Ants!

Our part of the country has been suffering from ant issues. We had a mild winter and a dry summer, so the ants are coming in. I prefer not to use bug sprays when we don't have to, especially with a little crawler around the house. Here are a few things we are using to keep the ants out.

Borax:
This wouldn't be good at all for little ones to get, but we use it outside our front and back doors. Borax destroys the digestive system of the ant. It has worked really well at keeping the ants out and killing the mound. Generally when we put this right outside our door, we see dead ants right around it.

Vinegar based cleaners:
Ants hate the smell of vinegar, so using vinegar as part of cleaning solutions helps. Check out my homemade cleaning solution post for a recipe.

Cinnamon sticks and/or cloves:
Ants don't like the smell of cinnamon sticks and cloves, so I put either (or both) at any cracks or places at the doors where ants tend to come in. I've literally seen ants stop and go back to avoid a cinnamon stick.

Soap and warm water:
I've been told that ants rely on a scent trail to know where to go. If you wash away their trail, they won't know to come back in. I regularly mop our floors with a mix of vinegar, baking soda, dawn dish liquid and hot water. This has been really effective as well.

I hope this helps anyone else who is having problems with ants. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to share them. Anything to get rid of ants!

Fresh from the Garden

We love fresh produce. We aren't able to have a garden where we are right now, but this year we've been blessed by the abundance of other people's gardens. We've been given green beans, apples, cucumbers and blackberries. We also found a great clearance type price on some strawberries. As a result, I've been having fun making pickles and preserves and some cute mini apple pies. Right now our canned goods include: bread and butter pickles, dill pickles, strawberry preserves, blackberry preserves, apple sauce and cranberry sauce. I try to keep canning supplies on hand so that when I find a good deal or get handed some great fruits/vegetables, I can get them canned pretty easily. Here are a couple of the recipes I've used recently.

Mini Apple Pies
I got this idea from Pinterest. I used apples from my friend's garden. I cut up the apples and combined them with a little lemon juice, sugar and cinnamon. I would give you measurements had I measured, but I didn't. I just took the apples she gave and then added what seemed like enough sugar and cinnamon and then tasted and adjusted to taste. I personally hate making pie crust. Maybe some day I'll get over that, but with an 8 month old and being 6 months pregnant, I give myself a pass and I buy pie crust. I had one on hand left from a taco pie recipe I made earlier in the week.

I used a round cookie cutter to cut circles and put them in a greased muffin pan. I then cut out little hearts from the crust also. Once the apple mix had cooked down, I spooned it into the muffin tins, topped with the hearts, and baked at 425 for about 15 minutes. I took these to a birthday party and they were gone pretty quickly, so I'm thinking they were liked :)

Strawberry Preserves

My husband loves strawberry preserves, but they are so expensive to buy. Whenever I find a really good price on strawberries, I make a new batch of preserves. Here's my recipe:

32 ounces of strawberries hulled and mashed with a potato masher

4 T lemon juice

1 49 g pack of powdered pectin

1 T butter

7 c sugar

Combine strawberries, lemon juice, pectin and butter and bring to a rolling boil. 

Add the sugar. 

Bring to a rolling boil for about a minute

Turn off and remove foam if you have any on top

Ladle into jars, seal and process in a water bath for 10 minutes. 

Note: If you're new to canning, please read up on how to properly sanitize your jars. It's really important to keep everything sterile and at the right temperatures. There are a lot of great resources with this information, so I'm not going to rehash it on this blog, but please check it out. 

I tried a new recipe for blackberry preserves, but I haven't tasted them yet, so I'm not going to post on here until I know if they turned out.

Do you have any great recipes for canning or for using fresh produce?