Canning: Bread and Butter Pickles

Canning seems to come naturally to me as both my grandmothers canned. My grandmother who is no longer with us (She pretty much raised me, I spent most of my life living with her) taught me how to can, she made the best pickle beets!

These were super easy to make, now I forgot to add the onions but that is okay I am sure they will taste just as good once they are ready to be eaten!

Once again I used the awesome Pick your own website! I am going to post the ingredients, but you will need to follow this link for the instructions and lots of pictures!

INGREDIENTS

• 6 lbs of 4- to 5-inch pickling cucumbers
• 8 cups thinly sliced onions (about 3 pounds)
• 2 tbsp mustard seed
• 1-1/2 tbsp celery seed
• 1 tbsp ground turmeric
• 1 cup pickling lime (optional- for use in variation below for making firmer pickles)
• 1/2 cup canning or pickling salt (most large grocery stores sell this)  See this page for pickling supplies, equipment, books, crocks and additives. Note: the salt is drained and rinsed off, so the final products won't have nearly this much salt in it!
• 4 cups vinegar (5 percent) (5%, apple cider vinegar works well.  Store brand is about $1.25 for a 64 oz bottle.)
• 4 and 1/2 cups sugar (if you are diabetic, use Stevia (or if you prefer, Splenda), or you can omit sugar altogether)
• water (for rinsing and washing)

Wallaceburg Animal Shelter: Marlene Juttens

The shocking loss of an amazing women who gave so much to the community and the animals in Wallaceburg, shook so many within the animal community as well as with the many other organizations she worked with.

Marlene and her husband Larry bought the Wallaceburg Animal Shelter in 2005 they took a shelter that didn't adopt to the public, that killed every 72 hours and turned it into what it is today. The Wallaceburg shelter is no kill, offers a safe place for dogs to go when they are lost, when owners can no longer care for their animals and they also are the animal control for Wallaceburg and surrounding areas.

I can only imagine what her husband and family must be going through with her untimely death. My thoughts and prayers are with them in their time of need.
 
I have had the honor of working closely with the Wallaceburg Animal Shelter and was only getting to know the women who helped create this safe haven.

At this time things are business as usual at the shelter, I hope with the continued work at the shelter and within in the community we can honor her memory in a way that would make her proud.

This is the link to the Chatham Kent news paper article on Marlene.
This is the link to the Windsor Star article.

Ladybug Cake

Last minute cake orders never have really brothered me but, this one had me extremely stressed out. With this cake if it could go wrong it did go wrong. First off they ordered the cake 36 hours before they needed it. I bought a new contoured pan it came with no instructions. With the size of the pan I figured it needed double the cake mix, boy was I wrong! I had to bake it twice in order to get a usable cake. Then of course with the time frame that I had to work with the butter cream did not have proper time to set so the cake was not as smooth as I would like. Then as I am moving it onto the cake boards it slips and just about lands on the floor if it wasn't for good reflexes it would have been a mess on the floor instead of only having a figure indent, which of course was fixed. Personally I would have added flowers and leaves; however, the client said no flowers.

The head and body of the cake is marble flavour. The icing is butter cream and the accents are fondant.

Canning: Sweet Pickles

Pickles, never thought they would be so easy to can. I am in love with this canning website, called Pick Your Own. They have simple and amazing recipes for canning. This is now my go to site for all my canning recipes. I check here before I look anywhere else.

I got my cucumbers from our local farmers market!

I am only posting the ingredients here you will need to go to the website for the rest of the instructions. There are tons of photos as well.

Ingredients

• 8 lbs of 3- to 4-inch pickling cucumbers
• 1/3 cup canning or pickling salt
• 4-1/2 cups sugar
• 3-1/2 cups vinegar (5 percent)
• 2 teaspoons celery seed
• 1 tablespoon whole allspice
• 2 tablespoons mustard seed
• 1 cup pickling lime (optional- for use in variation below for making firmer pickles)

Link to website

I was able to make 12 jars from this recipe and all of my jars sealed

Sweet Cornbread

I have loved cornbread since I was a child; however, I have never made it before. It always seemed like it would be hard to make. For Southern Night I decided to give it a shot, this recipe made it sound very easy to follow.

