So, what's in your crisper drawer?

We had some over-ripe nectarines and yet more red cherries. I couldn't possibly waste good fruit! And then I had an idea. A sticky idea. A mess, sticky, healthy(ish) dessert idea. So here we go...

Sara's Summer Throw-Together Cobbler
4 over-ripe nectarines, pitted and cut into small pieces
2 cups red cherries, pitted and cut in half
2 tbsp good Balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp honey (I use sugar free. It tastes fine.)
2 and 1/2 tsp good vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon plus 1/4 tsp to sprinkle on top
4 tbsp real salted butter (told you it was only healthyish)
1/8 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup Accidental Almond Granola (the cookie part of French Almond Cookies for macaron, crumbled into bits) or any granola, granola-based cereal, etc. A pack of instant cinnamon oatmeal would probably work too.
4 graham crackers, crushed into fine crumbs

Here's how it happens:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. 

• Pit and chop the fruit and add to a heavy bottom sauce pan. Begin a slow boil over medium high heat. You may want to start lower and turn up the temp as needed if you're dealing with a gas stove.

• Add the next four ingredients and bring to a bubbly boil uncovered for about 5 minutes. Even though these are summer fruits, your house will suddenly smell like Christmas. Bonus!
• Melt two tbsp of the butter in the bottom of a square glass baking dish. Add the remaining two tbsp of butter to the fruit mixture and stir until it melts. 
• Remove the fruit mixture from the heat source and mash gently with a potato masher.
  Pour into the baking dish. It will be thin enough to spread itself out evenly.
• Combine 1/2 cup of granola/almond cookie mixture and 1/8 cup of brown sugar. Spread mixture evenly over fruit in baking dish. Sprinkle with the remaining cinnamon.
• Place in the prepared oven for 20 minutes. Check to see if it's bubbling yet. Leave in oven for 15 more minutes for a combined 35 minutes of bake time. It should be bubbling from the bottom when you remove it from the oven. 
• Crush graham crackers in a Ziploc bag with a rolling pin. Separate crumbs into the bottom of four ungreased ceramic ramekins. If you don't have ramekins, place the graham crackers in the baking dish before pouring in the fruit. I prefer the crumbs not to be baked so that they retain some of their grainy crunch. 

• Separate the bubbling fruit mixture into the four ramekins. Enjoy! It's nice with Lady Grey tea. 

For all you neat freaks out there (cough, cough), you're going to want to soak the dishes as soon as you're finished serving/eating. This stuff turns to berry glue. Again, this was just a throw together dessert, so I wasn't really prepared. Next time, I'd love to have some vanilla ice cream on hand, Greek yogurt with a little honey or maybe throw some heavy whipping cream, vanilla and cinnamon in the stand mixer and make a fresh dollop of whipped cream to top off this brightly colored treat. Also, this would be good with LOTS of fruits and most certainly year round. I'm just glad to have found a constructive delicious way to clean out the fridge. 

This is the first recipe I've written down, so please feel free to make comments or suggestions. I've got a couple of more that I've just been winging, so be on the look-out for some more originals. I appreciate your editorial prowess.

Sweet (and maybe slightly spicy) Wishes,

Sara

Ten Minute Craft Time

I saw (on Pinterest, of course) a super cute wine cork keychain. Following the link to this Etsy page, I thought "Hey, I can do that!" (Or at least something like it.) Well, the danger in this thought - which I have often - is that it doesn't always turn out so well. Exhibit A: This braided hex nut bracelet, though super cute, was WAY harder than it looked. You've been warned.

I went though our rather large collection of wine and champagne corks saved over the last couple of years. A collection of memories...vacations, holidays, big events, group dinners and quiet evenings at home with a book. I sifted through the real and synthetic corks, pulling out the ones in bad shape/too dried out for recycling, and made sure to separate out and store the ones with writing on them from specific events. (The one from the day we got engaged is packed safely now.) Here's how it works, and how it turned out in the end...

A cork, #10 zinc plated screw-eyes and some sort of ring with a tag. A regular key ring will work too.

