Zucchini-Cheese Galette & Peach Bread

Saturday at the farmer's market we got some peaches to turn into jam. We ended up with more than we needed so Monday I used some in a quick bread recipe I found on A Life Less Sweet. The bread tastes great and comes together so easily (I guess that's likely a requirement for quick breads?!). I used only peaches for fruit, no nuts, white flour, less sugar, and flaxseed.

Monday morning the kids and I ventured out to our garden and discovered something that had obviously eluded me the entire last week. I thought our squash plants were done, finished, through, and when I went to start pulling up some of the moldy and dead leaves on our zucchini plant, I discovered this gargantuan beauty. I definitely should have found a ruler to put by it. The picture doesn't do it justice at all! Jacob was thrilled to say the least, though in the middle of our cheering session out by our garden plot he did say something about how he grew a big cucumber in our garden so I had to correct him.

Now was my chance to make something I'd seen on Smitten Kitchen several weeks ago, and boy was I excited. I had even told Jacob about it a while back and when I reminded him about the galette yesterday he was also looking forward to an excellent supper. I used cottage cheese instead of ricotta since I don't buy that stuff (a little pricier than the $1 tubs of cottage cheese at kroger!), and we were out of mozzarella due to lots of recent pizza making with ourselves and with visitors so I used cheddar instead. I thought this tasted so great. Jacob was thankful for galette in a few prayers last night (but more thankful for the Snoopy fruit snacks that Grandma sent). I have more than half of my giant zucchini left and plan on using it for something else soon...if you have an out of the box idea for me, leave it in the comments!

TWD: Oatmeal Spice Shortbreads

I loved the simplicity of these shortbreads. And as a bonus, they were perfect to deliver to a friend tonight, with whom I had already planned on visiting, since her son is allergic to eggs! I love old-fashioned oats, their texture was just so perfect in these little bites of buttery goodness. Please visit Donna's blog, Life's Too Short Not to Eat Dessert First to have a look at the recipe. Thanks to Donna for an excellent choice for this week!

Since I'm not an espresso drinker or user, I can't vouch for the actual recipe, but the delicious version Dorie included in the "Playing Around" section was fabulous. My house smelled so lovely this afternoon while I was mixing up the spices with the flour and of course while the shortbread was baking. I was also delighted in the middle of my clean-up process to realize that I did not need to wash my rolling pin since it never touched the dough while it was in the bag. Splendid!

I wanted to try some with cream cheese and a little peach slice on top. For some reason that sounded good in my head, maybe I'll give it a go at breakfast tomorrow.

Happy baking, and stick around for a couple more posts about how I've been using some of summer's bounty the last couple of days. I'm so looking forward to September's fare for Tuesdays With Dorie:

• Peanut Butter Crisscrosses
• Cranberry Upside-Downer
• Coffee-Break Muffins (I'll be making these with something else, maybe milk, instead of coffee and espresso)
• Tarte Fine (this will be my first experience with using puff pastry! And, in true Dorie style, she encourages bakers to scout out an all butter option. It doesn't surprise me at all that she and a certain Julia were good friends! Butter has a nice way of binding people together, perhaps literally and figuratively.)

"Rebecca has tails!"

The subject comes from Jacob's reaction to Rebecca's first set of pigtails this morning. She had a hat on for so much of her life that I never even really put bows in her hair so I was glad I finally remembered to get little hair ties at the store last night. If I can be good at this "doing hair" thing, this should be kind of fun as the years go on. The pictures aren't that great, but hopefully you can see her tiny tails. She doesn't have much hair just yet, which might be good: I have a while to learn how to French braid so that gives me something to work up to.

Jacob Makes Supper

Last Sunday Jacob found my dated copy of the Mickey Mouse Cookbook and said we should make something out of it. It was right before bedtime, so I told him he could pick something to make on Monday. Right before naptime we pored over the whole book together, with Jacob commenting mostly on the names of a couple characters he knew and asking who the others were, and asking about the recipes. In the end he decided to make Archimedes' Meat Loaf, Daisy's Baked Potatoes, and broccoli. I didn't get any pictures of him putting the meatloaf and potatoes in the oven with me, but that may have been one of his favorite parts of making dinner. But here's how the rest of dinner prep went down:

Mis en place!