It turned out awesome! Everyone loved it even the kids. We ate it for days and it is what they asked for at snack time.

Ingredients

• 1 c. cornmeal
• 3 c. all-purpose flour
• 1⅓ c. sugar
• 2 Tablespoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup. melted butter
• 2 Tablespoons. honey
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 2 1/2 cups whole milk

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9×13 inch baking dish.
2. In a large mixing bowl, stir the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
3. Pour in the vegetable oil, melted butter, honey, beaten eggs, and milk, and stir just until moistened.
4. Pour the batter into the greased baking dish and bake in 350 degree oven for 45 minutes. Watch the cornbread towards the end, you want it to be turning golden and starting to show some cracks.

This is the website that the recipe is found on.
This is the Pinterest  link.

Peach Pie

I have never made a peach pie before. I figured for southern night and peaches being in season I would give it a try.

This pie was super easy to make and tasted awesome. Sawyer (age 3) loved it.
I used a small star cookie cutter to cut stars into the top crust instead of the normal full cover or stripes.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 4-1/2 cups sliced peeled peaches (I didn't peel my peaches)
• Pastry for double-crust pie (9 inches)
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice (I used bottled lemon juice)
• 1 tablespoon butter (I used real, unsalted butter)

Directions

• In a large bowl, combine sugars; add peaches and toss gently. Cover and let stand for 1 hour. Line a 9-in. pie plate with bottom pastry; trim even with edge. Set aside. Drain peaches, reserving juice.
• In a small saucepan, combine the cornstarch, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt; gradually stir in reserved juice. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Remove from the heat; stir in lemon juice and butter. Gently fold in peaches. Pour into crust.
• Roll out remaining pastry; make a lattice crust. Trim, seal and flute edges. Cover edges loosely with foil. Bake at 400° for 50-60 minutes or until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbly. Remove foil. Cool on a wire rack. Yield: 6-8 servings.
•  
•  

This recipe came from Taste Of Home 

  

Southern Dinner Night

I decided to start doing a cultural night each week. For the first week I decided to go with a southern night. I love southern cooking.

I made pulled pork in my crock pot. I didn't use a recipe for this as I have made it many times. I shredded the left over ham from the night before put it in the crock pot with about 3 bottles of BBQ sauce, salt, pepper and garlic. I turned it on high for about 3 hours. Stirring it whenever I happened to walk by.

Next was maple brown beans these just came from a can.

Roasted potatoes. These are simple and I love to make them. Slice up as many potatoes as you need. Lay them in tin foil, through a glob of butter in add salt and pepper fold tin foil over and either place right on the BBQ or if doing them in the oven put them on a cookie sheet. Cook for about 20 minutes or so, flipping half way. Sometimes I add onions or bacon to these as well.

Corn on the cob. Everyone knows how to make this. I use local fresh corn.

Cornbread, now this is something you can never forget. I love cornbread but have never made it before. I found a recipe on pinterest. It turned out awesome even all three kids LOVED it. I will make this again. cornbread recipe 

Last but not least the peach pie made with fresh local peaches. I cut stars into the crust to make it more southern like. Peach Pie recipe.

Trip with the Kids: Niagara Safari

I am not sure where to start with this one. I am beyond unhappy with the way the Niagara Safari is set up for their animals.

I will start at the beginning. A friend of mine posted a link on Facebook that offered a great deal on tickets to a place called Niagara Safari, which I had never heard of it before, but from the looks of their website it would be a great place to take the kids and you can't argue with $13.00 per ticket regular $20.00.