Center the screw in the undamaged end of the cork and turn it just like you would a cork screw. The threads on the screw keep the metal anchored in the cork. Twist the screw in until the eye part is tight up against the cork. I discovered at this point that you have a better chance of accuracy with synthetic corks. (Ecologically sound too :)

Attach the tag. I'll add a cute seasonally appropriate ribbon loop to the the ones that will be given as gifts and use the tiny tag as a To/From label. I've got quite a large bag of these going, so you'll probably see one heading your way soon. They aren't any fun to make if you're not going to give them away!

TADA! I'm going to be careful with it until I see how much everyday bouncing around in my purse abuse it will take, but it's certainly more interesting and prettier than anything else on my keyring.

 I put these together one stormy Sunday night with a cup of tea and a restful CD. It's really a Zen sort of activity. Peace may be found in the strangest places. (My yoga instructor would be thrilled.) Happy Monday, everyone.

Sweetest Thoughts,
Sara

Also, we believe in a thing called "Saturday."

Good morning, friends and family!

Today, as most Saturdays, will be quite full. One must remember to eat a good breakfast, yes? Maybe twice...This afternoon we're helping my lovely in-laws move furniture, etc. into storage. We totally owe them some moving Karma, since they once helped us move up four flights of historic square spiral stairs in December. No joke. We owe everyone moving Karma, even people we've never met. So, I'm going to have a quick brunch (read: the best meal on Earth) with some friends first, but that's not until 11. 11?!? I get up with the sun! A pretty, throw-together First Breakfast (yeah, I said it) that I don't have to share with my golfing husband? Don't mind if I do. 

Dear One Life Fitness,

"First Breakfast" (and second...) is/are why we have to pay you for memberships every month, probably for the rest of our lives. 

Love and a bowl of cherries,

Sara

If you've been to our house for breakfast/brunch, I've probably made Baked Eggs and Strawberry Bread for you. I don't mean to be a bore, but it's one of my favorite easy breakfasts. Sometime, I'll whip up one of my (7) recipes for shrimp and grits or my mother's time-tested (and lightened up as of late) Christmas Morning Breakfast Casserole for you. But today, with my cup of coffee and NPR Weekend Edition on the radio, it's Baked Eggs. 

I made Strawberry Bread for Stephanie C. for brunch yesterday, and there's one slice left. My precious. And yes, that is two brunches this week! And it's not even my birthday! Find this super-easy go-to recipe here. Darn Martha Stewart and her minions. I mean staff. Oops.

And if I haven't already given you the Baked Eggs recipe, click on this. When I'm feeling blah, The Food Network can ALWAYS bring me a smile. This recipe great because it's flexible. You can follow the recipe, or use anything you've got around. Yesterday I used garlic sauteed spinach. Today, It was chopped green pepper that I barely even showed the pan. I love the crunch, and you get a bonus burst of Vitamin C. I've thrown lots of veggies, breakfast meats and all sorts of cheeses in here. It's never been anything but good and hearty. I use lower fat breakfast meats - Canadian bacon, turkey bacon, chopped lean ham, crumbled turkey sausage - and it keeps the dish from becoming greasy.

By the way, have you had the cherries this year? They are on sale EVERYWHERE and couldn't be any better. We've eaten three large bags in two weeks around here. And they're such a festive garnet color. (Go Gamecocks!)

We believe in Fridays...

9 Grain Crostini with Italian cheeses toasted on top, White Bean Spinach Dip (again with the green stuff), and Watermelon Margaritas.

This is a recipe, not my creation. Want? Check it out here.  I heart Real Simple.

So the Watermelon Margaritas came from an independent post that made it onto the Cooking Light website. Thanks to my mom for discovering this recipe first. She's always on the look-out for stuff we might like around here. Here is the recipe if you feel like giving it a whirl. (Ha! Blender joke.) I found that it was a little light on the tequila and you could barely taste it. I would suggest upping that to 3/4 cup. Also, a little more than a quarter of a watermelon will be enough. I was about half a cup short on watermelon, so I substituted half a cup of strawberries that I'd chopped and frozen earlier this month. It added a light hint of berry sweetness. Also, who doesn't love frozen strawberries in their glass? Mmm. Don't drink? This would be just awesome minus the alcohol too.

