A Peck of Pickled Peppers

 When I purchased pepper plants from the Amish greenhouse earlier in the summer, I thought "Hungarian Wax Sweet" meant I was buying sweet peppers. Nope. Hungarian Wax Sweet are kind of hot, not like a bell pepper at all. So what does a girl do when confronted with hot peppers? She goes onto the interwebs and finds a recipe for pickling with the label "Hungarian Wax Sweet" attached to it. 

Here is what they look like on the plant:

They are nice, long yellow peppers that turn red if you ignore them.

Here's what they look like cut up into rings, swimming around in some vinegar, onion, and garlic:

My canning supplies just stay in the kitchen at this time of year, so I got some water boiling and put my empty jars in. For the first time EVER I am using wide mouth jars. 

And then after giving myself a spicy steam facial, I ended up with these:

It made 4 half-pint jars. I'm not a huge hot pepper person, but my son and daughter are, so they can enjoy these. 

I'm waiting on my tomatoes. They seem to be taking a little longer to turn red this summer. I've blanched and frozen many green and yellow beans which are always nice in the cold winter months. I have also made quite a few zucchini muffins, which I then froze. 

And now to wrap up my mid August post, here is a happy row of zinnias. I only just started planting zinnias in my vegetable garden last year and they made me so happy, I did it again this year.

Centerpieces

 I thought I would share something that I thought was absolutely stunning and added so much to the ambiance of my daughter’s wedding. 

If you know any young people embarking on a wedding, they likely have all kinds of images saved on their phones and carefully crafted Pinterest pages with lots of ideas for their particular colours and “ theme” of their special day. 

Our daughter wanted classic style, and her colours were whites, greens, gold, and a bit of pale pink. 

She and her fiancé at the time travelled to a town where a man was selling small concrete urns that he made himself. His wife told him he had to sell lots of his stock before he could make anything new- haha! So they were able to purchase quite a few for a good price. 

The day before the wedding, we embarked upon a system of creating the table centrepieces by soaking florist sponge ( oasis) in warm water and then jamming it into the bottom of each urn with plastic underneath so water didn’t leak out onto the tables. 

Daughter is far more exacting and detailed than I, so I decided my jobs would be preparing the urns, and running around the property cutting various sizes of hydrangea flowers and keeping them in water. 

Then my daughter created the beautiful floral displays using white hydrangeas, ivory roses, pale pink roses, and white carnations. They turned out so well and have stayed beautiful for days. They were kept in a cooler trailer that was rented for the occasion ( to keep drinks and some food cold) over night and were taken out in time to decorate the round tables at which the guests were seated for the meal, speeches, and the dance afterwards. Here are some pictures.

For those of us who were married a long time ago, what were your colours or flowers? Do you remember your centrepieces? Did you even have centrepieces? 

Hitched!

 It all came together, all the months and months of planning, and it was beautiful! Our daughter got married on our property this past Saturday. I don’t think we’ve quite recovered yet. When husband and I were sitting on the porch today I told him how it felt almost shameful to not be doing something- haha!

Here’s one picture from the day.

The weather gods were not kind, unfortunately but there was the gigantic tent to be under ( with all the dinner tables, bar, and dance floor). The food was wonderful, the wine was chosen by the couple and I maybe had one glass, but it was also very good, the couple chose all the music and so many people were up and dancing which was great to see. 

The rental company is here today to disassemble the tent and take all the stuff away ( including the fancy air conditioned bathrooms). 

They are off on a honeymoon right now and our house still has wedding clutter but that can be dealt with when they return. It was fantastic and now we rest.