I bought and printed tickets for Keira, James, Sascha and myself (Sawyer got in free because she is 3 years old). We decided that we would go on a Sunday as it's a 2.5 hour drive at least.

The trip there was awesome. We left at 6am,  all three kids were asleep by 7am. They slept until we were almost there. Once we were there, the staff were awesome, and to our delight they offered wagon rentals. The place was pretty much empty when we first got there. We arrived when they were just opening, in hindsight I wish we hadn't gotten there that early.

As we took the tram through the park to stop 7, I saw things I wish I hadn't, such as the wolves pacing inside an extremely small enclosure, and the bears were doing the same thing. At stop 7 Sascha took the kids on the paddle boats (which is included in the ticket price), everyone used the washroom facilities and had snacks. We started through the "Safari". We saw many different kinds of animals. The children were so excited to see them all. By the time we got to the Kangaroos I had already  made my mind up about the "Safari" and we would never bring the children there again. The Kangaroos (which I think were one of the few animals that actually looked happy), were hopping around, socializing and playing with each other. The kids decided they were going to hop like the Kangaroos, and it was neat to watch the Kangaroos become very interested in the kids once they started to hop all around.

The budgies exhibit was one of the only animal areas I enjoyed. You buy a seed stick (it is a Popsicle sick dipped in sap and covered in seeds), enter the area and the birds come up and eat off the stick. It was quite a neat experience. While we were getting ready to leave the budgie enclosure the young man running it said we could not leave because when the last family was leaving a bird had gotten out. The poor young man couldn't catch it so of course I jump in, Sascha and I help catch it and put it back in the enclosure. With about 30 other visitors watching, I gained the title the bird whisper. It was kind of an ironic title as I am not much of a fan of birds, yes they are pretty to look at but, I would rather not be pooped on or attacked by a flock.

We came to the Adventure Zone. This was a rope maze that was extremely high. They had a little one for the little guys. Sawyer and I stuck to the little one, Sascha, James and Keira decided to give the big one a try. You are harnessed off, it was kind of neat and all the kids enjoyed it for the most part. This was included with your ticket price.

At this point we have been walking and doing things for 5 hours, kids are getting cranky and I am as well. We decide its a great time for lunch. We packed a cooler the night before so we wouldn't have to pay for food within the park. We took the wagon out to the car grabbed our cooler and sat in the grass under some trees for a much needed break and lunch. Once lunch was finished we didn't have too much of the park left to do.

The bears was one of our next stops, the black bears were bored and pacing along the fence. The brown bears were playing and interacting with each other. It was neat to watch how they played together and got along. Their space was far too small for what they needed.

Oh the monkeys, how I love monkeys and watching play and interact it amazing to watch, these ones were bored and wanted attention. The babies played a little bit, but mostly they were reaching out to you.

The big cat section was a big let down, they didn't have even close to enough space for them. Many had their backs and heads turned out of fear or just wanting to be left alone.

We didn't end up doing the splash pad because it was cooling down, the kids were tired and so were we.

There was lots to see and do at Niagara Safari, but the way they keep their animals, the way the animals behaved, the longing looks in their eyes made saying we will never go back and I will never recommend it an easy call to make.

The Niagara Safari should be called a zoo, not a safari because that is just what it is. I give it more credit then the road sides zoos but not by much.

http://www.safariniagara.com/
http://www.groupon.ca/

Toy Cake

I am not sure what is with parents and leaving their children's birthday cake orders until the last minute. In my opinion as soon as the invites are sent out the cake should be ordered; however, in this case the person who was supposed to make the cake backed out on them. One persons loss is another persons gain and this time it was a gain for me. A close family friend phoned me and asked if I could put together a cake that had toys on it, vanilla and say Happy Birthday Mya on it. I am so happy when last minute orders are kept simple. 
Last minute cakes never turn out how I want them to and with 22 hours to make this cake I think it turned out pretty good.

The cake is vanilla with vanilla butter cream.
Everything on this cake is edible!

