Summer Refrigerator Pickles or Peppers

During the summer we're no different from anyone else and love to grill brats and hot dogs. My mom always made her sister's refrigerator pickle recipe, and made a huge gallon jug full at a time. I grew up with these fresh refrigerator pickles as a staple at our house. They were always really good, and just a bit sweet.
As I grew older, I developed my love for spicy food!! The more I started cooking and tweaking recipes, the more I wanted to see how I could work with this recipe. It's so easy to do, and wanted to see if I could modify it to make pickled peppers instead. The only thing I did different was put in peppers instead of cucumbers. I guess I didn't add quite as much sugar either (with either recipe). They're pretty sweet. I think I usually take out about about a cup or so.The other great thing about this recipe, is that the juice is reusable. I just finished my first batch, and the picture to the left is my second batch made from the juice of the first batch. I will still cure the peppers for a week.

Here's a link to where I've posted it on Recipezaar.
Aunt Linda's Refrigerator Pickles

The other night I put these on a pizza for the first time. I made bbq chicken pizza and finished it off with some pickled peppers. It was amazing!! I have also used them to make my breakfast bacon, jalapeno, and cheddar rolls. Ridiculously wonderful! I'm sure there are tons of other things you could use them for too. Let me know your ideas...I love to hear them!

Softball and Goodies

Today was a fun day. All morning I was making various pastries for our day of softball. We got together with some friends to play some softball down in Alamogordo. It's been a long time since I played softball, it was fun getting back into it. You know me though, I had just as much fun making the goodies for after the game. We had a little BBQ and goodies after the game. I made brownies with a pudding/cool whip on top. I usually put bananas in the topping, but they didn't look very good by the time we got down there. I also made an old standby, Reese's peanut butter bars. It's a bar that has peanut butter, graham crackers, butter and confection sugar. Then the topping is just chocolate chips and a little more peanut butter melted. Then finally I made a tart. A strawberry tart. A beautiful strawberry tart...And man did it taste good! It was a pie crust in a tart pan. Then it had a thin layer of chocolate and then it had a layer of cream cheese, whipping cream, and confection sugar. Then came the strawberries...It was probably one of the prettiest desserts I've ever made. Turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself.

The tart was a recipe I found on the Taste of Home website and the others were pretty basic ones I've made over the years from family recipes. If anyone would like a recipe, just let me know. This was probably our funnest part of 4th of July weekend, what was yours?