Wed ramblings

Well  I did get quite abit done at the kitchen today for market tomorrow.My buttercrum topped blueberry muffins.  These are the most requested muffin at market and yepper they are yummo! A touch of lemon zest and some fresh squeezed lemon juice!

The buttercrumb topping is just butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, bread flour.

I do put quite a bit of fresh blueberries in each muffin

They look just awesome too!I sauteed some fresh red onioin and  a couple of white vidalia onions to carmellizing, made a big batch of foccaci bread and topped them with the onions, some dried chopped rosemary and a sprinkling of sea salt plus grated parmesean cheese.  These smelled super yummo in the oven, it is funny whenever you add fresh or even dried herba rhe smell is overwhelming.

It looks pretty too~  I just rolled them out to an oval shape and put them on a sheet of wax paper and in a clear bag. 

The edges are a bit crispy and would be perfect with a pasta dish or even a salad.

Here is one of my struesle filled babka cakes, since it is so hot outside I didnt make a glaze for them just some powdered sugar ontop and in a bag.  These are very fragrant too!  Babka is just about my favo dough to make~ but the foccacia is good and easy to make too.

We are suppossed to get storms tonight possilbly severe too! gee we cant seem to have a week of no rain or storms this summer!! crazy weather pattern thsese days but it looks all clear for tomorrow and sat~YEAH good market weather!! YEE HAW!!  I bettter get to figurin what we are gonna have for supper and then it is out to do chores. 

Hope yall have a great night!

~~HUGS~~

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

Braided Egg Bread and more tues

One of my most requested breds at markets is my Braided Egg Bread.  There is quite a bit of time in makin this bread so I thought I would share with yall.  IF you want to try look up challah bread recipes as mine makes 9 1 pound loaves and that is alot plus it is mixed in a huge hobard machine.  So the dough is prepped and then let set to rise 1 hour.  After an hour you punch dough down and put back to rest and rise for 1 1/2 more hours then I weigh out 16 ounce pieces, set aside for 15 min to rest.  From that point the chunks are divided into 3 equal pieces then rolled to logs. The logs are then pressed together at end and braided down then sealed under.Here are the braided loaves which are then brushed with a pastry brush with egg yolk and set aside again to rise another hour.Then they are brushed again with egg yolk and sprinkled with organic sesame and poppy seeds.  And finally put into the oven.  They bake for around 20 min in a 330 convection oven baked until they reach 201 degrees. and as you can see nice and golden brown.  The rich smell and taste from egg bread is incredible!!  We love it made into french toast and dipped in even more egg!! LOL 2 1/2 dozen eggs here now and usin free range eggs gives these loaves even more golden color.  These are some cookies baking.  The light ones will be filled with my choc ganache,  or a white tea infused filled and the chocolate ones will have an espresso filling.  I am thinkin of puttin an assortment of these in bags.   Then I also made my pineapple black bean salsa.  This is a wonderful condiment for grilled fish, pork or chicken.  Some of my customers even like it with just tortilla chips.  I use unsweetened pineapple tidbits, chopped red pepper, green pepper, yellow and orange peppers, sweet red peppers, fresh cilantro, I just love all the color in salsas.  The fresh veggies are so vibrant!

And since we have been busy pickin blueberries I made a couple of batches of my blueberry jalapeno jelly!!  I will be givin samples of this at markets this week.  It is so fun to savor the pepper and fruit jellies as you first taste the strong blueberry then a min later the pepper flavor comes in.  like 2 different jellies!! super duper yummmo on a grilled turkey panini I might add!!  and of cource it is great with cream cheese on crackers, we also have had it on grilled pork and chicken brush it on just before it is done so it carmalizes a bit!!  OH and last year for blueberry festival Susan and I topped it on her homemade cheesecakes!! oh my gosh was that good we are plannin on bringin them to market again!!So as you can tell I made it back from the big CITY yesterday!!  I only got lost a couple of times and passed by the place I needed to be like 12 times!! LOL it was downtown which by the way was really kind of awesome!! but all the one way streets and busy hectic cars flyin by and then I have no clue about those parking ramps I was glad to find a spot along the street just had to put change in the meter and also I did put a quarter in the car infront of mine meter~ it was flashin the time was out and noone around so I played meter fairy and added a quarter for them.   My rak for the day!~  I survived and was so happy to be back home with my boys. dont plan on goin back anytime soon! 

I am off to do chores and sit and watch tv with hubby.  I will be postin a surprise guest on my blog!~ ZACH my new intern at the kitchen who will be startin friday!!  CANT WAIT~!~ Have a blessed evening yall!

