My Fall Front Porch

 I drove to Amish country on Friday and bought 4 dozen corn to prep and freeze for Thanksgiving.

It was a lot of work but everyone will be glad I did this on Thanksgiving day.  I'll turn this into creamed corn.

 I also bought a watermelon and made pickled watermelon rind.

 I like to leave a little of the red on for color.

I always place small dishes of this on my Thanksgiving table to eat with the meal.  It is seriously good stuff.

The Recipe:


8 cups water
2 tablespoons pickling salt or kosher salt
5 cups peeled watermelon rind (leave a thin layer of pink), cut into 1 x 1-inch pieces
1 cup organic sugar
1 cup rice vinegar
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
12 whole cloves
1/2 teaspoon pickling spice
1, 1-inch piece fresh ginger, sliced thinly
2 star anise pods
In a large pot, over high heat bring water and pickling salt to boil. Add watermelon rind and boil for 5 minutes until tender. Strain in a colander. Keep watermelon rind pieces in the colander so any remaining salt water will drain off.
In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, rice vinegar, black peppercorns, cloves, pickling spice and sliced ginger. Bring to a boil over medium high heat. Stir until sugar dissolves. Simmer for 15 minutes, until slightly reduced.
Place watermelon rinds in a large mason jar (or two smaller mason jars if that’s all you have). Pour liquid over rinds and let cool on counter top until liquid is at room temperature. (If you place the hot pickles in the refrigerator, the sugar in the liquid might crystalize.) After the liquid has cooled, screw on the lids and refrigerate.

 I bought wonderful new potatoes and green beans and made some southern smothered beans and potatoes.  So good!

 The Blog Tech and his wife were here all weekend cleaning out their old house.  They worked hard and I fed them.  I made them my version of a Chopped Cheese Sandwich.  If you have never heard of these, you might want to read this:   https://firstwefeast.com/eat/2016/01/chopped-cheese-iconic-nyc-sandwich

 I also started to decorate my front porch for Fall.

  This might not look like much yet but hola...this was a lot of work. I used honeysuckle vine which has to be soaked in water to make it pliable.  It is simply one of the messiest things to work with. It took hours to get just this much done.  But, now I am ready for mums and pumpkins.

I made this wreath last year and thought I would use it again.  More to come on this project.

 The W's worked hard too.  They greeted everyone that walked by.

They like all of this Fall stuff.