Labor Day Came Early Here

Thursday night Bruce and I picked a laundry basket full of apples from our trees, so I warned Janet that we had our work cut out for us on Friday. Friday morning Jack arrived with a box of peaches as well, so we spent (with Liza and Merrilee's help) almost all day on Friday canning. The end result was 41 pints of applesauce and 17 quarts of peaches- the "fruits of our labors" if you will (ha, ha). I may gripe about canning sometimes, but although it can be a ton of work, it really is so rewarding to see your jars full of food just waiting to be eaten on a cold winter's day. It is also totally economical- if you grow your own or beg fruit from someone, it costs just a few cents per jar. Bruce and I are too lazy to spray our trees, but these days you can just call me an "organic" fruit grower. So there you have it- organic applesauce for less than 30 cents a jar, and peaches for less than 20 cents.

We basically neglect our children on canning days. They are smiling here because they have just had pizza and ice cream for dinner, which is how one buys compliance on a day when your sole communication has been along the following lines:

Go play outside.
Do you want to watch Monster's Inc or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?
I don't want to hear it.
Cry quiet.
Shut the back door!

Janet had just got the baby to sleep when the older kids decided that they would help us out by picking more apples. Instead of just walking them to the back door (where the trees are and where we were) they would take them, one apple at a time, to the front door, where they would ring the doorbell, leave an apple, and run away. We were so sick of apples by that time that even the first time it really wasn't that funny, and by the sixth time we were so paranoid about the baby waking up that we sent Liza out to deal with them. She must have put the fear into them because the shenanigans came to a stop.

My other culinary pursuit this week has been homemade noodles. I had a giant Costco container of spinach in the fridge, and I did not want to waste it. Between the two girls I feel like I throw away more food than ever makes it into their stomachs, so I am getting pretty sick of wasting food. I searched Allrecipes, and the only thing on there that didn't require a trip to the store was Spinach Noodles. They were so much fun to make with Kate, and they were delicious!