HUGS

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

Happy Monday Mornin~

I am gettin ready to head to the  C>>>C>> CI>>>>CITY~ I hate goin to a big city and have put it off for a week but I have to go and pick up concert tickets I won.  YEAH for that but dang I just hate city drivin~!  I grew up in a small town with no stop lights YEPPER NOT even 1 stop light in this town!! love it that way too!!  Now I can handle drivin to holland which to me is a good size city that is kind of ok since I pretty much know most of the streets and where everything is but Grand Rapids!! YUK~~ URGGGGGGGGG!! no offense to any city folk it just so isnt my cup of tea to do this!! LOL

I vividly remember many times offerin to pick up something or deliver somethin for my dad's shop and every stinkin time he sent me to the city I either got lost or had to pull off the highway and just relax a min or two!! Crazy I know but after awhile of that nonsense he did hire a regular delilvery guy!! thank goodness,  I still offer and would do anything he asks but will sure not like it!!  and I do have a slight touch of road rage~ not too bad but I could belt out some words that are not the nicest.  BITE ME...........comes to mind alot!! and bite butt and so on (cleaned up for the blog) LOL, ok enough bout that.     We finally got some cooler not so humid weather yesterday and it was most enjoyable.  My stepdaughter and her beau came over and we cooked out for lunch and sat and talked then hubby took them to the shop to work on her car.  We went for a long golf cart ride wtih bubba last night and that was so much fun.  It has been so long since it has been so horrible hot and humid out you really dont even like being outside even at night and poor hubby had such troubles with his aches and pains he would be in bed by 9pm most nights.  BUT that was kind of nice us and the boys just layin in bed and chillin at night in the ac.!!    The girls are layin back on track again it is so incredible how they can just stop layin.  When chickies get stressed like with extreme weather either hot or cold they just dont lay an egg!! NOPE none keep them inside and wait for the weather to change!!  All the babies are doin great we did loose a few of the baby guinea chicks, not sure why either.  I always feel just horrible when we loose a baby!!  They are so cute and sweet.  My isa brown babies are just little dolls!! they are so funny and just little honeys!!  The 2 bronze turkeys are so curious and silly, I gave them ears of corn and it was fun to watch them for the first time look at it, examine it then they started pickin at it.  Once the brave adventuous ones figured out it was food the bystanders just dug in and ate it up~~  LOL too cute!! 

So here is one of the bundt cakes I made last week it is filled in the middle with a cinnamon struesel and some fresh peaches chopped up.  Needed some bling and I just didnt want to do the glaze so ended up sprinkling them with some powdered sugar.  Too pretty!Some buttercrumb topped peach muffins which went over really well at market.  Muffins are one of my bestest sellers no matter what the kind is.

My babka coffee cakes are popular too, these are filled with a walnut cinnamon struesle then glazed with a cinnamon "farmgirl bling" glaze.   OK Here is my version of the popular bear claw, a "chicken claw"  LOL I know I am a bit off, but anywho I took some babka dough and rolled it out in a small rectangle, brushed some melted butter then layered some cinnamon struesle, chopped walnuts and some cinnnamon sugar rolled them up tight and make some cuts in the side. the "farmgirl cinnamon glaze bling" makes them so yummo!!  These might become a regular at markets, they all sold and one guy even came back to the booth to tell me how good it was!!  These are my babka bread loaves filled and topped with walnut streusle.  This babka is so good and fragrant if you want to make a nice textured, super flavorful, light and airy bread I highly recommend makin babka!!  This week I want to make some with chocolate filling.

And a couple of kinds of scones were made too.  Ok so I better get myself ready to go, at least hubby is home with the boys today.   I just love knowin my babies are safe!!    OK wish me luck in the city!! I am gettin tickets and flyin home~ not feelin to adventurous today!!   I do have to get to the kitchen and make some blueberry jalapeno jelly we picked fresh blueberries over the weekend and I am out of jelly, with South Havens blueberry festival comin up I need a good supple of blueberry things!! 

Have a great monday yall~~~

Talk to ya soon!!

