Apples, turtles and kolachky oh my!!

Hey yall!! happy monday mornin!! 

What another beautiful michigan fall weeekend we had! Hope yall enjoyed yours and it was just as nice out as ours!!

We cut and stacked lots of wood, hubby tilled the gardens, and we spent lots of time with our boys!! yeah!~! great weekend~

So I made my grandma Rose's apple walnut bread pudding for market sat and it was gone quickly.  A creamy cinnnamon sauce was also included in a cup when you buy the pudding. 

Chopped up french bread and some of our egg bread too.

Ready for baking complete with egg custard and chopped walnuts.  Love the taste of walnuts with apples.

These pretty red MacIntosh apples were used for the pudding and the dumplings and I did caramel apples with some others drizzeling melted white and milk chocolate on top and added some cute halloween sprinlkes!!  Sorry I didnt take pics of them but will surely make more this week for Allegan Market on thurs!!

Apple dumplings just out of the oven!  Oh if you have ever baked with apples and cinnmaon yall just know that wonderful aroma in the kitchen!! OH love it!!

Each one came with a cinnamon syrup to drizzle ontop of them and maybe then serve with some wonderful vanilla bean ice cream~  YUMMO!~

I also made some of my mothers sloveninan Kolachky cookies!!   The dough is very simple to make and easy to work with.  Just being sure to chill dough overnight, or at least a few hours.   The ones I made for market this past week were filled with homemade orange marmalade and red raspberry preserves.

After they cool they got a treatment of my "farmgirl bling" some pretty sifted confectionary sugar. 

And to the turtle part of the day! Chocolate pecan turtles filled with my homemade caramel.   These are so yummy I have to package them as soon as they cool so I wont be tempted to eat too many!!  They are really good!~!  I will put some on my etsy site for sale soon!  and my caramel candies too!  Those are just melt in your mouth creamy yummyness!! 

Well that was about all of the things I got done friday and I also made some decorated sugar cookies for halloween, I have a set left and will have to take some pics they were just too stinkin cute!! A ghost, a witches hat and a pumpkin were packaged up in a clear bag tied with some raffia!

I will be doin them for xmas too maybe a snowman head, a mitten and a gingerbread man would be cute and they are just too fun to decorate!!

So have a beautiful fall day!! I will be back soon to share more with yall~~

BLESSINGS

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

Peach upside down cake, pickles and muffin day

WHEW!! what a busy day~
  I am hoping the weathermen are wrong about tomorrow!!  I baked alot for market and really dont want it to get all soggy and me too!!  They were calling for more storms and windy and rain in am but you just never know here in MI!! fingers crossed!! I can handle some rain but it really chases the customers away and can be quite miserable~!  So heres a peek at my pickles I got done yesterday.  I love the way the polish ones look in the jars with all the dill and red peppers!  

I found this great gingham paper at Hobby Lobby (my favo store) I am there quite regularly and dont know if I mentioned or not but have been in their scrappin magazine a couple of times now!!  gee gotta work on a valentines day project for the 2011first quarter  magazine now!  Anyway I was so excited as they were having their paper sale so I stocked up on all the ginghams I could~!~ it came in red, green, yellow, blue, black, and orange!~! my bins are so full of papers but hey a scrappin gal can NEVER NEVER NEVER have enough papers!! HUH!~! LOL

Ok so here is an awesome new favo of mine "peach upside down cake" with  my own personal changes made to a perfect Martha Stewart cake recipe.

flipped over to reveal the beautiful peach slices along the top of cake!~  I will scale this down to make one cake for yall and post that recipe.Lots of muffins today!! These are my crunchy oat topped banana muffins, with or without nuts. Another favo for sure~ pumpkin cranberry muffins!! I was so wanting to add some of my 'farmgirl bling" to them but resisted temptation!!  gotta have some healthy not calorie filled goodies~~ somewhat healthy anyway!  Ok OK OK just as I packaged the muffins up I added just a bit of my "bling" just a dusting of powderd sugar and that made them POP~~ perfect touch~  So I also got the pumpkin spice bread done, some loaded carrot muffins, some gingersnap cookies, lavander shortbread cookies, some banana bread, my cranberry lemon pecan sandwich cookies and some cardamom crumb cakes.

OH and ps!~!!~ SURVIVOR is on it's new night~!~ I am off to watch my recorded desperate housewives show before hubby gets home!~ HEE HEE i know it is crazy but I am so so addicted to that show and am watching all the reruns to get up to date for when the show premiers for the new season!! LOL

LOVE all those women!! but Susan is my favo!!

