Menu Plan Monday ~ June 22nd + giveaway!
Updated to add: The winner of the Heavenly Homemaker’s Guide to Gardening and Preserving ebook is Kristen of Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker!
Hey look at that, we meet again! Your commitment is awesome and I’m sure your families are totally appreciating all your hard work!
So I have so much to share with you today starting with my FIRST ever attempt to can something EVER. Canning is something else I’ve been putting off because the thought of it totally intimidated me. One by one I am trying to tackle these silly fears of mine. I was so scared but I followed a very simple recipe and the advice of an amazing ebook and voila, I have Strawberry Rhubarb JAM!!
I’m still in shock that I pulled the whole thing off (with only a few frantic moments of panic) and now I can’t wait to make more! Is anyone else afraid to give canning a try? I’m going to give these away as teacher gifts along with some homemade bread of some type. The preserves recipe I followed was from the food blog, A Good Appetite, and the instructions were very clear and easy to follow. I mean seriously if I can do it, anyone can!
I also followed canning instructions provided in a new ebook I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing from Laura over at Heavenly Homemakers. It’s called Heavenly Homemaker’s Guide to Gardening and Preserving and it’s terrific with great pictures and step by step instructions. Very inspiring indeed!
Laura has kindly offered to giveaway a copy of her ebook to one lucky MPM participant this week. The winner will be selected at random from the Mr. Linky list below so link up your menu by Tuesday at 6:00 pm PST and you just may be the winner.
You might also be happy to note that beginning Monday morning Laura’s ebook goes on sale for $4.95 a copy, a great deal!
Okay so I don’t want this post to get too long so I just quickly want to tell you about the Spinach and Mushroom-Stuffed Manicotti being a big hit last week and about the delicious cookies I made today. I went to make my family’s usual cookie recipe and discovered the only chocolate chips in the house were mint ones. So, to be wild and crazy, I decided to make up a batch of these Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies instead and they were just excellent.
Okay on our menu this week:
Monday: Homemade Pizza
Tuesday: Barbecued Pork Chops served with baked potatoes and veggies
Wednesday: My birthday! Hopefully someone else is cooking because I’m not 🙂
Thursday: Leftover buffet
Friday: Slow Cooker Honey Mustard Lime Chicken served with rice and broccoli
Saturday: Crockpot Ravioli served with homemade bread
Simple Supper Sunday
WHAT’S ON YOUR MENU THIS WEEK?
Menu Plan Monday guidelines and banner selections here.
Your jam looks awesome! Thanks for hosting!
~Liz
I’ve seen that a lot of people make rhubarb jam. I never have but it sounds really good!
I am SO scared to try canning, but maybe I’ll face my silly fear now too 🙂
And, I am for sure going to make those mint chocolate cookies- YUM.
Happy Birthday to you 🙂
Hope you have a great night off!
Happy birthday! I hope someone makes you a delicious dinner!
I’m in the market for recipes to try out with my new crockpot, so I’ll definitely be trying out that ravioli one soon!
Ohhh, I did jam this week, too! While we’re sharing… http://jilsyt.blogspot.com/2009/06/jam-session.html
Great job, by the way! I love it with rhubarb, but didn’t have any this year.
Have a Happy Birthday
Congrats on the canning! I’ve always been nervous to try it myself. I can freeze most anything, but the whole thought of the sterilizing, etc. frightens me. 🙂
Going to check out that slow cooker lime chicken!
Maybe you just need to go out for dinner your birthday. Whatever you do, I hope you have a wonderful birthday!
I’m loving that idea Heather!!!
Happy, happy birthday! Eager to hear what you had for dinner! 🙂 ~~Rhonda
Thank you for hosting. I hope you have a lovely birthday. My birthday was last week and my little people (10 and under) cooked breakfast (I had it in bed), snack for tea and brownies. The 8 year old enlisted her father to bring home take out!
Happy Birthday!
Laura, thanks for being such a great host! I really appreciate MPM and the help it gives me in keeping us fed without spending a fortune. You rock!
Happy Birthday- hope it is awesome and you get treated to a fabulous meal.
Woo HOO! Your canning efforts look great–very pretty color! AND I like your jars. My mommy’s group has canned together the last 2 years, but I’m thinking this year we may have to add the strawberry rhubarb to the mix!
Happy Birthday To You! Someone better just take you out for your birthday.
I’m loving the color of your jam. I could just have a rack of those on display and be quite happy (although it also looks delicious and probably wouldn’t last long).
Have never made jam/jelly etc before (or any other type of canning for that matter). We have having a mini enrichment night on Thursday to learn how to can.
The cookies look scrumptious!
I had to improvise with chips this week as well. I was going to make oatmeal scotchies and discovered that I only had raspberry, mint, and cinnamon chips. I opted to make oatmeal cookies with cinnamon chips.
Happy Birthday!!! I have only made jam a couple of times, but really enjoyed it. Will wait for summer to come here in Oz and try again.
Since I do menus anyways, I thought it would be fun to start adding them to my blog!
Everything looks so good:-)
Your jam is beautiful! I want to make rhubarb jam, maybe next weekend, it’s been too busy here lately for jam.
That honey mustard chicken is really good, we had that a while ago.
Hope you have a wonderful birthday!
I’m so glad you tried making jam & canning, its so much fun isn’t it. I have 2 more strawberry jam recipes coming this week.
Happy Birthday you cookie rebel!
I’m going to be trying some canning too this year because of Laura @ Heavenly Homemakers. She is so inspiring!!
Happy Birthday this week!
Congrats on the jam! Its much easier than people think, isn’t it?