HUGS

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

Sunny and stormy sunday

Well it is thundering one minute then sunshiney the next! Yepper this is MI weather.  Gosh it sure is hot again! we ususally dont have this hot weather this long and it is suppossed to be back up in the 90s again this comin week!! YUKK!!   thank goodness for central air!~ LOL Well here are a few pics from things that got made friday.   I did get quite abit ready for market sat.  We also started picking the sweet corn!~ Ambrosia is one of the best bicolor sweet corn we have ever grown and ate!!  Super super sweet and the first and second pickin's are the best!~!~  My hubby is so very picky about his sweet corn he watches and watches it until just the right perfect time to harvest!! we usually will have corn everynight for a couple of weeks to enjoy it !!  we usually freeze about 4 dozen ears and it is so sooooooo good all winter.   The best way to enjoy sweet corn is my hubby's grandmothers way!!  She uses an electric knife to take the corn off the ears then adds some sugar and a bit of salt to the pan and lets the kernals just come to a boil for a few minutes, cool then place in freezer bags with the liquid you cooked it in.  It tastes so fresh and sweet!~~    Super yummo I gotta tell ya~~  

So I made some apple walnut cakes, peach topped coffee cake that I added my own twist to~~ I will post the recipe and my additions at the end of this post.  Very good!~! 

Some of my glazed pistchio bread,

my rustic round herbed cheddar bread loaves.  They resemble the cheddar bay biscuits we used to get at Red Lobster.  Almond poppyseed bread with an almond glaze, and my very popular glazed peach praline topped muffins.

I made a glaze using the juice from our frozen peaches from last season. of cource as yall know they just have to have my "farmgirl bling"  LOL and I added some of my praline topping for the right amount of sweetness and crunch with the toasted pecan. I also made some of my popular cowboy cookies, some orange vanilla glazed orange cookies that tasted like an orange and cream drink by stewarts!! my favorite~, the squash n cheese filled ravioli were a big hit as the pierogies were too!!  My mom made her cheese n strawberry filled crepes and took them along and we sold quite a few they are so good heated a tad bit then topped with some sauce.  I like to also have them filled with cream cheese and fruit!! oh my goodness I am gettin hungry and maybe breakfast tonight,?? Oh I just rememberd while typin this we have steaks out and yepper u guessed it some fresh sweet corn already for supper.  We also like to make a foil pkg with aluminum foil add some chopped red taters, onions, fresh mushrooms, butter, seasoning and some rosemary sprigs fresh from the herb garden and put it on the top shelf in the grill.  They cook so nice n slow and all the flavors blend in so nice.   YUMMO!! 

Ok so I promised yall my herb cheddar bread recipe to here ya go my bakin lovin friends~

Rustic Cheddar Herb Bread

2 cups flour
1 cup shredded reduced-fat Cheddar cheese

1 tablespoon sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon dried parsley

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon dill weed

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp dried basil

1/4 cup dried minced onion flakes

3 tablespoons cold butter

1 egg

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup milk  (I use buttermilk)



Directions

1.In a large bowl, combine the first nine ingredients; mix well. Cut in butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs. In another bowl, whisk the egg, sour cream and milk until smooth. Stir into dry ingredients until just moistened.

2.I spread this mixture into round baking pans that were coated with nonstick cooking spray. Bake at 400 degrees F for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Cool in pan on a wire rack.
I also sprinkled some cource kosher salt ontop of them.
 
I leave yall now hoping yall have a blessed evening!!  
HUGS
Darlene
 
. ~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

Squash n cheese ravioli

Well my professional ravioli maker ELIJAH came in today and we did up egg dough, which is only 4 cups flour, 5 eggs, 2 tsp a good virgin olive oil, and a sprinlke of salt and just enough water to make a rough dough.  I put it thru the processor which is super easy and then put it thru the pasta machine up to number 7.  I sauteed some of our fresh yellow squash, patty pan squash, and zucchini along with some red and sweet onions in butter. let it cool then added a lg container of ricotta cheese and a touch of pepper.   We flash froze them and packaged em up for market tomorrow.  

These are my blueberry banana muffs, did some loaves of bread too.

My own recipe for luscious lemon scones.   Fresh grated lemon zest and fresh squeezed lemon juice add a perfect lemony taste for these.  There is just no comparison for lemon juice than the real thing.

Unbaked rustic rosemary cracker bread.  I used some of my dried rosemary from last summer to make these and the whole oven smelled of rosemary.  YUMMO!!  They are nice and crispy and would go perfect with a sharp cheddar spread or maybe a garlic cheese spread too.

So that was some of the treats we made yesterday today will be a busy day with a few new recipes, one being an almond amish poppyseed bread, a peach cardamom coffee cake, and a blueberry coffee cake.  Also cookie dough was made so they need to be scooped out and baked.  A busy baking day for markets!

TOMORROW is ALLEGAN Market stop on by for great foodies!!  Lots of produce and treats for your shoppin pleasure!~ 

Have a happy tuesday yall!!

HUGS

 Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~