Spotsylvania Farmers Market: Visit 5 (Gordon Road)

Yesterday, I went to the Farmers Market for their last one until Spring.  I wanted to get some fresh veggies and just walk about and see what there was.

There wasn't many farmers there like there is earlier in the season but there was still plenty to see.

I stopped off at C&T Produce.  I had an e-mail to save 20% off your total purchase.

Bagged potatoes.  I was tempted but that's a lot of potatoes.  LOL

I picked up 3 green peppers.

Lots of beautiful lettuce.

I got 2 big carrots.  These things were HUGE.  LOL

I also picked up 2 tomaotes (I gave 1 to my dad) and I got a loaf of Apple Scrapple bread from the great harvest stand.  The vendor gave me a sample and it was delicious.  It had pieces of apple in the bread and there was a crumb topping on top.  Yum!

Here's everything I got (except tomato I gave my dad).

I had $30 and only spent $12 on everything.  :)

Birthday dinner for Nate, Kristen and Dave

After the craft fair, we surprised Dave and drove up to Woodbridge to Bobby's Burger Palace for birthday dinner.  We celebrated Nate's, Kristen's and Dave's birthdays.

If you've never been it reminded me a lot like Fuddruckers.

I got the original burger.  Kristen and Dave got a burger with a fried egg on top.  I wished I'd known about that one because I would have loved to try it.  My burger was good though.  :)

There was pictures all around.  I liked this one the best because it was of bacon.  MMMMM  LOL

My fries

I also got the black and white milkshake.  It's chocolate and vanilla ice cream.  It was $5.  Yeah, I got a $5 shake.  (pulp fiction reference)  This shake had the biggest straw ever.  LOL  :)

The food was good but the place is really small.  You order your food and sit down and they bring it to you once it's ready.  We exchanged presents when we got in the car.  I think everyone enjoyed their birthday dinner and gifts.  :)

Craft Fair to sell Extracts and Cookies

Kristen and I had our first craft fair last weekend to sell our homemade extracts.  It was a lot of fun.  We sold some and we got our product out there in the world to be seen.  :)

I decided to make my homemade chocolate chip cookies to sell for $1 each.  I had about 4 dozen cookies.

We got to my old high school way too early.  It's better to be early than late though.  Plus, it was okay b/c we had time to people watch and that's always a lot of fun.  :)

Here's our table set up.  Simple, yet elegant.

Kristen made lemon extract and almond extract.  She also brought her vanilla extract but decided not to sell them unless mine sold out.  :)

Up close of my vanilla extract.

Packaged cookies.  We busted open 4 and cut them up and gave samples.  The samples actually got people to buy stuff.  It worked like a charm.  haha  :)  I sold all the cookies but 2 which Nate and I ate.  :)

Here's the lemon extract!  It smells soooo good and lemony.  :)

Here's a shot of some other booths.  There was a lot of vendors.  I wished the weather had been a little nicer.  I think there would have been more customers.  There's another one in the spring that I think we're gonna try again at.  We have some ideas on new things to get customers to our booth.  :)

I walked over to the science hall and found my old high school locker.  I had it the whole 4 years I was there.  :)

Nate's work Christmas party

Nate had his work Christmas party a few weeks ago.  It was held at Fredericksburg Square.  This is where we got married 13 years ago.  :)

Nate wanted to dance in the same spot where we had out first dance at our wedding.  One of the therapists took our picture with Nate's camera.

There was a photo booth there with some fun props for you to take pictures in.  Mary (therapist) asked me to take some goofy pictures with her and we did.  :)

Nate's birthday dinner with family

Happy 34th Birthday to my husband!  (Dec. 5th)

Nate's dad, mom and I planned to have Thanksgiving dinner and we decided to surprise Nate with a birthday cake too.  :)

We surprised Nate's dad with a pampered chef baker.  We got him the small round one since he only cooks for himself.  I call it the bachelor baker.  LOL  :)  Anyways, he loved it and immediately read the directions that came with it and looked up online for recipes.  Then when it was time to make his cabbage casserole he decided to try it out in the bachelor baker.  It came out pretty good.  :)

Nate's mom got sick and was unable to come.  :(  Nate's brother worked late so we waited to eat until he got there.  I don't remember the last time I had dinner at 9:30pm.  LOL

Anyways, after dinner we had cake.  Chocolate cake with chocolate icing!  Nate's favorite.  :)  It was a good cake.  :)

While we were waiting for Nate's brother and sister-in-law I walked down to the horses out back.  They were very gentle.  :)

And we snacked on crackers and guggisburg baby swiss cheese while we waited.  :)

Birthday fun with the BFF

Back on December 1st my BFF came to town and I took her out for an early birthday lunch at Panda Express and then we went and saw the Annie play.

