Cooking Outside

The weather lately has been most summery: hot and sunny. I kind of expected this in July, but it has waited until September instead. Whatever. We'll take it!

It was the perfect night to cook outside. The girls do not love barbecued food (I know!), but they absolutely loved roasting their veggie dogs over the fire.

I guess the theme for dinner tonight was "red."

And no, the girls do not believe in forks or buns for their dogs.

Mmmmm...marshmallows...

Nora takes her marshmallows very seriously.

Kevin grilled a pizza for us, which was absolutely amazing. The crust got so crispy, and it was really flavorful. I believe his comment was something along the lines of, "Why weren't we doing this all summer?" Probably because summer just started here.

The girls are in the tub, soaking all of the soot and marshmallow stickies off of their skin.

Making Jam

It has been a bumper crop of raspberries this year!

At the end of July, Kevin's parents picked us 30 pints of raspberries from Auntie Linda's patch. I froze most them, but we also ate many fresh, did a bit of baking, and made jam.

I thought this would be the end of raspberries, but my mom and dad's raspberry patch is in super production mode, too!

I did some more baking, of course, including things I didn't post about (oh, the horrors!), but I have also been making MORE JAM!

And I have been getting some assistance from my sidekicks:

Dana got a bit vigorous with the potato masher and eventually required a respite.

Nora did a most excellent job and enjoyed mashing berries as much as I do. The only hard part about making this jam was giving up the berry mashing job. Because I think that part is really fun.

I have lost track of how many jars of raspberry jam we made, but I think the answer is 19. Wow, huh?

I picked another big bowl today, but I plan to just eat the berries in yogurt and on cereal for a change.