Hands washed, apron on, and ready to go! He enjoyed beating the egg a bit but thought it was sauce at first. We eat eggs all the time but I guess he'd never seen one just hanging out in a bowl before.

breadcrumbs and herbs and garlic and onion

salt

ketchup

Mixing it all up after he dumped the hamburger in. He wasn't convinced using his hands would be okay until I did it.

• J: "Mommy! You're all dirty on your fingers!"
• Mom: "That's okay, I'll be sure to wash my hands in a minute or two."
• J: "Oh, I want to get my hands in the hangumer. I do! I do!"

Ready to bake!

A little dark around the edges due to baking it in our darker pan, but it was very tasty nonetheless! He was so excited to share what he made with the family.

And here is the little chef yesterday, heading outside to eat some of mom's leftover Primary smarties at his new picnic table. I figured I better post another picture of him sporting one of Jeff's fancy new ties. He loved that the tie had blue in it, just like his blue shirt.

TWD: Crunchy and Custardy Peach Tart

I'm a week late on this post, unfortunately. I was so excited about this tart and spent a lot of time last Monday preparing all of its different parts. If you are one of those people who keeps a partially baked tart shell in the freezer, this will come together pretty quickly. But I am not one of those people. I also am not one of those people who has a food processor, so I think I overworked my tart dough by a lot even before I put it in my extra hot oven to nearly burn the edges. The peaches were to be arranged in a spoke-like fashion around the center peach but my peaches were a little too big so I just did what you see above instead. I think the custard bakes better when the peaches aren't all layered together like how I had them, so I'll keep that in mind next time and use smaller peaches (and peaches that are a bit more ripe!). I don't want to sound complainy, but I was a little let down after all my work. I think next time I make any kind of tart I will borrow a food processor so I can at least get the pastry to come together better. I do love how pretty these tarts turned out for the other TWD bakers last week and here's hoping my next one is a little better! Thanks to Rachel for her excellent summer recipe pick! Visit her blog sweet tarte to get the recipe if you're interested in making this. Happy baking!

A few things

I just wanted to post a few pictures, and write a few little things about a few interesting things that have gone on recently. First, my brother, Mark, recently sent a snake skin. It all started when I asked him to send me a whole snake so I could preserve it and put it on my desk as a conversation piece. He saw one while fishing, and called me at work as he had it pinned down with a stick to ask if I was serious. After we determined we needed better plans for how to send the whole snake, he shot it (while still on the phone) with the little piston shotgun I am loaning him, skinned it, packed it in salt, and sent it to me. I cleaned it off a bit, and dried. It is a pretty cool little rattlesnake skin. This is, by the way, the same brother that was nearly killed several weeks back by a mountain lion (when he was hunting coyotes). The lion was literally jumping at him, when he shot it in the chest, and killed it. Rebecca has been sick recently. Here she is wallowing in her misery, and eating one of Jacob's potty prizes. We went to some yard sales yesterday, and I got 5 ties for a dollar. They are amazingly amazing ties. Here, Jacob and I show two of them off. Jacob actually wore this one to church, tied exactly like this. Kids today, and the things they wear. Yesterday we went out and got a few pallets (after yard saling and getting some peaches to make jam with). I made this picnic table out of them. It is a pretty rough little table--all I did was cut the pallets a bit, and screw them together. However, I am pretty proud of it. It is pretty close to the only useful thing I have done in several weeks (although, all said, neither of the kids even wanted to eat at it for dinner yesterday).

TWD: Oatmeal Breakfast Bread

Here, have a bite!

Oh, I was teasing. This is my piece!

