Homemade: Fresh Organic Peach BBQ Sauce!

 I love barbeque sauce. Love.  So when I came across a recipe in my inbox for peach BBQ sauce I was all over it.  Our tiny peach produced it's largest crop of peaches this year.  We had to fight the squirrels for our harvest and ended up splitting the crop with the squirrels 50/50.  Even still, it was quite a haul for us.  Our peaches were still on the tiny side, but were sweet, juicy and delicious!

The following recipe is quite large as I wanted to can quite a few jars. This recipe, yield: 6 pints

You could certainly half the measurements for a small batch.

Ingredients:

• 5 lbs fresh organic peaches
• 2 organic white onions
• 3-4 cloves garlic (I like a lot of garlic, but prepare your sauce to your own taste)
• 1 1/2 cups organic brown sugar
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper (This gives a nice little kick of an aftertaste- again, to your own taste)
• 4 tsp paprika
• 3 tsp sea salt
• 3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 balsamic vinegar
• 5 tsp molasses

Instructions:

1. First blanch the peaches and remove the pits.  To blanch the peaches put them in boiling water for 60-90 seconds, remove with a slotted spoon and immediately submerge in ice water.  Drain and remove the skin with your fingers or a paring knife.  Discard the peach pits (at this point when I glanced down at my pile of peach pits I had the urge to indulge in a 90210 marathon... Get it? Peach Pit?).
2. Next, puree the peach flesh, onions and garlic in a food processor.  Combine all ingredients in a pot and simmer, loosely covered, on medium heat for about 20 minutes.
3. Then, prepare/sanitize jars and lids.  You could do either pints or half pint jars as you prefer.  I chose to do a combination of both.  Ladle the sauce into the jars and process in a hot water bath for 25 minutes.

Recipe adapted from: simplebites.net

A Perfect Disney Wedding Gift

Disney Love

 

As children, my sister and I grew up going to Disneyland. A lot. Our grandparents bought annual passes for us and Disneyland is where we spent time on weekends, after school and summer days.  When we look back on our childhood, we think of Disneyland- if not the simple, innocent magic of all things Disney- as a dear childhood friend.  It isn't often that I meet someone, as an adult, who shares this experience and unique Disney fondness, so when I do we find a special kinship.

Pictured above is the wedding gift I made for a friend who shares my kind of Disney love.  A one-of-a-kind simple, handmade, heartfelt gift that is full of Disney-style imagination and whimsy!  I searched the web and found this image 

 on the website dailyembroidery.com.  I know myself well enough to know that I am no match for embroidery, so I adapted a bit.  I saved the image to my computer and enlarged it a bit.  Then, I placed a piece of parchment paper over the screen and traced the outline of the image.  Next, I pinned the parchment paper "pattern" to a piece of scrap fabric and stitched embroidery floss directly over the pattern.

When the stitching was complete, I simply- gently- tore away the parchment paper.  I found a frame at Hobby Lobby that couldn't have been better suited for this project!  The frame looks to me like something that would be in Mickey or Minnie's home in Toon Town in Disneyland!

The frame was on sale 50% off of $19.99, the fabric was a scrap and the embroidery floss cost about $1 per color.  Total project cost: around $12.00!!