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Hello! I am Diana, wife to Ted. We are the parents to one miraculous 6-year-old little princess. Aside from my daughter my earthly passions include home-cooking at an intermediate level, Music, knitting, photography, learning Adobe Photoshop, digital scrapbooking, and online social networking.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

The Violet Verdict

This Memorial Day weekend was a fun, activities-packed weekend with the In-laws and a surprise visit from my Dad who lives in Connecticut. It was also my birthday on Sunday. The whole family (MIL, FIL, SIL+Hubby+2 kids, Little SIL, DH, The Little Princess, and myself) camped "away from home" in a cabin that the In-laws have (those that know us will laugh at the quotation marks).

FIL has been working for the past month getting the cabin ready for family use, and this was the maiden sleep-over. Between figuring out sleeping arrangements for 3 toddlers (for 3 nights) in a one room cabin, my dad's barking dogs, and figuring out how to celebrate my birthday while camping, it was all an interesting adventure.

The cabin, located along a river, somewhere in the Maine woods :)


In addition to some other cooking I did (I made a batch of homemade glazed doughnuts...which hopefully I will have the chance to post about in a later blog entry) we cracked open a jar of the now infmaous Wild Violet Jelly.

The taste verdict: it is delicious as well as beautiful!

It has a very fruity flavor, which you might not expect. It almost had a flavor similar to watermelon flavored candy, but much more mild. Everyone who dared to try it liked it. I am looking forward to the possibility of making more (although the violets are starting to dwindle and go by now that warmer weather is here).

Here is a photo of my birthday breakfast, hearty & rustic camp food. Grilled sausage, salsa & cheese scrambled eggs made on the Coleman camp stove, and my homemade honey wheat bread toasted on the grill. The violet jelly loses some of it's former beauty when it is about to serve it purpose in life, hahaha:
Thanks for reading!

Diana, The Ivy Kitchen

6 comments:

Nea.Leah said...

Happy belated Birthday!
Sounds like all went well and had a good time too. You birthday breakfast looks really yummy, heehee

Gina said...

I think you should start jaring up some of the 'flower jellies' and sell them, they're to beautiful to keep only to yourself ;)

Rhonda said...

Mmm....I still think the jelly is beautiful even before it's untimely death...LOL!!! Happy belated birthday! :)

Nina said...

I so agree with Gina... you could sell those things and I will buy some!! :-D

~nina~

Becky said...

Oh Diana, you are sooo talented!
You're a great cook, jelly maker, knitter and be-be maker, awesume mom and I'm sure Ted would agree, an awesume wife, too! Your pictures are super and I love the way you write! Thanks for sharing on your blog. I'm adding it to my favorites! The camping sounds like it was fun. How creative! I've found that the best thing about vacations, is being together with the people we love, having time to spend doing relaxing things together. I'm glad you could do that. I loved your jelly. I'm anxious to try some flower jelly making too! I think it's a great idea to sell some. Maybe enter some in the fair, too! You go girl!

Becky said...

(I accidently sent double comments before...) By the way, Happy birthday! You're a precious gift from God! I'm glad to know you and call you friend! Have a great year and many adventures with needles, camera,kitchen gadgets and princess making!