Blueberry Festival this weekend

OH MY GOODNESS this summer is just goin by wayyyyyyyy too quickly~~  cant believe it is August and the big BLUEBERRY FESTIVAL is this weekend in South Haven MI~  We will do alot of blueberry goodies this week including my blueberry cheese bread, blueberry cheese crumb cakes, my blueberrry jalapeno preserves, blueberry orange preserves, blueberry cheesecake bars (so yummy) blueberry muffins, blueberry cheese pie, fresh blueberry pies, country blueberry jam, peach blueberry jam, blueberry coffee cakes and welllllllllllllll more blueberry things!! along with my other goodies. And dont forget this weekend we offer blueberry cheese pieorgies for markets too!~ 

So here are a few of the girls out roamin around with Donald our white peking duck and Ms Luella Alcott our female peacock.

We had a little visitor on our deck rail the other morning and I just had to grab a pic or two.  It was so cool looking, some kind of moth after the second pic it flew away but was so pretty!~

Never seen one like this, it reminds me of a mideval kind of plate or something. 

filing for my stuffed zucchini last week!! those were good! I just chopped up a bunch of sweet peppers, asst squash and some onions along with a topper of crushed crackers and parmesan cheese and butter and stuffed them in little zucchini boats.

They were a big hit at markets so doing more this week for Allegan Market on thursday. 

Lavender shortbread cookies were also a big hit!

I had an idea since I just love dipped pretzels, (it has been such a hot humid summer I havent made them for markets yet) but to incorporate this into a cookie,  So our newest cookie was born!!  Chocolate chip cookie dough, homemade caramel sauce swirled thru then added chopped pretzel sticks!!  Ok can you say YUMMY????  they sure were and a big hit at markets!!  I have to try and get another couple of batches of them made for this week.

these were my brownies but baked in a mini muffin pan and then their little bums were dipped in white chocolate and they had a bit of it drizzeled on their tops too. 

Some blueberry banana muffins and lemon poppyseed muffins ready for market.

Their is Ms. Alcott now!!  She is so pretty but her mate Prince is beautiful, I keep trying to coax him into fanning out his big gorgeous tail feathers while I have a cam in hand but havent gotten him yet!   

I did up 5 batches of my dear sweet Grandma Rose's polish dill pickle slices and have about that many more to do today and more of my bread and butter slices.  too bad cukes dont hold up better longer but with the high humidity we have had they start molding very quickly, infact a few hours after picking they start with powder mold on the surfaces so have to work with them babies asap! 

So hope yall are enjoying this beautiful time of year and have a super monday~

I will try to share more this week but it is just a busy busy week for us and I am off to the kitchen to work now~ ENJOY

HUGS

Darlene  

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

blueberry cheese filled pierogi and more

So yesterday my dear friend Mary and I worked like crazy making things for markets this week especially for blueberry festival sat!  One of our concoctions was a blueberry and cheese filled pierogi topped with just a bit of sugar. 

I strained some cottage cheese out do be dry and added a mini scoop of that then topped with some fresh blueberries, after boiling them for 2 min they were topped with sugar for a super great treat!  The flavor was awesome and I was quite impressed with this combo!!  They are kind of like my moms cheese and fruit filled crepes but with thicker dough.  I will def be bringin these guys to market!~

Egg whites being beat for a new recipe I got for coconut macaroons!! OH MY WORD these are the best!! They took on such a super nice color with toastin the coconut.   Then if they werent decadent enough I melted some quality chocolate down and dipped their little bottoms in it and drizzeled just a touch ontop of them.So cute, they needed to be dressed up a bit with a tiny paper cup and then I packaged them by 2 in a bag with a tag.

I can see makin these alot, and maybe even tryin some new flavors I can just see them made with some almonds or hazelnuts too. Plenty o pkgs for sat.This was a perfect looking blueberry cream cheese filled crumb cake.  They turn out so pretty I just want to dig right in with a spoon!!  LOL these are for sale if one just doesnt suit me enough it will be for desert for us!!   LOL

I am thinkin of makin them with some fresh peaches today, who doesnt love cream cheese filling?  certainly not me!!  I am also plannin on makin some of my grandmothers southern peach cobbler today and crisp and maybe even some peach blueberry muffins and peach bluebery cake!!  Which reminds me enough time on puter I gotta get my apron on and get my happy bakin butt to the kitchen like NOW!!  LOL

Have a blessed tues yall and happy bakin and eatin!!

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~~