In the kitchen:: Strawberries, Lemons, and Oranges, Oh My!

Our trip to Maine brought with it a quick trip to a local strawberry patch where we picked 8 quarts of organically grown strawberries for $16.00 (!)  That price is sort of unheard of down hereabouts in New Hampshire.

So I made jam.  MMMM.  Jam.

and then I ate jam.

Mmmm.  Jam.

and now - I must stop eating bread with jam or I'll have really too much exercising to do to make it worth all that jam eating.


On the same trip, I was introduced to a new parent/child conflict called "The Scary Blue Sugar-filled Slushy Assault" which every gas station, super market, and rest stop from here to Canada seems to be pushing like crazy on impressionable kiddos and their road-weary mamas (no - I didn't give in)  But I did have to repeat a hundred times at least "in our family, we don't eat things that look like they might glow in the dark"

But I do recognize the appeal of an icy slushy in the hot hot summer, my dear blog friends.  I am not a mean mama, in spite of what you may have heard from my 5 year old.

So this week - when the temperature climbed and we were all feeling rather hot and sweaty,

we made our own slushies.

And they were a big hit.

***  The Junkin's Citrus Slushie ***

Ingredients:  3 oranges and 2 lemons, 3/4 cup simple syrup, and 3 cups ice cubes

To make:  Juice the oranges and lemons

2.  Add ice cubes, 3/4 cup simple syrup (dissolve granulated sugar into an equal measurement of water) and the juice from your citrus.   Pulse.

3.  Pour.    AHHH!     Liquid Summer!

(and it's not even blue!)

4.  Clean up.   Hello?  Anyone?  Clean up.   Where did everyone go!?

And lastly.

(This is for my sister and mother)

Look what I found in my back yard!!!