pork chops & applesauce...minus the lisp

Here I sit in my kitchen, looking out my amazing picture windows at the Olympic mountains. I am amazed at how incredible the weather has been the last couple of weeks and it reminds me of the weather sixteen years ago! It was my senior year of highschool and we had an indian summer much like we are now. I remember spending endless nights down on the docks at friend's houses -and swimming until who knows when. Not to mention partying and missing school, but we can stop there because we don't want to encourage anyone...especially a certain 13 year old who lives in my house. MOM NEVER DID ANY OF THOSE THINGS.

My mom and dad came to visit this last weekend to help us with some winter preparedness stuff. Heaters. We ripped out the baseboards and well, we hadn't replaced them yet. And all be damn if it didn't get cold at night. So that was the man project. Mom and I, we made applesauce. And of course I have no pictures proving that I actually did the process. Shame.

I do however have the end product and it is delicious. It was so much easier than I thought. I was figuring it was going to be incredibly tough because I didn't have a food mill, but we cooked the apples down enough that it wasn't necessary -we even had the peels in there. Out of about 8lbs of apples from our mysterious tree and 8lbs of Fujis from Sunny Farms, we got six quarts and four pints of the sweetest applesauce. The pint sized ones we added cinnamon to it. I really think the mix of apples made it for this sauce. We needed absolutely no sweetner. Yum. Now I have another 20lbs or so of apples in the garage and who knows how much more up in the tree. I also have about 6lbs of pears that I plan on making some apple/pear butter with. Maybe later this week or next we'll tackle that one. Mom also made a couple of jars of this blackberry/raspberry syrup/topping stuff. YUM!

This past week the girls and I spent some time at one of the many beaches near our house. The first picture is of the girls at John Wayne Marina. They loved it there, we were the only ones running up and down filling up the marina with rocks. It was awesome. On Friday, we hijacked the kindergarten/late preschool class's field trip to the Olympic Game Farm. It was great! We actually got a walking tour of the caged animals -sad sounding, I know. It seemed so much more scary then when we just drive through that area- they were right there, the lions, tigers, wolves, sturgeon- right beyond a little chain link fence. Frightening, yet so frickin' cool! Lucy was a crazy animal too! She was climbing that chain link fence that separates you from the carnivorous mammal, and throwing rocks at them. Actually, I was mystified that my girls were more interested in the rocks on the roadway then the snarling, drooling, licking their chops(not really) animals just behind a wee fence.


really if you ever get out to Sequim, WA you must visit this place. It is amazing. We live, literally across the street and a field from the farm. They are remodeling this winter and making bigger enclosures for the animals. Most of the animals are rescues from people that had them as pets when they were babies or they are retired movie animals. They also feed them raw meat-nothing alive, usually just beef & pork, but AMAZInG I tell you!

this was only a couple of days last week, I still need to post about my baking adventures and menus! Next post for sure!