I’ve missed the last couple of weeks. It’s good to be back.
I hope you have a pleasant birthday!
I’ve been around canning all of my life. I love doing it.
It’s better to be a bit leery of the pressure canner! When you become too comfortable with it…that’s when mistakes happen!
Oh just noticed that I totally put the wrong url for my link up there… will try to fix it.
Meanwhile: I am totally intimidated by canning! My mom used to make amazing strawberry and peach jam every summer and even though I helped her it still seems like a mysterious process. But I’m really craving some of that home made jam – SO good – so I might have to overcome the fear and tackle it.
I made strawberry jam this year, but I went the easy route and made freezer jam. 🙂 I’ve planted a lot of green beans this year, so I’ll be canning those for the first time.
oh, I’m so glad you enjoyed the manicotti! We like it too.
and, congrats on canning!! Strawberry Rhubarb is the best jam ever.
Oh that jam looks wonderful.
Happy birthday dear Lady…a gift of words to you….
I am so very glad that you were born.
Hope you have a great birthday!
My hubby would love that rhubarb jam. Looks so pretty. YUM
Way to go, girl. I am so impressed! I love strawberry rhubarb jam.
I think I’ll try that honey mustard lime chicken tonight. I was wondering what to do with the chicken drums I had thawing. :v)
Happy Birthday! Mine is Tuesday 🙂 Sounds like a yummy week, thanks as usual for all the links!
Oooh the slow cooker chicken recipe looks great! I may have to try that for next week!
Happy MPM!
Canning isn’t that hard. I used to help my mom do it all the time when I was growing up. I make once in awhile now. Maybe can cherries and I love to make homemade applesauce. I usually wind up freezer it. Sometimes I wonder if it’s really cost effective to make jam anymore. I can get really good jam from Bauman Farms where I buy fresh produce. This week for food, I’ve got leftover open faced pork tacos, for Monday, Tuesday a beef soup with veggies that I make myself. Then some chicken and some noodle stuff later in the week. It’s there just don’t have the recipe in my head yet. But I’ve got all the stuff.
Speaking of organizing, I’ve got all my cds collected in a couple holders. Went thru all my cassettes and the majority of them are gone. Am keeping some old favorites (from the 70s) like Bread, Roger Whittaker, some Praise tapes that took me awhile to accumluate. I still have my double cassette player, in the garage at present time, but have something to play them on…..now the record albums, on the other hand, are still behind doors. Haven’t played them for years and am still deciding what to do with them. Ok, I’m dating myself now…hahahaha!! Am off work this week am going to paint our hallway for sure. And do some tidying up around my sewing machine and work on a couple mending/hemming projects that are sitting there staring at me! Have a good day!
Happy Birthday on Wed…and those cookies look real good. AM gonna try them, but with regular chocolate chips. My husband doesn’t like mint that well but all that chocolate looks/smells/tastes great!! God Bless!!!
Happy birthday! Olive Garden cooked for my birthday last week so hopefully you won’t have to cook for yours either!
This is my first time linking–I’m not sure I followed all the directions completely! Oops! Thanks for hosting this! 🙂
I was going to be #31 last night, but now I’m #244! Happy Birthday! Hope you have a wonderful week!
Canning was always a mystery to me to, but when we joined the CSA we ended up with a lot more cucumber and okra than we could deal with last summer. My DH got on-line found a recipe for homemade pickled Okra, and he has become our pickling guru. He will pickle just about anything from cucumbers to radishes, he has done it all. Hope your birthday is great, and let us know what was cooked for you that day.
I couldn’t do a real MPM this week (or last) because of comp probs… can’t link anything including your site and didn’t think that’d be right… but I did put up a basic menu for this week just now. I hope I can get back up with the real ones soon…
Btw, that pasta sounds good! (the spinich one that I guess you had last week)
Good for you, learning to can! I LOVE making my own perserves and will definitely check out that recipe (the color looks fantastic!)
I always can my own spagetti sauce at the end of every summer and make enough to get us through the entire year! LOVE it and nothing like having the fresh taste on NJ tomatoes through-out the year! YUM!
ps Great give-away! I hope you pick me 🙂
I just started reading your blog the other day and I love it. I was just talking the other day about canning and that I’m going to have an abundance of veggies from my garden this year and I would love to can them, but I have NEVER done so, and knowing that it’s not as scary as it sounds, that’s helpful! Thanks! Anyone have a good online link for canning?
Wanted to wish you a happy birthday.
I just wanted to let you know that my birthday is on Wed. too. We have the same birthday.
The jam is *beautiful*! 😀 You should feel very accomplished!
Hope your birthday is wonderful dear lady. ?
Yay, for you! I love canning! It’s so great to see it spreading around. Your jam looks yummy!
Hey, congrats on the jam! Looks beautiful. And, have a wonderful birthday! See ya next week (if not before!)
I haven’t tried canning..but you inspire me to do so..I’ll try this weekend! Thanks
Laura, that jam looks yummy! Good for you for trying out something new!
Happy Birthday! I hope you found someone to cook for you.
First off HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Secondly, i FINALLY tried the pizza braid (a few weeks late i know lol)…i used Turkey, Turkey pepperoni and all wheat flour and OMGosh, my family LOVED it!!! If they ONLY knew it was good for them!!! They said ‘no peppers’ next time but they LOVED it…and it was soooo good, it’s def a keeper!!! Thanks again for the recipe!!
Hello Love your site, this is the first week linking up for Meal Plan Monday! Also wanted to wish you a Happy Birthday, we share a Birthday mine is also on Wed.!!!