Sergio has grown up!

Semi-Homemade pasta sauce recipe!

I’ve never really been the type to make homemade pasta sauce.  That was also before I had about a million Roma tomatoes in my garden!  Since I had so many tomatoes, I decided to venture into the waters of homemade sauce making.

I imagined myself adding different spices together until I came out with the perfect pasta sauce.

In reality, I bought a pasta sauce seasoning packet at the grocery store.  It’s the same thing, right?!  Haha!

One thing I didn’t realize was that it takes a lot of tomatoes to make a sauce.  The first time I made tried to make a pasta sauce, I used 14 Roma tomatoes & came out with 2 small jars of sauce.

Happy Saturday!

Here’s some of the links I’ve been loving this week:

- Frozen Pumpkin Pie – Pumpkin pie with gelato?  Sounds awesome to me!

- Cabbage, Sausage and Potato Soup – I want to start making homemade soups & this looks like a good starting place!

- Easy Lasagna Soup – Here’s another soup recipe I can’t wait to try!

- No-Bake Greek Yogurt Vanilla Espresso Cheesecake – I can never say no to cheesecake!

- 15 Magnificent Fall Porch Ideas – I’ve already decorated for fall, but I could always use more ideas!

- Turning A Tiny Cottage Into A Two-Story Modern Farmhouse – What an amazing transformation!

- S’mores Earthquake Cake – How delicious does this look?!

- September Sangria – I love sangria anyway, but this looks great!

- Spiced Pear Moscow Mule – BRB, going to pick the last of my parents’ pears!

- Honeycrisp Apple Pandowdy – This looks like fall!

- Maple Cream Cheese Frosting – An easy & delicious frosting!

- Hot Chocolate and Toasted Marshmallow Pots de Crème – This looks beyond dreamy!

- Easy Buckeye Bark Recipe – This is everything!

Have a great weekend!

My parents always plant a huge garden! 

Here’s a peek at what they grew this year:

It’s never too early to plan for the garden!

Alright, so maybe it is too early, considering we have about 8 months before anything can actually be planted outside!

The only reason I’m even entertaining the idea of next year’s garden is because of a yard sale.

You see, I have this thing where if I find a good deal at a yard sale, I just can’t pass it up.  It doesn’t matter if I’ll use the stuff a year from now or maybe not even if all:  if it’s a bargain, I’m all over it.

It just so happened that I found a ton of seeds & planters for a bargain basement price in a large garage in August.

It didn’t matter that these seeds are not what I would have normally chosen for a garden.  They were super cheap & I had to have them!

Let’s take a look at what I bought:

Perennials!

I’ve been on the lookout for perennials to plant somewhere on our property.  Of course by ‘on the lookout’, I mean I saw them at the sale with the words ‘perennial’ written on the tag & I had to have them!  I have a pretty decent idea of where I want to put them, but nothing is rooted down yet!  Haha!

These aren’t something I probably would have chosen if I had a larger selection, but they’ll work.  Flowers that keep coming year after year without a lot of care?  I’m all about that!  Hopefully, they’ll make me look good because I’m really good at keeping flowers alive!

Annuals!

I just got done saying that I’m not a good candidate for keeping flowers alive, but here I am with the annuals!  I only got a few packets so I figured I could probably keep them alive.  One of the packets is sunflowers, which is a toss up for me.  I actually planted sunflowers from plants our neighbors gave us & they disappeared!  But, I had some sunflower seeds in the bird feed I had out & they turned into sunflowers, so I would consider that a success, even if I didn’t have anything to do with it!

Herbs!

I daydream about having a perfect herb garden & using fresh herbs while cooking.  Of course, I never use fresh herbs while cooking, but that’s beside the point!  I’m going to give these a go in the spring & see what happens.

Squash!

To be honest, I’m not a huge fan of baking with squash, but it’s so ridiculously easy to grow that I had to buy the seeds.  I’ll definitely be on Pinterest trying to find squash recipes!

Watermelon!

Watermelon was one of those things that I wished I grew this year.  I just didn’t have the space for it, but I’ll be making space next year!  My husband said watermelon are difficult to grow, so we’ll see if they produce anything!

Tomatoes!

I had good luck when it came to growing tomatoes this year, so I’m hoping for a repeat next year!  I got a couple different varieties so I’m anxious to see what will happen!

Carrots!

I don’t know anything about growing carrots, but I’m going to try them!

Peas!

Again, these are something I wouldn’t normally pick out, but I’m excited about growing them!

Onions!

