Baking with Blondie

My Father-in-law has a peach tree that would knock your socks off.  I grew up thinking that peaches were an every-other-year kind of thing, but it turns out, there are peach trees out there that explode with a zillion peaches every. single. year. Lucky for us, his tree is one of them.  Each year, starting in the middle of August, through the beginning of September, that peach tree won't shut off it's magic. We always try to eat up those peaches as quickly as we can, because we know another bushel of peaches is most likely on it's way.  Some of our favorite ways we've used up the peaches have been: Peach Crumble Bars  Peach Almond Cake with Peach Soaking Syrup 5 Star Peach Crumble  Rustic Peach and Ginger Galette  White Chocolate Peach Ice Cream Cinnamon Peach Ice Cream His & Her Sunrise Peach Smoothies Roasted Peach Lemonade So we've been around the block before with these beauties. It's about time I share my favorite w

For me, nothing tastes like Fall more than those gorgeous flavors of cloves, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, and nutmeg. They smell like Fall, they taste like Fall.  Throw them into a pie with fresh-off-the-tree juicy ripe peaches? I mean, holy smokes.  But all the lovely Fall spices and juicy peaches in the world wouldn't be worth it unless you had a perfect bed of flaky, buttery, pie crust to go with it. Which is why I have come to you today, friends, with a secret little gem of mine... I've kept this recipe to myself for 7 years, and today, it's all yours. I want you all to be successful in the kitchen, and make the best pies of your life, and sometimes all you need is a dynamite sure-fire recipe. 

I remember being asked quite often when I was a little girl what my favorite color was. From preschool through 6th grade, I was thoroughly convinced it was blue. My eyes are blue, my blue crayons were always used up the fastest, I loved blue dresses and clothing, and I loved drawing myself with a blue bow in my hair.  Later, my favorite color merged to black. I LOVED black. I was fully soaked in my music, and the most professional thing we wore was our "concert black". I felt my best in black (not in a gothic-dark-stuff way), just in a holy-smokes-my-closet-is-half-black-shirts kind of way.  Fast forward to my married life. I started to grow what little garden I could fit into my balcony pots. I loved to see everything grow. I grew to appreciate the life of a seed and it's journey to full planthood. I loved the deep dark greens, the neon yellow greens, and the gorgeous richness of the fruits they brought forth for us to eat. I grew to adore the magic of thing

Utah has started to throw in more and more thunderstorms here in the valley. From our balcony, we can usually see if one is rolling it's way in from the south. It starts pretty small, a couple of dark clouds here and there, and eventually it roars into this huge thunderstorm that makes our dry crusted little desert surroundings jump for joy from the impending torrential downpour headed it's way. We LOVE it. It gives me an excuse in the heat of the summer to fling open the windows and balcony doors, and turn on the oven for a little overcast baking. 

Yep. Another recipe attempt at proving zucchini can work in any way, shape, or form, and you know what? This veggie has been working overtime in my kitchen for the cause. Thankfully, soup is kind of the easiest medium there is, and I was able to create this recipe on the fly, using up not one, not two, but three  of those lovely veggies begging to be used from my garden.  Usually when I hear of people using up zucchinis from the garden in mass quantities, I hear the words chocolate zucchini bread fly out of their mouths at the drop of a hat. In my opinion, chocolate and veggies together kind of makes me angry at the universe. I'm not saying zucchini bread is gross, just chocolate zucchini bread. I bet there are recipe out there that totally rock, but this gal isn't going for it.  It's kind of like making me eat pickles. Everyone and their dog loves it, but darn it, it 'aint happening in the blondie kitchen for a second.  Now that I've lost half

Soup in the summertime. You must think I've officially lost my marbles. Nope.  When you have summer squash and zucchini flying out of the garden, you've got to find a way to use up as many as you can in one dish to keep up! Soup is a delicious and super efficient way to knock down a few of those veggie giants sitting on your counter or out in the garden. If you don't have either of those going on right now, I'm sure they're super cheap at the grocery store or local farmers market.  Once again, though, I'm faced with the constant challenge of a husband and son who  can't stand  this stuff. They won't eat the zucchini or yellow squash if they had the choice. I remember my husband even saying that squash and zucchini were  weeds.  Yes, weeds.  Good grief, man. America is weeping.  Fortunately, something called cream and bacon can easily bribe these dear men in my life. 

Okay, guys. It's the beginning of a brand new week. What's on your plate? Busy week ahead?  One question: Do you customize your dinnertime meals to fit those plans? I have done this since we got married almost 7 years ago, and it has made such a huge difference in getting a great dinner on the table =no matter how busy things get.  I do one grocery run a week. Just one. So I know that when I do that one trip to the store, I've got to fill my pantry and fridge with every ingredient I'm going to need to make the 6 meals until the next grocery day (we do Papa Murphy's $5 Pizza every Friday night). Before I plan out that grocery list, I look over my schedule. How many nights are swamped? How many are mostly free? This always determines what meal I'll make that day for dinner, and what ingredients I plan to purchase to prepare those meals.  If it's going to be a super-busy night, I try to plan a meal that's either in the slow cooker, or very

I know. I know. The world doesn't need another green smoothie recipe. But let me tell you this - I've tried a bunch of different ones since I started on the craze last December. Some have been super-loaded with all kinds of boosts-of-awesome, health-soaked-super-foods, and pumpin'-and-packin'-all-the-protein-you-can-physically-cram-in-the-blender varieties. They've mostly all been alright; some have been the grainiest glasses of nast I've ever chocked down, and some have been a little too sweet for breakfast. But let me tell you right here, guys, this is my go-to. I crave this glass of green when I wake up every morning, and the ingredients are always the first on my grocery list. I can't go without it. A lot of tweaking has gone into this glass. When I can have the same glass of green nearly three months straight in the morning, and still crave it, you know it's going to be a good one. 

Ryan and I have gotten in the habit of going to the park a couple times a week. Right after he gets home from work, I load up our dinner, a picnic blanket, and a frisbee and we head over to the park. There are dozens within short driving distance, so we usually let our son pick which one he wants to go to. He doesn't call any of the parks by their normal names, but has given them all nicknames by what he remembers most about them. We end up going to parks named "the blue park!" "the new park!" "the sky park!" and so on. It's been so wonderful to just sit on a blanket and eat dinner together as a family, and enjoy the last month or so of the gorgeous summer weather.  Ry called me on the way home one day, and said he wanted to do our park picnic that evening. I had already made dinner, so we just packed everything up and headed straight for the park. These lettuce wraps were PERFECT to eat at the park as a family; kind of fun, actually. We lo

Today's recipe is one of my favorites. I love recipes that combine the warm with the cold (brownies and ice cream, for instance, is one of my go-to desserts for guests because it's just so darn tasty). Baked Alaska is really fun to eat because of all the textures you can sink your teeth into. First, you usually have a cake layer, and ice cream layer, and a cookie layer; all smothered in a thick layer of toasted meringue. For this version of baked Alaska, I pumped up the " easy"  by cutting out the cake layer and doubling up the cookie layer.