peach sauce with raspberries

These were the Barefoot Contessa Banana & Sour Cream pancakes minus the bananas. The whole reason I made them was to try out the idea I got from this post on a friend's blog. It was actually a post about pancakes, but she mentioned pureeing a can of peaches to top them and I thought it sounded delicious.

I used canned peaches in juice, and when I tasted it I wanted it sweeter so I ended up adding some agave. I think if you used peaches in light syrup that would help, but I'll probably just stick to adding a little agave.

And then I happened to have some raspberries so I figured why not add those. The picture kind of looks like I just spilled orange juice on my plate, but it really was good.

breakfast for dinner

Sometimes we have breakfast for dinner. Usually when I haven't started dinner or planned something or realize there is no food in the house cause I didn't go shopping. Usually it's something like pancakes or waffles, maybe even french toast. Tonight I actually planned to make breakfast for dinner. We had eggs and "home fried potatoes." My mom used to make this with left over boiled potatoes so really there's no recipe, you just kind of wing it. But I did found something like it in a cookbook and discovered a good way to prep the potatoes when not using left overs.

Fried Potato Cubes

(tonight's version included:)

3 potoatos, peeled cubed

1/3 ? onion diced

1/2 bell pepper

Salt & Pepper

butter

chopped dill to taste (I had some in the freezer from another time)

Place potatoes in pot of water and bring to a boil and then continue to boil for 1 min; drain. Heat butter in large skillet. Add potatoes, onions, bell pepper, salt and pepper. Cook 10-15 min until browned, turning with a spatula (wait 5 minutes before turning them so they can brown). Add dill at the end.

Basket Cake

Here is my 'grand finale' for the second Wilton cake course. We made different flowers each week out of royal icing (which is pretty much just sugar, so it hardens and stores for years) and then on the last day we iced the cake and placed the flowers. I think I need to work on mixing and matching frosting colors. Also the white butter cream icing on the cake is a bit more like 'cream' or 'egg shell' because I didn't feel like buying the 'no color' vanilla (why buy something when I already have vanilla at home). It's not really noticeable except when I put the white royal frosting flowers on it. Then is looks kind of off. :P Oh well.

(I like it better without the birds.)

Gurken

Cucumbers taste like summer to me. I think when I was little I didn't like these pickled cucumbers my mother would always make for 'midsommers' along with the Swedish Meatballs. It's hard to remember exactly though because I love them so much now it seems weird to imagine ever not liking them. Now whenever English (hot house or seedless) cucumbers go on sale I always buy a few and use one of them to make this recipe. It's definitely one of my comfort foods.

Pickled Cucumbers

(this is the recipe the way my mother gave it to me, I'm not sure why it only uses half the cucumber, I always just double it and put the whole thing in)

1/2 cup water

4 Tablespoons Vinegar

2 Tablespoons Sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/8-1/4 teaspoon pepper

fresh chopped parsley (I just used dried parsley flakes this time)

1/2 cucumber, very thinly sliced (I use the cheese slicer)

Mix together first ingredients then add cucumbers. Cover and let sit at least over night.

Sprinkles Cupcakes

These lovelies cost over $3 each! But they were certainly yummy. I wouldn't spend that much on cupcakes very often (seriously, that's probably even an overstatement... or understatement? anyway, you know what I mean.), but it was a special occasion (Sabrina was visiting!) and I thought I should show her what this cupcake craze is all about. Clock-wise (starting with the dot sprinkle): Chocolate Marshmallow ("It's like a glorified Hostess Cupcake."), Dark Chocolate, Vanilla, and (my favorite) Coconut.

Challa French Toast

While Sabrina was visiting we tried this Barefoot Contessa recipe for french toast. Mmm... It was delicious. We found the Challa bread on our trip to Trader Joe's (Sabrina went crazy buying stuff to take back home). The bread totally made it so rich. I can't decide if I like this (with the orange flavor) better than regular cinnamon french toast it was that good. Anyway, if you can find some Challa or Brioche you should make this.

Tequila Lime Chicken (minus the Tequila)

For a (late) Cinco de Mayo celebration I made this Taquila Lime Chicken Recipe from the Barefoot Contessa cookbook. Mmmm, I love lime so I couldn't resist. Only I didn't use tequila. I didn't feel like buying tequila so I just decided to use lemon-lime soda instead. It was really yummy, but once again I forgot to take a picture.

(I made it on the grill so it had this great, uh, grilled flavor. Only problem was it took me like an hour to cook it on the community grill cause I had no idea what I was doing. I've only used that thing twice.)

• 
  

oven roasted carrots

Here's another example of roasted veggies. Just drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and roast for 20-40 minutes (depending on thickness).

My daughter said they were "too spicy" (the pepper) so my husband and I ate these and I made some more- steamed- for the kids which they gobbled up.