All of the toys on top of the cake are made out of fondant.
Everyone was impressed with what I came up with in such a short period of time. My icing work is not as perfect as I would like it but with only 22 hours the cake didn't have enough time to crust.

Dale Earnhardt JR Cake

My moms boyfriend Dave is a Nascar fan. Personally I don't understand the point of Nascar watching cars go around and around is not my idea of a good time, but to each our own.

Dave is a huge Dale Earnhardt SR fan, by huge I mean he knows everything about the guy right down to what his wife did to the Earnhardt company after he died and why JR left that team.

Turns out my mother of all people asks me if I can make the cake 2 days before his birthday. Last minute cake orders I don't mind expect when I can't find anything in Sarnia that is Dale Earnhardt SR, not a single thing and there is even very limited things that are even JR.

We ended up having to do that cake as Dale Earnhardt JR. The cake turned out pretty good for only 48 hours notice. Everyone enjoyed it!

This cake is half vanilla, half chocolate. The vanilla half had strawberry buttercream as filling. The chocolate half had chocolate buttercream as filling. The outside was done in vanilla buttercream with fondant accents. The only thing on this cake that is non-edible is the car.

Dangers for Dogs: Heartworm

Heartworm, a preventable, painful and in many cases a deadly disease. Heartworm can be found in both dogs and cats.

Taking proper care of your dog(s) means heartworm preventative medication. This is bought at your vets office and comes in either chewy pills called heartgard or a liquid that you put on the back of their necks called revolution. I have changed to the revolution as it is cheaper for me when treating my two personal dogs and any foster that I have. Revolution deals with preventing fleas, ticks and heartworm.

One simple prevention not only saves your pet from a painful recovery or death and saves you an extremely high vet bill. In some cases if a  heartworm infestation is to advanced, the treatment will be infective and the dog will have to be put to sleep.

We recently had a dog at the shelter go into foster care as he had been at the shelter for a very long time and was showing kennel stress. He went to a great foster home where he was doing awesome and the kids just adored him. He went in for his neuter and heartworm test, while recovering at the shelter waiting to go back to his foster home his test results came back in, Butch/Baxter was advanced heartworm positive. With a heavy heart this little guy had to be put to sleep. The children in his foster home were heartbroken. A simple one pill or drop(s) a month could have prevented this from happening.

Baxter/Butch

Heartworm is passed to a dog through mosquito's. It is 100% preventable. When a dog in Canada is found to be heartworm positive and starts treatment it is a long and painful task. The dog goes in for weekly treatments and has to remain completely at rest between treatments. Treatments can go on for years. The cost in Canada is about $3000.00 to treat heartworm. Preventative is about $100.00 per season depending on how many dogs you have.

Please save your dog(s) and family heartache; use heartworm preventive every year!!

More information from the OSPCA on heartworm.

Baptism cupcake cake

Making cupcakes and cakes is a great passion of mine, in the time I have been doing cakes and cupcakes I have only ever puttered with cupcake cakes.

A client asked us if we could make a dress out of 40 cupcakes. As always my answer is yes, I never say no to any cakes even if I have never tried the technique before. I figure, no time like the present to learn.

I learned a few things that I will do when making my next cupcake cake.

These cupcakes are vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. The strawberry cupcakes are filled with strawberry buttercream. My taste tester said they were AWESOME. The pink flowers are made out of buttercream, the bow and necklace are made out of fondant.

Annie Adopted

Miss. Annie, one foster baby that will always be in my thoughts and in my heart. Something about this sweet girl touched many people both across the water and here at home. Annie as you, my readers know, came to us in horrible condition both mentally and physically, in July 2012. She was found roaming the cemetery in Wallaceburg.

