Cooking frenzy

This summer I have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of cooking various things..and as Brett knows, I hardly ever make the same thing with the same ingredients twice.  I have had some good, great, and some ugly results, but mostly good. :)  Thank goodness we have the internet because I can just type in some of the ingredients I have on hand and find a recipe that will use up those foods.  Lately I have been trying my hand at freezer jams and I just made some fresh blackberry jam that turned out great.  There is an abundance of places to go pick blackberries around here so I convinced Brett to go with me to pick some berries.  Today I am going to make some jalenpeno jelly with some peppers that someone brought to the chuch.   I don't have a canner so I have been stuck with freezing jams and veggies but usually I don't have enough produce to warrant canning so this works out great.
A new venture for me this past week was cooking for 17 by myself.  Summer is the only time Brett and I can have big groups over because our house is to small for any more than about 6-8 people.  So last Saturday I made a veggie tray and artichoke/spinach dip (that went over great) for appetizers.  We also served a strawberry spinach salad, roasted mix veggies (zuchinni, yellow squash, mushrooms, and grean beans), grilled tritip, and salmon pasta.  Dessert consisted of a triple berry crisp, chocolate peanut butter brownies, and vanilla icecream.  I enjoyed making all of the food although it took practically all day to prepare stuff. Brett was helpful and did a lot of chopping and washed dishes!

Update on house hunting:  We are still looking.  The bank owned house we put an offer on didn't go anywhere because the bank did not budge on the price.  We will continue looking and maybe the bank will get a bit more desperate!