I made this bread Monday night and divided the batter into 4 smaller loaf pans. And I deemed this very worthy of sharing with others, so we did just that and delivered a couple loaves to friends this morning! Many thanks to Natalie of Oven Love for her choice this week. She baked hers into muffins, and I think that might be how I go about making this next time. This was a very filling bread. My kids loved it, my husband thought it was pretty good, and I was also a fan. I guess that's 7 or 8 thumbs up from the 4 of us.

I went outside to snap some pictures in the nice sunny light of morning today and my son followed me out there to tell me how much he was enjoying his breakfast.

And lest anyone think we are only all about eating treats around here, the kids also continue to eat & love their vegetables, especially ones from our garden!

Kroger giveaway winner!

Congratulations to Shae, winner of the $25 gift card to Kroger! I'll be emailing you today to get your address. Happy Shopping, everyone! Sorry for the delay in posting the winner!

TWD: Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream

True to my word in last night's post about the Gingered Carrot Cookies, I enjoyed a couple bites of this amazing ice cream in this way today:

I had to put more on for the picture but I really did just have a small taste. I liked this better than any other chocolate ice cream I've ever had. My dad definitely needs to try making this; he loves chocolate ice cream! I did a mix of bittersweet and semi-sweet chocolate for the ganache and only made half a recipe. I haven't decided if halving was a good thing or a bad thing yet.

Many, many sweet thanks to Katrina for her choice this week. PLEASE visit her site for the recipe. PLEASE. I'd love to make this again, perhaps adding something minty or fudgy or marshmallowey. It would work very well in my new popsicle molds I got for my birthday last week as well!

Visit the Leave Your Link post at Tuesdays with Dorie to see other versions of this same recipe! Happy Baking!

TWD: Gingered Carrot Cookies

I made these a few days late last week and enjoyed them. Jacob thought it was fun to eat carrot and raisin cookies. I think next time I would try tweaking the recipe a bit to see if I could put applesauce or pumpkin in them instead of butter - it would just make it so much healthier, but it might be better if it were a muffin instead. In any event, sorry to be late to the posting party, and many thanks to Natalia for her excellent choice!

Such a pretty cookie; I love how the ginger made them a little yellow and the flecks of carrot were appealing as well! I took the picture on a picnic table at the splash park we went to on Saturday. Jacob kept eating so many of them I figured I had to take a picture quickly.

Stay tuned for tomorrow, when I post about Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream. The custard has been cooling in the fridge tonight so I'll churn it on Tuesday morning and likely have some with breakfast. I never had ice cream on waffles until it was offered at my in-laws' home for breakfast, and now I've enjoyed it several times with Jeff's family. Delish! :)

Giveaway: $25 Kroger Gift Card

Because it's a new week it should be no surprise that Kroger is having another Mega Event in their family of stores from August 8th-21st. These big sales always seem to be going on, but this time there is an added bonus: the things you buy and save money on will help you earn money for the school of your choice!

Stocking up on your favorite General Mills and Kimberly-Clark products during this sale will translate to the following: when you purchase 8 participating items you will receive $4 off your order, and if you register your Kroger shopping card at www.RewardYourSchool.com you can receive 10 box tops for purchasing 4 participating Box Tops items or 25 box tops for purchasing 8 items. The extra box tops will automatically be donated to the school of your choice, so be sure to scan your card when you're checking out!

I received a $25 Kroger gift card and plan to use it this week when I head to the store, probably on Tuesday. Many thanks to General Mills, Kroger, and Kimberly-Clark via My Blog Spark for the info about this sale and for the gift card.

One of you can win a gift card this week! (It will likely not reach you in time to be used with this sale, just so you're aware!) Let's keep Friday the 13th from being unlucky, and leave a comment telling me your favorite participating item included in this sale. Check Kroger.com to find the ad for your area! I'll choose a winner Friday around 1 PM Eastern time!

My items of choice will probably be the Bumble Bee tuna fish and some Quaker Rice Cakes!