When she came in she was thought to be pregnant, when I got the news I knew she couldn't spend her pregnancy in the shelter and her pups didn't deserve to be born in a shelter. Most pups that are born in a shelter die. They either die from disease that is passed on to them or their mother refuses to nurse because of kennel stress or depression. I went to the shelter right away, picked her up and took her to my vets. My vet did an ultra sound to check and see if there were pups. Turned out none!!! Yes I was extremely excited about this because we don't want anymore pups brought into this world when there are so many dogs and puppies dieing in shelters everyday.

Susan asked me if I wanted to bring Annie back to the shelter as she was not pregnant. Right away I said no, Annie needed help and as much as they try at the shelter they wouldn't have the time to work with her one on one.

Over the year that she was in care Annie began to trust, show love, and be able to be a dog. Annie grew by leaps and bounds, she had turned into the most lovable foster dog I have ever had. The only problem she needed to find her forever home. Over the year she had very little to no interest in her. One man wanted to use her as a hunt dog, I could just picture how that would have gone. Gun shot either Annie would have taken off never to be seen again or crawled up his leg and peed on him. It just wasn't the right fit.

One of the hardest decision of my life was made she needed to go to the shelter for exposure. I am not going to go into details as I already blogged about Annie and The Shelter. After what seemed like a life time Annie was finally adopted. The wonderful group of ladies that I have the honor to work with help create a sharing spree on Facebook. By the next afternoon she had 3 approved adopters and was on her way to her trial home.

After just three days in her trial home they decided to adopt her. Annie is now in her well deserved forever home. I am hoping that they will send a picture or two so I can add it my blog. Until then I am adding the picture of Keira and her.

Keira misses her greatly and says that we will never have a foster that she will love as much as she did Annie!!

Adopt don't shop! Wallaceburg Animal Shelter

Twin Mash up cake

Two of my favourite twin boys just turned 4 and I had the honor of making their birthday cake. The boys both love Spiderman and Monster trucks, what little boys don't.

Their mom couldn't decide on which one to do, so I suggest that I make both. She was unsure about how it would look in the end, but said go ahead anyway :).

I love how they turned out and so did everyone including the boys.

The top tier was vanilla and the bottom was chocolate.

They all said the cake tasted amazing! I love seeing the smiles and moment of happiness that our cakes can bring!

London Children Museum: National Ice Cream Day

The kids LOVE this place and so do I. If we lived in London we would be making daily trips here. This time we went it happened to be National Ice Cream Day which was very exciting!!
The kids got to learn and do so much.
The special events of this day were making old fashion ice cream, making northern lights, making ice cream using and learning about vortex's.

I think the kids favourite thing was trying the ice cream. They said the ice cream made with Liquid Nitrogen tasted the best.

I love that you can bring lunch and snacks, there are picnic tables outside were we sat and ate.

Vortex's

Making Ice Cream with Liquid Nitrogen

Old fashion ice cream

northern lights

London Children's Museum

Dangers for dogs: Hot Cars

It has been cooler the past week or so here in Sarnia, but people still need to be aware of the risks to dogs inside of a parked car.

People tend to think that they are only running in a minute that the dog will be okay in the car, but he/she wont be.

It only takes a few minutes for the heat to cause brain damage to the animal that is left in the car.

How to report when you see an animal left in a vehicle:

• Write down the license plate number, car make and model.
• You can call the police, animal control or the humane society. 

Local Numbers:

• Sarnia Police (519) 344-8861
• Animal Control 519 332 0330 extension 3351 (After hours call Sarnia Police and ask for animal control)

• Sarnia Humane Society 519 344 7064. 
•  

Do the right thing and help save a life, it takes a couple of minutes out of your day.

I report all "hot dogs" and so should YOU!!!! 

Facts on Dogs and heat 

In the summer unless we are going to a dog friendly place my dogs are always left at home in the nice cool air conditioner. When we (and by we I mean all of us dogs left outside in the heat can get heat stroke) are outside I have the doggy pool filled up for them to play in while I cut the lawn or putter.

PLEASE don't leave your pets in a car.