I actually don’t even like green onions!  I think they’re easy to grow, though, so I’m going to give them a try!  Maybe I’ll learn to love them?  Probably not!

Beans!

I like fresh green beans, so I can’t wait for these to grow!

A lot of these veggies are things I wouldn’t have normally chosen for my garden, but I’m excited to try to grow new things!  Of course, I’ll probably add a million more things to the garden (SWEET CORN!), but this is a good start!

Welcome to garden week here at On The Creek!

I honestly didn’t plan it this way, but I have a couple gardening related posts that I’ve grouped together to make an entire week full of gardening stuff!  I figured I should just get all of the gardening talk out of the way so I won’t have to mention it again until next May!

Today, we’re kicking things off with an in depth look at my own garden!

(In case you missed it, here’s the Garden Tour, July Update & August Update!  Also, here’s my Ultimate Stevia Guide!)

I would say that our first ever garden was a success!

Happy weekend!

Here are the links I’ve been loving this week:

- Plan Your Leaf Peeping: Here's When Fall Foliage Will Peak Across The US – I love this!  There’s even an interactive map!

- 10 Amazing Cleaning Hacks – I love these cleaning hacks!  There are so many links to cleaning tips too!

- How To Make Your Home Look 10 Times Better in 10 Minutes Or Less – Quick & easy cleaning tricks!

- Tropical Mimosa Smoothie – What a cool treat!

- Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes With Avocado Fudge Frosting – I made these the other day without the avocado frosting & they were delicious!

- Vegan Peanut Butter Caramel Chocolate Cheesecake – This looks so good!

- Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cookie Cups – Chocolate chips for breakfast are always a good idea!

- Tropical Rosé Sangria – The perfect drink if you’re still clinging to summer like I am!

- 4 Tips for Making the Best Cinnamon Rolls Ever – This is an addition to the the cinnamon rolls I put on my ‘link love’ last week!

- Double Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread – A good way to use up the overabundance of zucchini that I have!

- Long Island Iced Tea – You can’t go wrong with a Long Island Iced Tea

- A Dilapidated Old Church Becomes a Happy Vibrant Home – This house is beautiful!

- DIY Apple Pie Tea Light Candles – These are the cutest!

I’m so excited for the new releases on Netflix this month!

Two words:  Disney!  Movies!

Specifically…Beauty and the Beast!

I’m a huge fan of Disney movies & can’t wait to watch my favorites!  Aside from the Disney extravaganza coming to TV screens everywhere, there are also a few movies & shows that I can’t wait to watch!

Here are my picks:

Happy Labor Day!

I’m sad this is the unofficial end of summer, but I’m looking forward to everything autumn!  Bring on the corn stalks, pumpkins & apple cider!

Before I go full speed ahead into fall, I thought I’d share some of my favorite posts I wrote this summer!  There’s still a little time left to soak up the sun!

- The App That Will Make Your Road Trips Epic – We’re planning on hitting the road next week & I’ll definitely be using this app!  Give me all the weird attractions!

- Summer Punch – Before we head into the holidays with the traditional punch, I’m planning on giving this pretty drink a last hurrah!

- How To Have An Epic Summer – How’s your summer bucket list coming?  Mine is dismal, but there’s still time to catch up!

- Summer Wreath – I currently have that wreath proudly displayed outside.  This reminded me to take it down before I get into fall decorating!

- 10 Drinks To Make This Summer – I still need to make these!  I’ve been drinking premixed Margaritas this summer!  So embarrassing!

- Pineapple Upside Down Cake – This is delicious any time of the year, but especially in the summer!

- Summer Potluck Ideas – I actually only attended one potluck this season & I didn’t bring anything!  Better luck next year?!

I’m off to get my summer on!

Happy Sunday & Labor Day weekend!

What are you up to during this holiday weekend?

Our dog had surgery on Wednesday, so we're been at home with him for most of the weekend.  He's recovering well, but we want to keep an eye on him.  I'm working on a full post for later this month that will explain the entire ordeal we've been going through with him over the past couple months.  I know I've been fairly vague on what's been going on so hopefully that post will explain more!

Here are the links I’ve been loving this week:

August was a slow month for blog posts!

Things with our dog were crazy & unpredictable so I spent a lot of time taking him to vet appointments & trying to calm him down.  That didn’t leave a lot of time for blogging.  I tried to make up for it at the end of the month, when things calmed down a little.  I’ve been super productive lately & have a few September posts already written out!  If things get crazy again, I’ll be ready!

Here’s what was on the blog in August: