Simple Strawberry Sauce, a BONUS, and tea towel revivals

The Farmers Market:  Simple Strawberry Sauce. This is the final week of mason jar goodness. This week I decided to feature a simple strawberry sauce that won't be around for long after you make it. The beauty of this recipe is that it's so ridiculously simple to prepare. The fact that strawberries are plentiful and delicious this time of the year makes it even better. In our house, my daughter has been setting the standards for healthy eating. We talk quite often about the excessive amount of white sugar added to so much of the foods that Americans buy. Another reason why I love this recipe is that there are only two tablespoons of added sugar. The real sweetness comes from the fresh strawberries. Yesterday I purchased my berries from the Amish farmers market two towns over. Once the sauce is made and cooled, pour it into a pint sized mason jar and store in the refrigerator. You'll find all kinds of great culinary uses for it from ice cream to waffles to cheesecake topping.

Simple Strawberry Sauce
one pound fresh strawberries, sliced
1/8 cup of water
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Bring all of the ingredients to a boil in medium saucepan. Reduce to simmer until the sauce thickens, about 5-10 minutes. Let cool and pour in to a pint size mason jar. Keep refrigerated.

THE BONUS: Pimento Cheese. I loved finding uses for my mason jars so much this month that I decided to throw in a bonus here. I was surfing the web a few days ago when a recipe for Pimento Cheese caught my eye. When I think of this kind of cheese, I usually think of the processed cheez wiz style concoction in the jar. This recipe uses sharp cheddar cheese, coarsely grated.

The most obvious way to enjoy this is to put it in a bowl with some pretzels and dip away.

By now you might be wondering where "the farmers market" comes in to play. Well, that's where the Heirloom tomatoes from the Overbrook Farmers Market come in.

The math is really simple on this one: homemade pimento cheese + heirloom tomatoes=
Grilled Pimento Cheese and Heirloom Tomato Sandwich. And you get extra points if you pair the sandwich with the dill pickle spears from week two!

Pimento Cheese Spread
2 cups sharp yellow cheddar, coarsely grated (8 oz)
2 cups sharp white cheddar, coarsely grated (8 oz)
1 cup drained pimentos or roasted red peppers, finely chopped
1/2 cup mayonnaise
several liberal dashes of worchestire sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl. Can be made 3 days ahead. Transfer to a large mason jar and keep refrigerated. Spoon spread into a bowl and serve with crackers, pretzels, vegetables and baguette slices OR spread on bread, add your favorite fillings and make a grilled cheese sandwich.

The Find: Tea Towel Revivals. This week's find comes in the form of two vintage tea towels and a long linen curtain panel; all thrift store finds. All three are 100% cotton which makes them soft and durable and easy to work with.

I'm an apron girl. There's just no way around it. And I don't want a mass produced apron either. I want unique, upcycled and fun. I want something that doubles as a skirt when I go to the farmers market. The choice was obvious when I saw these tea towels and curtain. Where some people walk right by the dusty old boxes of linens, I make a straight bee line for them. I call these aprons my Rustic Farm House aprons. I used the linen curtain for linings and I used the cloth tabs for the apron sashes. Nothing goes to waste here.

PS: I'll be making these available in my Etsy store.

The first apron is a shorter apron made from a tea towel from Leicestershire, England. I love maps! Notice that I purposely attached the tea towel only across the top so that I can have the rest of it free.

The second apron is a longer one made from an awesome tea towel from Wales. It has all kinds of Welsh language and numbers on it. Makes me want to travel. How about you?

Yes, there is a face.

Dill Pickles and The Blue Madonna

The Farmers Market: Dill Pickles I'm on week two of delicious things to put in mason jars. Summer is the perfect season for cold salads and grilling and I can't think of anything better than a nice, cold pickle spear to go alongside everything. If you're growing cucumbers in your own garden and have a bumper crop, this is an awesome way to use them up. Making refrigerator pickles is ridiculously simple. This week, because I knew I would be away on Saturday, I made my farmers market visit earlier in the week instead. This worked out better than expected because it takes a few days for the cucumbers to turn into pickles. So last night upon returning home from upstate New York, I ran straight to the refrigerator and grabbed one of the jars of pickles. Oh my. The pickles were not only delicious, they rivaled some of the best deli barrel pickles I've ever purchased at the grocery store. As God is my witness, I shall never buy store bought pickles again. My pickle spears have a nice crisp snap and are flavored just right. I think part of my secret is that I added lots of extra fresh dill and garlic cloves to my brining solution than what the original recipe called for. Also, I bought basic cucumbers. In fact, 4 regular sized cucumbers yielded 2 mason jars worth of pickles and by the time I post this, one jar is almost finished. Side note: this is a refrigerator dill pickle recipe which means no canning involved. The pickles last for up to 6 weeks in the refrigerator but don't worry, they'll be gone way before then!

Refrigerator Dill Pickles
3 1/2 cups water
1 1/4 cup white vinegar
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 Tablespoon sea salt
4 regular size cucumbers, cut into quarters and each quarter cut in half (this will yield 8 spears per mason jar)
2 heads of fresh dill
2 cloves garlic, peeled and whole

 1. Stir water, vinegar, sugar and sea salt in a saucepan over high heat. Bring to a boil; remove from heat. Cool completely.

 2. Using two mason jars, place 8 cucumber spears, a handful of fresh dill, and garlic cloves (I used 4) in each jar. Pour cooled vinegar mixture in each jar (it should come almost to the tops). Seal each mason jar and refrigerate for at least 3 days ( I waited a full 4 days). Pickles can be kept in refrigerator for up to 6 weeks.

The Find: The Blue Madonna

I've always had a love affair with religious medallions, crosses and images of the saints. I'm not sure where that came from as I was a very naughty Catholic girl (I purposely lit my program on fire during my first communion stroll down the aisle).  Yet here I am, all these years later, still enthralled with these religious items. My find this week comes from two places. I found the leaf segments in an old dusty box at the Golden Nugget Antique Market in Lambertville, NJ. There were plenty and I could kick myself that I didn't make an offer for all of them. These were the only segments with the gorgeous crystal blue flowers and pearls still intact. I wasn't quite sure what I would do with them until I found my second find, a Madonna prayer card, at the Browse Around thrift store in Ardmore, PA. I love this thrift store for so many reasons, but mainly because they always have a tin at the entrance with free medallions and prayer cards.

And The Blue Madonna was born. I had some blue crystal beads which I made into chain. I set the Madonna in an old locket, sealed her with resin and added some rhinestones.I added another big blue stone and pearl. I'm really happy with the way this turned out.