Green Tomato Pickles - mmmmm!

On Friday and over the weekend, I met with my fiance's mum and she showed me how to make green tomato pickles. I ordered 2 boxes of tomatoes from the green grocer in Cooma, along with some other special ingredients. We spent the weekend chopping, slicing, cooking, adding a bit of this and a bit of that, taste testing and bottling.

Now pickles in the Rankin household are like gold. Richard comes from a family of 9 and so there's lots of kids, grandkids and great grandkids who fight over them. They are just so yummy - nothing like a special recipe to zing up a good piece of meat. I've tasted other people's pickles and they are nowhere close to being as nice as Ethel's pickles. I feel so privileged to know now how to make them.

We managed to make three boxes full of pickles. Most of the jars went into Ethel's cupboards so that she's got pickles when the hoardes visit and took a box full home. This should last us til next year hopefully.

I'd been joking with Richard (who eats pickles like they're going out of fashion) that he'd need to pay me $5.50 for every bottle eaten. Well, I put the pickles in the garage for safekeeping and yesterday I was going to take a photo of them to put on the blog. I went into the garage and there weren't any pickles to be found! When I asked Richard what he'd done with them, he told me he'd hidden them and that I'd have to give him a dollar for every jar. Ha! He didn't realise that I was still $4.50 ahead!

I wonder whether you can buy a machine that chops onions and tomatoes? Does anybody know? It'd make the process so much easier and quicker.

Happy New Year

I've been very slack in the past month - no postings! I haven't had anything to add as I haven't done any patchwork (until the last week). Maybe I should have just added a post for the heck of it. I've been doing other wonderful things apart from patchwork - you know, the Xmas spirit, holidays and everything. I just haven't really found the time or the inclination to be crafty.

We were blessed to have our new grandaughter Grace, her mum Natalie and hubby Dave home for Christmas. I made 2 quilts for Grace when she was born. Natalie and Dave said they use them all the time. I was so pleased to hear that.

I made the cot quilt out of a jelly roll and whilst it was a bit fiddly to do with the square in the square, I loved how it came out.


The pram quilt I made out of the left over scraps, cutting them into 2 inch strips and using some leftover square in the square blocks. Both quilts are my favourite quilts to date.

Here's a photo of Grace not long after she was born, enjoying some giggle time on the pram quilt.


I didn't ever post a picture of Joy Bear hanging on our Xmas tree. Joy Bear was made by Dianne who is a member of the patchNquilt online group. Joy Bear was made for a Xmas decoration swap.


I thoroughly enjoyed putting the tree up and finding decorations for it. What was just as lovely was having Richard and his other daughter Catherine together to choose the tree.

Having a child in the house brought so much joy to both Xmas and the household. The house seemed so empty once everyone departed.

I can't wait until next year to add more decorations that I've found in both Dad's home and ours. I must post a picture of the beautiful decoration I received from my sister Tracey's family - brought over all the way from Paris!

Happy New Year to all readers. I wish you all the best for 2009!