My uncle came back from Arkansas with one of the best gifts a gardener and home canner can receive, a case of fresh Arkansas peaches. If you've ever bought peaches at the perfect moment, you know there's no time to waste. Their shelf life is short, so as soon as they arrived, it was time to get to work. Of course, the first step was quality control. Some peaches are good. Some peaches are spectacular. These are spectacular. They were a little on the small side, but they are t

It's 100° outside in Texas, which can only mean one thing...it's time to start Christmas baking. Well...sort of. Every year, I make my own vanilla extract. Because the very first ingredient in my Christmas cookies doesn't come from the grocery store in December. It starts quietly tucked away in the pantry in the middle of July. Now, almost every tutorial will tell you to buy the cheapest vodka you can find. I'm going to be the Christmas rebel here. I've done that. The vanilla

We're in the thick of summer here in North Texas, where the weather app has apparently forgotten there are numbers below 100°. By late July, my garden isn't exactly thriving. It's waving the white flag. The tomatoes are wearing the evidence of another brutal Texas summer. Sun-scalded shoulders. Split skins. The tomatoes are all but getting cooked on the vine. The peppers aren't much better, sporting little sunburns that make them look far worse than they really are. If I were