I am still here...

The Cozy Little Cottage has been a very busy place this September. School has started and Oregon's summer harvest has just recently arrived (very late!). Much food has been put up for the winter around here as we have been busily canning, freezing and drying for weeks and weeks. I hope to show you many of my foodie projects in the days to come.

As of now our pantry and freezer are full of dilly beans, pickles, berries, jams, tomato soup, roasted tomato sauce, pesto, applesauce, fruit leather, dried apples and so much more!

Happy Anniversary!

The traditional anniversary gift for your second year of marriage is "cotton". So early last week I ventured off to West Linn to shop at Hollyhill Quilt Shoppe to load up on some cotton in David's favorite colors... orange and black of course!

I set to work on a new quilt for us to take on all our adventures down to Corvallis... a little something to keep us warm during those chilly night games!

I love the way it turned out! I didn't wash any of the fabric or the batting in hopes that it would all shrink together, giving it an antiqued look... what do you think?

I also embroidered our anniversary date on a little patch on the back... I think he will like that little detail :)

To accompany the quilt I found David a new Oregon State t-shirt to wear to all the games this season and I tied a new OSU bumper sticker to the top of the package as well!

In addition, I made him this little card (I like to make cards... more personal!) On the inside it says, "I think you are the 'Bee's Knees'!"

The traditional gift for your first anniversary is "paper"... At the Sacoolas household we think very much alike... David and I both bought each other football tickets to Oregon State games, luckily different games! This year I think I am in the clear... I just can't imagine that David made me a quilt!

In addition to our little gifts, we will also be heading to the Gorge for a Van Morrison concert. I have always loved Van the Man and can't wait to see him in concert! We will camp that night at the gorge and then head to Mt. Rainier for a week of fun with David's family... Quilting, Concerts and Camping- Oh my!

Sunday Drive

A recent Sunday drive lead us to McMinnville for lunch at Bistro Maison, a charming little french bistro at the end of down town McMinnville. Our lunches were spectacular and our surroundings in the little outdoor garden would be hard to beat. We shared the pate, I had a wonderfully cheese filled potato tart and David had the burger, surprise!

On our way home we stopped by our favorite little farm, Kookoolan, to pick up these beautiful eggs and some chicken for that huge freezer of ours! Look how wonderful all those different egg colors are!
And, just in case you were wondering what our little eggs would look like when paired up to a standard large egg, well...
No wonder it takes 12 of our eggs to make our Saturday morning scramble!

Crackers

I recently made a double batch of homemade crackers that we are still enjoying the last few of. As you know, I try very hard to stay away from processed foods, so crackers have been something that I have been making myself for quite some time now. We love them! I use this recipe and I always make a double batch.

I use my food processor to make the dough and then our pasta roller to roll it super thin (when my mom makes them, she likes them thicker so she just rolls them out with her rolling pin... you'll have to try both thick and thin... we like them super thin around these parts!). I also use fresh garlic instead of the dried and sometimes I even add onion powder if I want even more flavor.

I have been playing with the idea of making a parmesan cracker or maybe even ranch flavored batch... I'll let you know how those go!

Try these, there fun and super easy and really special if you use a cookie cutter to make fun little shapes- Enjoy!

Berry Picking

We recently purchased a very large freezer for the garage and I am in the midst of a frenzy trying to fill it with all the plentiful produce that we Oregonians are blessed with each summer. Thus, my good friend Brittany and I have coined this The Summer of Berry Picking.

We have been very diligent about heading out to pick every Wednesday. Our standing date starts at 8:30 when I pick her up and we load the car with our buckets, baskets, water bottles and flower jars. We then head straight to the James John Cafe for the best savory breakfast muffin in the world (still warm and filled with bacon-y goodness!). We dine on the road as we drive the few miles from St. Johns to Sauvie Island and pull into the Kruger parking lot. We are usually the first ones there so we head in to ask Farmer Don "what's pickin' " that day, grab our wagon and hit the dirt road to the fields.

Brittany and I love this time. Being outside, sun shining and the air filled with the smell of fresh berries and wonderful conversation... I often remind her, "we are making memories here, you know". We usually have the same conversations each week (do all friends do that?), but we love to talk about the same things all the time... "What's for dinner?" "What is new with your family?" "What is growing in your garden?" "How are your pets?"

Once our buckets and baskets are filled we then head down the road to Sauvie Island Farms for our weekly flowers... this is my favorite part of our day! Every week holds a new bouquet of flowers to adorn our homes until we head back to the farm. We fill our jars with whatever flowers happen to be blooming and then it's time to head home.

Once home, I fill my freezer containers with berries, make jam, make berry-muffin batter to freeze for a spot of sunshine in the winter and bake up berry pies. It has been so much fun and so rewarding to see our freezer fill up! I know I will enjoy all this hard work come February when I need a taste of what's to come!

Happy Birthday to You...

Happy Birthday David!

Shrimp Salad

We are in the middle of quite the little heat wave (I do love old movies... well anything old really!) and I have been trying my best to stay out of the kitchen, which is very hard for me! So instead of avoiding the kitchen altogether I have been making no-cook or little-cook dinners for the Mr. and myself.

We recently had shrimp salads, what I consider the utmost of yummy no-cook dinners! They are so simple, yet David raves about them every time :) Our salads are different each time, but this last salad started with a bed of leaf lettuce and then was topped with grated carrot, sliced cucumber, hard boiled eggs, minced scallions, sliced avocado and the shrimp, of course! I made a little dressing by mixing mayo, ketchup, garlic, salt and pepper and worcestershire and we just dolloped it over our salads. We also had some homemade bread and garlic pepper havarti (we visited the Willamette Valley Cheese tasting room that weekend and stocked up on some great cheeses!)

During the dog days of summer I also love making up grain salads and bean salads. I cook the grains or beans in the morning when the house is still cool and then mix up a dressing and toss in whatever veggies, cheese, or nuts we have in the pantry.

What are you doing to beat the heat?

Enjoy it while it's here... it will be gone before we know it!