Stars

Jacob is in the process of potty-training. In the step between regular underpants and diapers, he wears a pull-up. The particular kind of pull-up we have little stars on the front, and when the pull-up gets damp from the inside (soggy, as Jacob would say), the stars on the outside disappear. Jacob is trying very hard to keep the stars there throughout the whole day. If he does, he earns a potty-prize, a car from a 6 pack of cars obtained from the dollar store. He occasionally earns potty prizes. Stacey and I want for him very much to earn the prizes, and we (especially Stacey) take him to the bathroom every time we think he may need to go to prevent the loss of stars. However, he is easily distract by play, and can sometimes lose his focus, and lose sight of the prize, and for all Stacey and I can do, loses his stars. Today, Jacob and I started the day talking about what he would have to do to earn a potty prize. I reminded him, and he repeated several times to me, that if he needs to go potty, he needs to tell mom or dad. I also reminded him of the challenge of a Sunday—if he needs to go potty during nursery time, he has to tell the people there to come get Stacey or me so he can go to the bathroom. This is all a great challenge to a 35 month old little boy who loves so much to play and can get very enveloped in doing so. Today, Jacob stayed dry all this morning. He stayed dry during all of nursery. He was well on his way to earning a potty prize. If he could just control his bladder, pay attention, and maintain his stars, the promise his parents had given him would be fulfilled, and he would have a new car to add to his burgeoning collection. Shortly after dinner, Jacob emerged from the basement, and it was apparent the stars were gone. He had lost the prize. Stacey asked if he had gone potty downstairs, and asked about the stars, and Jacob started crying. He knew what he had done, knew the consequence, but wanted so much to have the prize. He begged for Stacey to put the stars back on. With true sorrow, she looked at him, knowing she could not put the stars back. The deed bad been done. He cried and pleaded for her to return the stars to the front of his pull-up. But, she couldn’t. The stars were gone and the prize was lost. In life, we all lose our stars every now and again. We get distracted while at play. In the end, we never deserve a prize. I am so grateful for a Savior more powerful than Stacey—a loving being who has earned the capacity to return our stars, and help us win the prize.

Classic Posts

Today I'm channeling Pioneer Woman and other fancy bloggers who make posts that basically say, "I have great posts, just check the archives, here are some links!" Here are a few oldies but goodies from our blog, with all but one being written by Jeff:

The Thneed

Jacob Lamro

My Pen

Faith

Here's to Some Things

The Farm

TWD: Chewy, Chunky Blondies

I can't believe I forgot to take a picture of these. We even had some in the freezer for a few days after I baked them last week and I kept forgetting about snapping a quick photo. They didn't look as good as the photograph in Dorie's cookbook, but these are one tasty bar cookie. If you're familiar with Grandma's delicious Congo Squares recipe, this is like Congo Squares on steroids. They are amazing! I put walnuts in about half of the batter just to try them out and though I don't usually like nuts in baked goods, the walnuts added a nice depth to the flavor and I didn't mind the extra crunch. I went with the Heath toffee bits option so next time I might try the butterscotch chips to see if I like that as well. Please visit Nicole of Cookies on Friday for this simple and delicious recipe! And visit the TWD site to find out how others fared this week. Next week's choice is Gingered Carrot Cookies. Yum!

TWD: Lots of Ways Banana Cake

This week's pick from Dorie's cookbook was chosen by Kimberly of Only Creative Opportunities. As the recipe's title suggests, Dorie made this recipe really flexible. I chose to go with coconut in my cake with no other dried fruits and used a recipe for marshmallow frosting, also in the cookbook. The frosting came together really easily, as did the cake layers. I think next time I'll make cupcakes with some sort of chocolate frosting as that would be a tasty combination as well! Happy Baking! See you next week for Chewy, Chunky Blondies. I'm already excited to bake those, they sound delicious!

My pictures of the cut cake turned out terribly, so enjoy this nicer one of the whole cake! And please enjoy the kids sleeping and strollering in style: