Monday, August 10, 2009

The Truth and Something New

Hello Friends,
I hope all is well with your summer festivities. We are having a bit of a heat wave here in the North East so we've been hitting the pool and trying our best to stay cool.

Regarding the title of this post, let me start with the truth.


Our summer windowsill.

The truth is that no matter what you've heard about New Jersey, we do have the best tomatoes. We planted three plants in the spring and we have just started picking them. Actually Jake and Alex like to put a piece of wheat (ornamental grass) between their teeth and pretend they are farmers harvesting their crops. My little farmers. I have made fried tomatoes with gravy a few times....yum. You just slice the tomatoes thick, dip them in egg and dredge with seasoned flour. Fry them in olive oil and that's it! You can make the gravy by making a rue with a little bit of butter and some of the seasoned flour. Add a bit of milk and cut up the tomato tops and ends into small pieces and pop them in there too. Add salt and pepper to taste and enjoy!

This is hands down my favorite summer tomato recipe.



We visited New Jersey's own Storybook Land on Friday. I LOVE this place and will be soooo disappointed when the boy's no longer want to go. I love all of the creepy cute fairy tale characters and buildings. Here are a few of my favorites.

Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub...


I'm late, I'm late...

for a very important date! Nice face;)








I loooove this window box!

Mary's schoolhouse.


Pumpkin Carriage.



And now the something new.

New Vintage Spoolies!! Yay!





Super hero

Pirate

Ferocious Bear


Trick or Treaters bat and devil.



All Vintage spoolies are made from polymer clay mounted on a wooden spool of genuine vintage thread. They are painted with lots of detail and given an antique glaze to give them an aged feel.
I have a bunch more, mostly cute little pumpkins, but I will share them later.

Enjoy your night!!

6 comments:

julie king said...

good for you and the tomatoes!!! your recipe sounds delish. i'll have to try it.

the little fairy tale land looks like fun. i can see why you would be sad when your boys outgrow it. hopefully you'll have grandchildren one day. it is even more fun to share those things with them!!

i think your spoolies are so cute and very original!!

Unknown said...

What a great post! I'll have to try that tomato recipe:D The pics of the boys are GREAT!

Micki Wilde said...

Love the pumpkin carriage in fairy tale land! Your boys look so happy there ;)

Spoolies!!!! my god they are cute!! and pumpkins you say??? OOh i'm all excited to see more now. lol


Micki x

Elma said...

The pictures of the boys are so cute. We have one tomato plant on our deck and have allready pick a few:) Love the spoolies I hope you have some cute friendly pumkins:)

Cris said...

I have been picking tomatoes every day too, trying to beat the big fat bunny who lives in my garden. I love fried green tomatoes, never did it when they are ripe. I usually make them with them tomatoes that don't ripen before the last frost. I make them the same way but with the addition of some sugar to offset the bitterness. Yummy!

When my kids were little we visited a story book park like that in Wisconsin. It was corny and fun and they loved it. It even had a merry go round like that!

Your Spoolies are really cute--I love the pirate!

Victorian Lady said...

I love your spoolies!!! :)

Mere