Ice cream cone cupcakes

When I was young my mom and grandmother used to make ice cream cone cupcakes for school. Back then I thought they were the best thing on earth. Today I make these for the kids, but I have found a way better idea. A twist on making full sized ice cream cupcakes.

I got the idea when eating out at East Side Mario's with the kids. For dessert they were given mini ice cream comes. I got thinking they were enjoying their dessert that I bet I could make mini ice cream cone cupcakes!!

These are perfect for little hands and no one is over loaded with cake.

I made these for National Ice Cream Day

We will be serving these at our next C & K Custom Cakes event!!!

Monkey Cake

I had fun making the monkeys out of fondant for this cake!

The top tier of this cake is vanilla and bottom is chocolate.

Everything on this cake is edible!

I love feed back good or bad from clients and from this one we got "The best cake we have ever had!!!"

Finding Nemo Cake

We get many of our orders via our Facebook page. A lady asked to make a Finding Nemo cake with Dory and Nemo on the top. It had to be two tier but the rest was up to us. I LOVE it when clients allow us to use out imagination on the cakes.

My business partner made the Nemo and Dory which are just the cutest things in the world. I did the rest of the cake and fondant work.

Everything on this cake is edible. The top tier is chocolate and the bottom tier is vanilla. Those two cake flavours tend to the most popular for children's birthdays.

Sailing!

I have been on speed boats and fishing boats, but never a sail boat.

Sascha's mom owns a lovely sail boat. I wasn't sure so sure of it at first, a sail boat is not built like a speed boat, its lower to the water and doesn't take the waves from larger boats as well as a speed or fishing boat would. Under neath the Bluewater Bridge is always choppy, we had Sawyer with us and she was extremely freaked, I was not overly happy about it either but having to keep her calm and feeling safe gave me something to focus on other then my own nerves.

I have been sailing a few times now with Sascha and his family and I am as cool as a cucumber, Sawyer has no fear anymore either. Maybe she was picking up on my fear the first time and feeding off of that.

I always take my camera with and get some beautiful pictures out on the water.

It is very relaxing which is a very rare thing for me. This summer I am as busy as ever but I am making time to do new things, go on new adventures with the kids and teach them that life is more than just me working all the time.

Caramel Apple Crisp

I made the BEST apple crisp ever a few weeks ago. Everyone loved it even the kids :)

I served it vanilla ice cream on top.

The recipe came from this website

Ingredients

1/2

cup caramel topping (I used no name caramel ice cream topping)

1/2

teaspoon ground cinnamon

6

large baking apples (about 2 3/4 lb), peeled, cut into 1/2-inch slices (about 6 cups)

2/3

cup Gold Medal® all-purpose flour ( I used robin hood flour)

1/2

cup packed brown sugar

1/2

cup cold butter or margarine, cut into small pieces

2/3

cup quick-cooking oats

• 1 Heat oven to 375°F.
• 2 In large bowl, stir together caramel topping and the cinnamon until blended. Add apples; toss until evenly coated. Spread in ungreased 8-inch square (2-quart) glass baking dish.
• 3 In same bowl, mix 2/3 cup flour and the brown sugar. Cut in butter, using pastry blender (or pulling 2 table knives through mixture in opposite directions), until mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Stir in oats. Crumble mixture over apples in baking dish.
• 4 Bake 45 to 50 minutes or until apples are tender and topping is golden brown. If desired, serve with whipped cream and additional caramel topping.

 

Canada Day Draw for C&K Custom Cakes.

Every month at C & K Custom Cakes we do a Facebook draw. Each month is a different theme in honor of Canada Day we decided July's contest was going to be for a Canada Day cake or cupcakes.

We use a website random.org to pick the winner each month so it is never bias. This time the winner picked 6 chocolate cupcakes and 6 vanilla cupcakes.

I made 12 fondant maple leafs. Each cupcake was iced with homemade vanilla butter cream and then dipped in red and white course sugar.