Welcome fall to your porch or entryway this season with a charming autumnal display. If your stash of vintage decorations includes an antique ironing board and sad iron, this is the project. If not, finding either in an antique shop or flea market should be easy. Vintage wood ironing boards are much smaller than the clunky metal ones, making it ideal for decorating small spaces. And when you’re done, it folds up and stores easily too.  

 7 Decorative Ideas for a Vintage Fall Vignette Featuring an Antique Wood, Ironing Board.

• Foyer Table. An antique wood ironing board adds rustic charm when used in the foyer to welcome guests. Top with a fringed flannel square and a basket of mums or pumpkins. Using craft markers or paint, write “Welcome Fall” on the flat surface of a sad iron and sit upright on the table to complete the welcoming look.
• Beverage/Dessert Station. Serve mugs of apple cider on the porch or slices of pumpkin pie on an antique ironing board.
• Autumn Bounty. Decorate for the season at hand with gourds, pumpkins, bundles of Indian corn, sunflowers, and scarecrows.  As pictured above, an old nail barrel compliments the weathered wood of the ironing board, completing this vignette as a potted plant stand. Perfect for displaying that colorful potted mum.
• Portable Potting Table. An antique ironing board makes the perfect, portable potting bench too. With a vintage watering can, gloves, and a collection of cute plant containers, you can pot, and display your favorite autumn flowers: pansies, violas, chrysanthemums, coleus, ornamental kale, miniature hot peppers, or culinary herbs.
• Sofa/Library Table. Place the antique ironing table behind a sofa in the great room.  Stack several hardbound books, minus the jackets, an owl or crow figurine and a pottery vase filled with feathers or stems of fall foliage.
• Help Guests Go Nuts. Set a few nut crackers and pecans in the shell in a basket or tray in the center of the ironing board table, for guests to crack and enjoy at your next porch gathering.
• Welcome Fall Sign. If the legs of your antique ironing board aren’t sturdy, you can salvage the wood top. Use stencils and craft paint to adorn the surface with a colorful fall or Thanksgiving greeting. Display on a mantle, sideboard, wall or  easel.

Have you picked your favorite decorative fall idea? We’d love to see your creative fall display. If you decorate this fall using an antique ironing board, please share a picture in the comments here, or on our Facebook page.

        If your freezer seems like a chest of buried treasure that you have to dig through to find something to thaw and eat, you’re not alone. We rely heavily on the freezer to preserve most of our fresh foods. Not only is freezing foods quicker and easier to do than canning or drying, but it also locks in the freshness, flavor, and the nutrient content, provided you do it correctly. Keeping the faithful freezer organized, and cleaned out, however, can be a challenge.

To help you successfully freeze your favorite meats, seasonal fruits, and vegetables, we’ve put together a list of general freezer storage information.

1. Select quality, ripe produce to freeze. Preserve your bounty of fresh fruit or vegetables as soon as it ripens, and as close to harvest, as possible. Freezing preserves the quality, but doesn’t improve it.
2. Freeze food at 0°F or colder. Chest freezers are best to use for foods you will be freezing for months. The freezer compartment of a refrigerator isn’t as cold, so it is ideal for short term use – freezing foods you’ll be preparing within a month or two.
3. Always cool cooked meat, sauces, soups, and other foods before placing in the freezer.
4. Make sure containers used for freezing are durable, leak proof, and moisture-proof. Heavy plastic freezer bags, freezer boxes, and aluminum, plastic, or glass containers with a good seal are suitable. Glass canning jars can be used for freezing, just be sure to leave at least an inch headspace at the top of the jar to allow for normal expansion during freezing, so the glass won’t break.
5. Don’t skimp on freezer paper when wrapping meat. Double-wrap or double bag meat, especially meat with protruding bones, to prevent tears. Meat wrapped in butcher paper can be placed inside a plastic bag, and sealed for further protection.
6. Date and label content on food packages before freezing. Use the oldest packaged foods in the freezer first – “first in, first out.”
7. When placing multiple containers of food in the freezer leave enough space between each one for the cold air to circulate and freeze rapidly. Once frozen, organize and stack food packages as desired.

How Long Can You Freeze Foods?
While freezing preserves food, and stops bacterial growth, it doesn’t exempt food from taking a hit on flavor.  That’s why it’s good to follow these guidelines for how long to keep frozen foods. A general rule for freezing most foods is a maximum of 8 to 12 months. The National Center for Home Food Preservation offers this approximate list of freezer storage times, when the food has been properly prepared and packaged, and kept frozen at 0°F or below.
Note: This doesn’t mean the food will be unsafe to eat, but rather that it will lose flavor and texture. For best quality, they suggest using the shorter storage times:

Food                                                          Approx. # of months of storage at zero degrees F
Fruits and Vegetables                              8 to 12
Poultry                                                          6 to 10
Fish                                                                3 to 6
Ground Meat                                               3 to 4
Cured or Processed Meat                         1 to 2


Trouble Shooting Freezer Tip
Whether you buy produce from the local market or spend time growing an abundance of fruits or vegetables, you want to ensure the nutrients and garden-fresh flavor is retained throughout the freezing, thawing and cooking process.

Here's a helpful, expert tip:

"If your frozen vegetables are mushy, you may have blanched them too long. If they're mushy and they have big ice crystals on them, then they froze too slowly, due either to the fact that your freezer isn't cold enough or you packed them in too tightly when first freezing them," excerpt from the book, Stocking Up III, by Carole Hupping, and the staff of Rodale Food Center.


Don't Freeze These Foods
1.  Lettuce and salad greens, including raw celery and cucumbers lose their crispness and flavor when frozen due to their high moisture content. Store fresh salad greens in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator.