It was a lot of fun.  The cast was fantastic!

Happy 'early' Birthday Kristen and thanks for being a nerd with me! :)

Final Garden Update for 2013

My life has been so crazy busy this month so I haven't blogged in a while.

This is my final 2013 Garden Update.  A few weeks ago I decided to say goodbye to my pepper plants.  The peppers that were on the plants looked like the only ones that the plants would produce.  I was glad to get them out of the house.  I had to make room for my Christmas tree.  :)

I set the plants outside and then picked off all the peppers.  I got a bunch!!!  I kept some for myself and took some to work.  They were all snatched up.  :)

Here they are.  The bigger ones I kept and they ended up turning red before I got around to cooking them.  :)  I was very happy with my garden this year.  I had grew my own potatoes, tomatoes, zucchini, squash, flowers, peppers, and lemons.  :)  I think that's it?  LOL

Speaking of lemons.....I've moved my lemon tree into the basement.  They don't like the cold so I can't keep it outside.  It's sitting in front of the basement door where the sun shines in.  It's still doing good.  I picked up some citrus soil from Home Depot for it and added some the other day.  I've also set the container in a deep tub for drainage.  Just in case.  I don't want the container leaking all over the floor.  I have 2 lemons the size of a cottonball.  :)

Homemade Pumpkin Bars with Chocolate Chips

Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope you're having a lovely and happy day.  Today, was my first Thanksgiving off in 11 years.  Feels good!!!  :)  My husband and I decided to have our own dinner at home and to have a Modern Family Marathon.  If you haven't seen this show check it out.  It's so funny!

I got in a baking mood this morning.  I baked some french loafs, and I cooked a pumpkin and then made pumpkin bars with it.

Here's the little pie pumpkin that I used.  I got it from the farmers market back in September.  I washed it real good and then cut it in half.  I then scooped out the seeds (placed them to the side to clean and dry out) and I placed the pumpkin halves cut side down in a pie dish.  (The pumpkin was very small)  I cooked the pumpkin on 350 degrees for about a half an hour until a fork poked pierced through.  Once it was done, I put the pumpkin on a cutting board and let it cool for about 15 minutes.  I then took the pulp which came off the rind really easily and ground it in my mini food processor.  Bigger pumpkins have a lot of water so you'll need to filter the water out.  This little guy didn't have much water at all.  I got 1 cup of pumpkin from this little guy which was perfect b/c that's what I needed to make my pumpkin bars.

I searched on pinterest for pumpkin bars and came across this on at the live in kitchen.

I changed up some things.  Here's what I did instead.

2 cups unbleached flour

1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 sticks unsalted butter (room temp)

1 1/4 cups sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 farm fresh eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract (I used my homemade vanilla)

1 cup real pumpkin pulp

1 pkg (2 cups) chocolate chips

I first mixed the dry ingredients in a bowl.  In another bowl I mixed the wet ingredients.  I then mixed in the dry to the wet until all combined.  After it was mixed I mixed in the chocolate chips.  I put the batter into a squared brownie pan that I first sprayed with PAM spray.  I baked on 350 degrees until my cake tester came out clean.  It was about 35 minutes.

These are so good and perfect.  My husband and I love them a lot.  I know I'll be making these again.

Are you on instagram?  Follow me.  :)

Homemade Pancake Mix

From scratch pancakes are the best!  I made mixed up 2 batches of my pancake mix.  You can use the pancake mix at a food swap, give away as gifts or to keep for yourself.  Having the dry ingredients all ready makes it easy when you want to make pancakes.  You just mix in the wet ingredients and fruit and cook.  :)

I put the recipe on a little card and tied it on the jar with twine.