Thanks to Leanna Criss for being my taste-tester (once again)!

Cook All Day, Work All Night

So, I was feeling a little overly-creative yesterday. There was a lot of throwing things together and seeing what happened in our kitchen all afternoon. Here for your viewing pleasure are "Something Blue" almond meringues with almond dust mixed in, miniature "Plain Old Chocolate" meringues and basic Vanilla. They were meant to be vanilla drizzled with butterscotch and sprinkled with graham cracker crumbs, but I ran out of time before I had to be at work.

The brownie/cupcakes you'll see are Dark Chocolate Coconut with toasted coconut and a Hershey's Kiss baked in. The Browned Butter Chocolate Buttercream I put together turned out too thick to thin, even with more milk. You know how I like to say "Waste not, want not?" Well, I took the frosting, broke it up and rolled it into balls, tossed it in powdered sugar and put it in the freezer. Yep, accidental FUDGE!!!!!! My parents will be thrilled.

I'm not really sure how I feel about this batch of vanilla. Paul bought a massive bag of organic sugar this week and it made the meringues look and taste a little different. I'm thinking that maybe the plain Kroger brand white sugar I've been using might be the best bet.

Too much sugar? Dinner was a bit of a throw together too. We still had two more servings of the Weight Watchers mac & cheese from last weekend. Sound good? Check it out here. 8 Weight Watchers points and 9 servings per pan. But I didn't know what to do with three tiny pork chop cutlets that have been hanging around since I made Pork Marsala for dinner Tuesday. So, here comes the weirdness...

Trim the fat from the chop with kitchen scissors. Sprinkle each side of the meat with a conservative amount of garlic salt. Place in a pan on medium-high with a touch of olive oil and brown both sides. Now, here we go. Add two soup spoon fulls of fresh apple butter to the pan about about one spoonful of tap water. Blend in the pan, roll the chops in the sauce and continue to heat on medium high for a couple of minutes. Give the mixture one good stir, cover and set to simmer for four or five minutes. But that didn't seem like enough. We had a ball of fresh mozzarella in the fridge. I cut a quarter inch thick slice of the cheese and laid one on top of each of the three pieces of pork. Serve all this with steamed zucchini to balance all the cheese. No joke. This was awesome.

Okay, now back to the sugar...

More like brownies than cupcakes. Mmmm. I took most of these to coworkers.

Wonder what else lives in our kitchen?

See? They can live together in harmony.

Organic Sugar Vanilla Meringues

I didn't realize at the time that this is Cookie Monster Blue. Awesome!

These were all half batches, so there won't be any waste, though there may be some extra waist. HA!

Almond and Chocolate, for Jess and Ash by request.

Sweetest thoughts, everyone. Have a great day!

Sara

Chocolate Coconut Meringues

...smeared with melted semi-sweet chocolate, dipped in fresh toasted coconut. Yes, the house smells like vacation.

Packaging options...

Using unused wedding materials. Still love the color and polka dots!

This is Steve's "Where's mine?" face.

Have a lovely day!

Cupcakes aren't usually my thing,,,

...but Peanut Butter, Chocolate, Banana Cupcakes? Yes, please! This is a basic Chocolate Banana Cupcake recipe, but I replaced the oil with an equal amount of tightly packed sliced banana, stuffed each cupcake with half of a Reese's Cup and mixed up a basic buttercream frosting and flavored it with creamy peanut butter. (The pure stuff, not the sugar-bomb kind. There's enough sugar in buttercream!) Without further ado...


Who doesn't love THIS MUCH chocolate?




Pre-baking, stuffed with Reese's Cups




This blob of frosting is for me. What? I had to check it out!





Dusted with pulverized almonds...



Don't worry. We didn't eat them all. They were shared with family, friends and house guests.