2.  Whole potatoes are best kept in a root cellar, unheated basement, or other cool, dry place, out of direct sunlight. Potatoes have a high water content and will become watery and mushy when frozen and then thawed.

3.   Milk loses its smooth, creamy consistency when frozen. Milk should only be frozen if you will be thawing and using it as an ingredient when cooking, not for drinking. Milk can be frozen in ice cube trays, then transferred to Ziplock bags, to use in place of ice when making blender smoothies, etc.

4.   Yogurt, regular and Greek becomes watery, and loses it thick, creamy consistency when placed in the freezer, and then thawed. Best eaten fresh.

5.  Sour cream, like the above dairy products does not maintain its thick, creamy texture or rich taste when frozen.

6.   Raw eggs frozen in the shell will expand and break the shell open, causing the eggs to ruin. Raw eggs can be frozen, after removing each egg from its shell and place it in the freezer container large enough for its liquid content to expand during the freezing process.

7.  Cooked pasta and rice becomes mushy when frozen and then thawed.

We freeze bags of fresh blueberries from our bountiful bushes.  What's going in your freezer this harvest season?

              Tomatoes are in season from early May to the end of October, depending on your location. That’s a great thing since there are so many delicious ways to enjoy this juicy, fruit of the vine, that we prepare as a vegetable. Only fresh, ripe tomatoes will do. There is no substitute when making this recipe. Tomato Spinach Quiche has been a summer favorite of ours for a decade. Fortunately, some things don’t change with time. I love it now just as much as I did at first bite, ten summers ago.

 A neighbor shared three hefty, freshly picked tomatoes with us this week, just enough to make this superb dish. So, I did. You should try it too. Head out to the garden or your local farmers’ market and grab several of these tasty treasures while they’re still in season.

Do you make your own pie crust? Too much trouble you think? Well, you’ll find this recipe super easy. No rolling pins or pastry cutter, and no trouble. You make this pie crust right in the pie or quiche pan. You can use your choice of flour and make it pretty if you wish. My version looks rustic, but passes the taste test. If you have pie pastry on hand, just skip down to the quiche recipe.

One-Pan Pie Pastry Recipe
A no-mess piecrust, make in the pie or quiche pan!

Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose, unbleached flour (*I use Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free, all-purpose baking flour mix made with garbanzo bean flour.)
¼ teaspoon sea salt
¼ cup olive oil or melted coconut oil
3 tablespoons water

Directions: Place the flour and sea salt in the pie or quiche pan. Measure the oil in a measuring cup and add the water. Beat with a fork to blend. Pour over the flour in the pan, and stir with a fork until thoroughly mixed. Add additional drops of water if mixture is too dry to form a dough. Press dough into shape against the pan and up the sides with your fingertips.
You do not need to bake this crust before filling with quiche ingredients.
 
Tomato Spinach Quiche Recipe
Ingredients:
Pie pastry, your choice or see above recipe
10-ounce pkg. frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
3-4 fresh tomatoes, sliced
Sea salt and basil, dash of each
½ to ¾ cups Sharp Cheddar cheese, grated
3 large eggs
1 cup cream
1 tablespoon all-purpose, unbleached flour (*The flour I use is noted above.)
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 teaspoon sea salt
½ teaspoon onion powder
¼ teaspoon black pepper
 
Directions:

1. Line a 10-inch quiche pan with a pie crust.
2. Thaw frozen spinach in a pan of water, drain and squeeze out any remaining liquid.
   
3. Spread spinach evenly across the pie pastry.
4. Slice fresh tomatoes, and arrange on top of the spinach.
5. Season tomatoes with a dash of sea salt and basil.
6. Sprinkle shredded sharp cheddar cheese on the tomatoes.
7. In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs, cream, flour and remaining seasonings.
8. Pour liquid mixture into pie pan.
9. Bake quiche at 375°F, for 30 to 40 minutes, until center is firm.

              Seashells evoke the essence of leisurely strolls along white sandy beaches, and the soothing sounds of waves breaking on the shore. Whether you collect seashells for this decorative project from the beach or buy them at the Dollar Tree store, you can add a splash of serenity at the seashore to your home all year long with this lovely topiary.

Seashell Topiary Decorative Craft Project

Materials List:

• 1 footed milk glass floral vase, 7-inches in height, or your container of choice
• White spray paint, flat or satin finish
• 1 straight tree branch, 8-inches long, 1-inch in diameter
• 1 Styrofoam Ball, 18-inches or 20-inches
• Glue sticks and glue gun
• Assortment of seashells
• Sheetrock joint compound (available at home improvement stores) or Plaster of Paris

 
Directions:

1. Cut a 1-inch diameter, tree branch 8-inches long.
   
2. Spray the cut branch, with only one light coat of white spray paint. This will allow some of the wood grain to remain visible, and should dry to a grayish, driftwood tint.
3. Insert one end of the branch 2 to 3-inches into the Styrofoam ball. Keep the perimeter of the hole in Styrofoam close to the size of the branch to prevent wobbling. Remove the cut branch and set aside.
   
4. Arrange and affix seashells to the Styrofoam ball using the glue gun and glue sticks.  Press and hold each shell briefly in place after gluing to ensure it adheres. Glue the shells close together, overlapping when necessary to cover the entire surface of the Styrofoam, except the hole made in the previous step.
5. To assemble the topiary, fill the footed vase with sheetrock compound. I use this product because it requires no mixing, it comes ready to use, right out of the bucket.
   
6. Place one end of the cut tree branch in the center of the vase, in the adhesive compound. Arrange loose, decorative shells atop the plaster in the vase, encircling the branch. Allow it to stand erect and set for several hours.
   
7. Once the compound has firmly set, place the seashell sphere on top of the stick. If it wobbles, fill the hole with some glue to secure it in place.
   

 
Do you decorate your home with seashells or other elements from nature?