On Sunday, I made jam with the black raspberries that I was able to pick. Due to the drought, it was not a great year, and I only had about 3 cups from our terrace and a few from the woodlands. I seeded the half cup of blackberries that I so far have picked on the terrace and added that fruit to the crushed black raspberries. The jam yield was two 8 oz. jars and one 4 oz., with about 2 Tbs. left for us to sample. Usually, I would have enough for an additional 8 oz. jar. I heard all three jars seal, so I should be able to store these away for winter. We are still finishing jam from two years ago (both peach and black raspberry), and I have three jars from last year when house renovation limited my output.

The rain has passed us by, so far, except for very light showers, but the humidity in the air should help the blackberries, and I may be able to pick additional blackberries in our woods.

Tonight we had potato salad, broccoli salad, seafood salad, and watermelon chunks. Salads are planned leftovers: one salad gets finished off each night, and one new salad added! Tomorrow night I should add a pasta-veggie salad. It's too darn hot to grill or cook inside. We have 2 more days of temps in the upper 90s, for a total of 4 in a row. This is our 3rd official heat wave this summer. This is very unusual for Vermont.

We had pan fried cubed pork,macaroni and tomatoes and creamed corn.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by Joan Simpson.

Will made more tortillas yesterday and flavored them with Vermont cheese powder and smoked paprika. Tonight I grilled chicken tenders and then had quesadillas we heated on the grill in foil packets. Not much clean-up.

Counters are finally coming Wednesday - we had a couple of scheduling conflicts

I found some Roma tomatoes at the grocery store, so on Tuesday, I made more tomato sauce to freeze for a future pizza.

My husband cooked pork in the skillet for dinner. I roasted cut-up potatoes tossed with olive oil and Penzey’s Bavarian Seasoning—a blend that I received in one of their gift boxes and discovered is wonderful for roasted potatoes, so I had to order more. For the potatoes, I like using the countertop convection oven at 400 for 48 minutes. We had it with microwaved fresh broccoli.

Tonight we had cubed steak,rice and gravy with cooked carrots.

My cousin told me about some crackers he made with saltines.So I made some today and they are good and easy.

Spicy Ranch Cracker's
3-sleeves of saltines
1-cup canola oil
1-tbsp.crushed red pepper
1-oz. package dry Ranch dressing mix
you can add other spices I did a little garlic powder,onion powder and paprika
Mix altogether and pour over crackers a little at a time
pour 1 sleeve of crackers in big bowl drizzle some oil over,repeat 2 more times.mix around ,if you have a lid for bowl you can turn over and mix lightly,I mostly did mine with a spatula.After an hour or so all the oil was absorbed and the crackers were really good,I had some with cheese and salami.

I know this isn't as healthy as the homemade one you make BakerAunt but they sure are easy.

Another salad night at our house: chicken salad from leftover chicken breasts, more leftover macaroni salad, a tomato and onion salad, and fresh cole slaw using the first cabbage from our garden. Another hot and humid day, with thunderstorms in the area, but not a drop of rain in our neighborhood.