A friend over in the afternoon and some of the last of the raspberries

A friend and her 2 children came for a visit yesterday afternoon.

I'm at home, by myself during the days, Monday through Friday. I have a few occasions to go out and visit with people, or attend Bible studies. But most of the week, I spend on my own, keeping those home fires, if not burning, at least smoldering. It's such a lovely diversion from work, to be able to sit and catch up with a friend, for a couple of hours.

Needing refreshments that could be kid-worthy, as well as would suit us adults, I turned to my pantry, garden and freezer.

From the freezer, I dug out some lemon bars, leftover from baking last week. From the garden I found about a teacup's worth of ripe raspberries. And in the pantry, I had dried cranberries and about a half a peck of raw sunflower seeds.

I toasted some of the sunflower seeds and mixed them with dried cranberries, for a quick trail mix.

For an easy-to-make beverage with a bit more "wow" than ordinary lemonade, I made raspberry lemonade.

This is what I used:

scant 1 cup raspberries, rinsed (this is a good use for the motley-looking, close to overripe berries)
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup bottled lemon juice
chilled water to total 1 quart of liquid

I used my stick blender to puree the raspberries. But a potato masher, or back of a serving spoon would also work.

I scooped the raspberry puree into a mesh strainer set over the opening of the pitcher.

With a rubber spatula, I pressed the puree through the strainer.

To the strained raspberry puree, I added the lemon, juice, sugar and water to the 1 quart line on the pitcher, and stirred until the sugar was dissolved.

The verdict on the raspberry lemonade was not only that it was delicious, but you "could really taste the raspberry flavor - yum" -- and that came from my friend's children.

For a little less than 2 quarts, you can buy the Simply Lemonade brand of raspberry lemonade for about $2, at places like Wal-Mart. My homemade version, cost about 15 cents for the lemon juice and sugar to make 1 quart, and the raspberries were basically free, putting my cost at 30 cents for 2 quarts. I just throw all that mathy-math stuff in, cuz I think we like to show ourselves just how much money we're saving -- not that I would really buy prepared raspberry lemonade ;-)

The first batch of watermelon rind pickles and what to do if you don't have a water-bath canner

It's a 3-day process. That doesn't mean that I'm slaving away at it for 3 days, straight. The first day is the most labor-intensive, with slicing off the dark green of the rind, then cutting, plus simmering and making the brine. The next day, I strained off the brine, to reboil and pour over the rind pieces. And on the third day, I boiled the brine, one more time, poured over the rind as it's packed in jars, and finally, water-bath process.

I packed these jars tightly, so I'm guessing each jar will last through 4 or 5 family meals. I think I have about a 4 to 5-month supply of this kind of pickle. It's something we enjoy, but I also forget about it at times, when there's something else we're into in the moment.

I'm hoping to do 2 more batches like this pickle, for a total of 9 pints.

I store the rind pieces in a Rubbermaid container or plastic bags, in the fridge, for up to 4 days, until I have enough to do a large-ish batch, about 3 full pints.


You wanna see my make-shift water-bath canner? So a water bath just needs to cover the lids and jars, about an inch with the water. Any large stainless, or enamel stockpot works well for this. But you need something to hold the jars off of the bottom of the stockpot, while it's boiling. I don't have a rack.

I had a bunch of regular-size, (the smaller ones, not wide-mouth) used canning jar rings. I tied them together with cotton, kitchen string, to make a circle of rings, about the size of the bottom of one of my stockpots. When placed, top side up, inside the stockpot with water, the jars rest on top of the rings, about 3 or 4 fat jars or 6 slimmer jars, in this stockpot. I've used this exact circle of tied-together rings for about 20 years now. Doesn't look pretty, but it works, and can be replaced any year, with the next batch of worn rings. And it doesn't take up much space to store.

Just an idea to keep in mind, if you'd like to try canning some jam or jelly this summer, but don't have the "official" supplies, like the canning rack. I do have a jar lifter, which is a set of tongs with a wide opening to grasp a jar out of the hot water. Indispensable to me now. But before I had the jar-lifting tongs, I managed with some regular tongs in one hand, and a thick towel in the other to grab each jar as I pulled it out of the water. What's that saying? Necessity is the mother of invention. Homemakers have been figuring out how to do any number of things without every gadget out there, since the beginning of keeping the home fires burning.