Have a blessed evening!!

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~~

A whole lot of baking wed

Just a quick happy WED to yall!!    Monday a gal started helping me at the kitchen and what a HUGE HELP she was!! She is coming back today and all I can say is THANK YOU SHIRLEY!! you are GREAT!!  We got alot accomplished and today will be a busy busy day finishing up things for tomorrow.  With the holiday weekend aproaching I wanted to bump up my inventory a bit so got lots planned.
Yesterday I made mixes up and more asparagus cheese stuffed ravioli, some basil noodles, 3 batches of babka dough which is in fridge rising overnight, and lots of cookie dough.  I did learn that putting rhubarb thru the processor does a great job!  I used our cuissinart and stood the stalks upright then used the 4 mm cutting blade and oh that was nice!! no hand chopping no more!! LOL and so much faster.   
I am off to the kithchen to get some things ready and also shape the breads.  Gosh I should whip up a batch of hotdog, brat buns too and maybe some hamb buns since alot of people are grilling again!!

OK HAVE A GREAT WED!!  I will be back to share more pics and things I learn as I go!!

HUGS!!I just had to share these beauties with ya! The iris are open and seem bigger and more vibrant this year.  LOVE that purple.  Maybe will have to some scrappin using irs pics on an altered item?? 

OH and I want to put a huge HUGE thank you out to my most loving, understanding, patient hubby!!!  LOVE YA BABE!! he has settled for muffins and eggs and ham this week for supper a few times I might add.  Just been so dang tired when I get home and after doing chores and closing the farmstand at night I am whipped!! he is such a great guy!!  again LOVE YA BABE AND THANK YOU!!you are the best hubby ever!!

Darlene

TOMORROW THURSDAY IS ALLEGAN MI FARMERS MARKET   see u there!!
IFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

ravioli making wed

Here is a lo I made this am for a tag team game on one of my forums.  I love this picture of Jax!! too cute!  I cut the dinosaurs out from another piece of this pp and added dots to the back so they look like they are coming off the page.

So today is ASPARAGUS CHEESE STUFFED ravioli day at the kitchen!! Cant wait they sound way too yummo!! I will let yall know how they turn out and get pics of them too!!  Yesterday was egg bread, cheddar herb bread, walnut streusel babka, espresso cookies, shortbread cookies, lavender shortbread and also some cherry almond muffins.  Tomorrow is the first day of ALLEGAN MARKET!! yeah!! cant wait!! well I can I still have to get everything packed and empty my trailer from last years craft shows so lots to do!!!  Have a great wed yall!! be back soon!

HUGS

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

Bronson Market Kalamazoo MI

A buttermilk bundt cake filled with red raspberries and blueberries we froze from 09 season. And no bundt would be complete without my "farmgirl bling" LOL

Red Raspberry or Blueberries fill these lemon buttermilk cakes (the berries were from our farm last season)

I had alot of batter so made these lemon buttermilk muffins filled with berries. Notice the "farmgirl Bling" LOL

More of my peanut peanut butter cream filled whoopie pies!! I made 5 batches of these yesterday one just for my hubby! he loves these without the cream filling too.

I had a busy day at the kitchen yesterday also made up a few kinds of cookie dough to bake off today. today on the schedule I must get done my glazed pistachio bread, cheddar pepper bread loaves, and Fresh Spinach Pasta!! Pasta has been a big hit at the last markets so am going to keep making that regularly!! I am thinkin though of investing in a maker that will go on my kitchen aide mixer then I could do asst shapes not just the spaghetti or fettucini even though those are great!!

Have you ever had fresh pasta?? Gosh it is delic!!! I cant believe the difference now to get hubby to try it. We would probably eat alot more but we are just not big fans of dried tasteless noodles!! BUTTTTTTTT now we have flavor and a wonderful texture in fresh. And we both love spinach so I will be putting more of in this year just for our pasta!!

Friday is Market at BRONSON HOSPITAL in KALAMAZOO MI! 10.30-2.00 stop on by for some great foodies and winter produce and more!!

I will be in Allegan at the market parking lot tomorrow with some new goodies for yall!

Have a joyous day and will chat more later!! Dont forget OWOH will be starting soon!! be on the lookout for my great giveaways!!

~~HUGS

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~