Thursday, May 17, 2012

Uhhhh YUM!

This seems a little repetitive, but I am sorry I have been away so long.  Lets face it, it is prime time gardening season and so I don't have lots of free time.  What free time I have, I have been using for sewing in order to get up an inventory of doll clothes to sell.  That being said I wanted to share something I discovered the other day that is awesome!  Homemade fruit tea.  Oh yea baby.  I have found me something goooood. Snapple aint got nothin on me.
 Last year I put up 4 quarts of blackberry juice concentrate(which is awesome by the way), but it wasn't until now that I took out a quart to prepare.  1 quart of the concentrate make about 3 liters of juice.  Anyway, I was brewing tea and thought I would try another one of my "hummm I wonder" projects.  Needless to say it is my new addiction.  I have been suckin down fruit tea for the past 2 days.  Probably not so good for my waist line, but I don't care it is very refreshing on a warm day.  Here's what I did:

My fruit tea

Enough tea bags for a 2 quart pitcher of tea
1 can fruit juice concentrate(or in my case 12 oz of my blackberry concentrate)
2/3 cup sugar(more or less depending on taste)
water

So steep your tea bags like you normally would for your tea.  Pour the steeped tea into your 2 quart pitcher.  Add the fruit juice concentrate and sugar.  Stir it up so all the sugar dissolves.  Add water until you make 2 quarts of tea.  Chill.
Writing this blog I am finishing up the last of the tea.  I have to ask myself if I want to make more, or be responsible and take a break for my waist line........hmmmm a conundrum(she said as she took another drink).

So updating the past three weeks.  We are finishing up school for both of the boys.  One graduates on Saturday and the other is finishing up his homeschooling.  We are proud of both and the strides they have made this year.  Our son that is graduating is a minor miracle because we were told years ago he wouldn't graduate with a regular diploma but could get a special needs diploma.  That wasn't acceptable and now he is graduating with a regular diploma and the plan right now is for him to start technical college without an IEP or special needs program.  Modifications will be made on our end at home.  We are at least going to try.
The garden is coming up and in.  My tomatoes, beans, potatoes, corn, and peppers are all getting large and lush and putting out babies.  My spinach, lettuce, and broccoli are coming in at a steady pace.  So far I have put up 8 lbs of broccoli (and eaten 2lbs), and have the little side shoots still coming in.  I have brought in about 1 lb of spinach and 1/2 pound of lettuce.  My English pea experiment was successful.  I ended up with about 2 lbs of peas.  The adjustments I am going to make for next year are that I am going to start my peas indoors around the beginning of December to put them out the middle of Jan.  I will also plant a lot more peas.  I would say not a bad return when You think I got the pea seeds for free.  Blackberry and blue berry bushes are covered with fruit just waiting to ripen.  I am about to go out and pick more spinach, broccoli and lettuce as well as do more gardening stuff.  All in all things are going pretty smooth.  So now I have to go spray my fruit trees, and get busy.  Again sorry so long since my last post.  I will try to do better.

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