Love these wide mouth ball jars.  They are cute and they are the perfect size for the pancake mix.

To make your own pancake mix you will need:

1 1/2 cups flour

2 tbsp sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Indoor Garden Update: Day 268

It's been a while since I've given an update on my garden.  I still have a garden but it's indoors in containers.  I'm so happy that my plants are happy and are still growing.

Here's my pepper plants, and my lemon tree.

Let's start with my meyer lemon tree shall we?  There's lots of little baby lemons.  They looks like little green limes right now.  They are adorable!

This is the biggest lemon so far.  I'd say it's the size of a marble.

There's also lots of flower blooms and buds.

Here's my yellow petite bell peppers.  I took 7 off last weekend.

Some are ready to be picked some are not.  These are the 2nd batch of peppers for this plant.

Here's my red bells.  None of them are red yet.  All green and plump.  :)

It's loaded.  The one pictured on the bottom is my biggest one so far.  These are all 2nd batch as well.  I've already gotten many other peppers from this plant.

While checking plants and getting rid of dead flower blossoms I noticed a few small red bugs.  :|  I looked them up.  Seems they might be flea beetles.  GROSS!  They don't kill plants but they can be annoying.  I killed all the ones I saw but they are sooooo tiny.  I don't want to spray chemicals on my plants but I might need to spray something on the leaves to make sure these bugs don't come back.

Meyer Lemon Seeds

I saved my meyer lemon seeds from my first lemon.  I mailed one seed to my Amish friend, Lovina.  Her birthday is tomorrow so I thought she might like a nice little surprise.  I put the seed in her birthday card.  

I had 5 seeds left.  I decided to plant them and if they sprout they will make nice little gifts.  :)

I grabbed 5 generic solo cups and went to the shed to begin.

I put a little container soil in the bottom of each up.

I then put 1 seed in the middle of each cup and pushed it down a little bit.

I then put some more soil on top and gave everyone a drink.  I brought them in the house and they are sitting in the sunny window sill with my inside container garden.

I hope they spout and turn into little lemon trees.  :)

Nate's latest run

My husband, raised the most money for his Team in Training Virginia Chapter for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Here's Nate with his shirt.  He just ironed on his 'rock star' patch.  :)  Nate shaved his head a few weeks back when he got to his first place position.  He's loving the shaved head so he's going with it for now.

This past Friday night we went to an inspiration dinner where Nate was to get an awards for all the money he raised.

Here's the table scape.

Cute little cards at each place setting.

A pamphlet at each seat with everyone's names who was on the team.

A note from a little girl named Campbell.  She goes by the name Campbell Soup.  She's a beautiful little girl who's fighting everyday.  She wasn't able to make it to the dinner but her parents did.  She also sent a video message to everyone.  She's adorable!!

Here's Nate getting his award.

Nate and his award.

Yesterday morning was the 8k, half marathon and full marathon.  Nate did the half marathon.  His 7th marathon so far.

Here's the team ready to head out in the pouring rain.  (hence the trash bags)

Nate was in wave 'HA'.  He's where the red arrow is.  :)

Can you see him?

Nate is running by his mom and me with a big grin.  Go Nate Go!

And he's off.

Linda and I had some time while Nate was running.  We walked down to the finish line and waited.  We walked over on a bridge and looked at the James River.

It started pouring down rain again so we hung out under the railroad tracks and then a train came.  I took some pictures of the train.

We then walked around some more checking out the vendors.  We got a free smoothie from McDonald's and then we found food vendors.  I got a funnel cake which I paid $7 for.  LOL  We were hungry tho and all the free food was for the runners.  I wanted a bottle of water but it was $3 and when I told the Vendor he took all my money for the funnel cake he told me to go ahead and grab a bottle of water for free.  That was kind of him.  :)  We then went back over to the finish line to wait for Nate.

Linda spotted Nate first and I just snapped away with pictures.  (see red arrows)

 \

Here's Nate crossing the finish.

Linda and I went to wait at the LLS tent b/c we knew Nate had to check in with them.  We found Nate and got a picture of him.  We're so proud of him.