry and find I couldn't bring myself to even start.  Until a few weeks ago.  I checked in, noticed I had some hints, and suddenly, I was off again.  I've found a number of pieces of information that eluded me last year and each discovery drove me on.  I've combed through old ships' passenger lists from the 1880's through the early 1900's and found names.  I've discovered naturalization papers that helped me find ships and dates.  Witnesses on marriage licenses have lead me to find information on other, formerly lost because of name changes, family members.  Wow!  

I've also discovered that some mysteries may never be solved.  Did you know that the 1890 census is gone? On January 10, 1921, a fire in the Commerce Department building, Washington, DC, resulted in the destruction of most of the 1890 census. That leaves a big hole in family trees--twenty years between 1880 and 1900. What happened to Dad's great-grandfather after he moved to California? And in Dan's family, his great-grandparents came to American from Scotland after 1880 and both died before 1900. No official records for them but we have been blessed with their family Bible and have much information there.

I feel like I have had a crash course in research and investigation. Chris Miller, P.I. Every time I feel I can't go any further, one more little crumb falls and I'm off again. And I'm certain more records are coming to light with each passing day. And the moral to this little confession? Write. Stuff. Down. Label photos, fill in those pages in your Bible; you know, the ones that say Marriages, Births, Deaths. Someday, someone will want to know and your information will help them.

It's amazing what's on the internet. Here's a picture of the Oscar II, the ship my mom's dad sailed on from Christiania (now Oslo), Norway in 1906, when he was a young man of just twenty.  

Meanwhile, I'm hoping to avoid joining Family Historians Anonymous. For now, I'm just saying, "Hello. My name is Chris M. and I'm a history nut." ♥

A New Table Runner

I've finally gotten down to my sewing room, and I just finished a runner for the shop featuring the Honeycrisp line of fabric from Dear Stella and the Waffle Time pattern by Atkinson Designs.  It's the perfect runner for August and September when you want something late summer/fallish without pumpkins.  

The pattern is the perfect showcase for that gorgeous fabric in the center.  It's too beautiful to cut into smaller pieces.  Feels good to be sewing!  ♥

Nothin' Much . . .

is going on here, hence the lack of posts.  Cooking, dusting (well, that's pretty amazing!), ironing, laundry; that about says it all.  And you thought the fun never ended here at Miller's Last Resort.  

I did capture this picture of the full moon rising over the butte the other night.  It was beautiful!  Love, love, love summer evenings.  What a gift!  ♥