A new week

My goodness it's monday and the start of a new week!! the weeks sure go by and my gosh where did july go? I think I may have missed some days! it has been super busy with markets and time sure has gotten away from me!! 

tomato summer garden salad

hash brown cheese breakfast casserole

my egg bread soaking in the eggy milk custard

Nekked pizza crusts

Veggie pizza out of oven

Red Raspberry Peach muffins!  what an awesome combo!!

Blueberry peach muffins!@! YUMMY!

Peach Raspberry trifles I made for market sat.  YUMMY!!  I used some peach juice and pureed it with fresh raspberries and a bit of sugar and vanilla for the juice. 

Love the yellow flowers against the white fence!!

ahhhhhh the sweet smell of fresh lavender!!  so pretty and almost over bloomed

 I also did up some sweet bread that were filled with cooked thickened blueberries and cream cheese filling

ready to cut strips and braid

taking a sharp knife make slices on each side in a downward angle

fold over each slice and then brush with egg warsh

let rise and then brush again with egg and pop in oven

out of oven nice and golden brown. 

I was asked to do the brunch at a racetrack for an automotive tool company on sunday.  My mom and I worked all week preparing things and getting things together, we made veggie pizzas, cinnamon bun bread pudding with a creamy cinnamon sauce, hashbrown breakfast casserole with homemade peppered gravy, my pistachio bread, cookies, a cold pasta salad with fresh veggies, tomato summer garden salad, veggie rollups, dill dip with veggies and pretzles, blueberry buttermilk bread, cucumber salsa with chips, my blueberry jalapeno preserves ontop of cream cheese with crackers, chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies, and then I also made some homemade lemonade and sweet tea.  It was all gone in under an hour!!  The guys were really hungry and also very thankful and sweet!!  Had a great time!!  Thanks to Ramzi Vincent at Automotive Specialty Tool Inc for allowing me to do this again!! 

I am making  cornbread n veggie stuffed round zucchini, a breakfast bake, tater gnocchi with a homemade tomato pepper sauce and more for Texas Township Farmers Market tomorrow night.  4pm-7pm~  Hope yall have a wonderful evening I will be back to share more!!
HUGS
Darlene
DONT FORGET IF YALL ARE NEAR THE GLENN AREA STOP IN AT MY FRIENDS NEW PRIM/ANTIQUE SHOP  "Farmhouse Chic Prim Antique"  great selection of items and also some of my baked/canned goods and my primitives!  which I am working on more of my fall punkin jacks!!

Here's my punkin head dolls from 2 yrs ago.  LOVE THEM!!

and here's a pic of our Bubba dog, miss you baby!!  Mommy and Daddy love you!!

~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

Still hot and no rain

Oh my word!! No rain and we are still in the upper 80s and 90s this week!!   This is just horrible and not just for MI but all over people are experiencing this terrible drought.  There is rain happening all around our area but north and east we havent gotten a drop of it!!  they are saying possibly later this afternoon!! HOPE and PRAY we get some!! 
We took our Buster Brown swimming in the lake and he was such a happy happy guy!!  My camera was full so I didnt get to take pics!! =( but we will go again soon.  The lake was so warm hard to believe that big body of water was sooooooooo warm!!

My mom and I have been busy busy making all kinds of canned goods at the kitchen.  Each week we are doing up a bushel of pickle cukes and this week we made some of our cold cucumber salad. 

Ready for the processor to slice em up quickly!!

Dont these look pretty!!  the red pepper pieces and red onions give such a nice addition of color to these jars.  Fresh dill, peppercorns and a sweet sour vinegar brine were added. 

Love love LOVE using mason jars for market items.  I have so many at home and use them  instead of plastic tupperware containers. 

Dilly beans out of the canner!! I so wish they would keep their pretty green color!  but they dont.  Wonder if I should do some refrigerator dilly beans!! they would look awesome! 

AND THIS IS MY FRIEND'S NEW SHOP!!! not sure why I only got 2 pics!>?  but we were busy talking and laughing so I must have gotten sidetracked!

So this is FARMHOUSE CHIC PRIM ANTIQUE!~ in downtown Glenn! 

Love the displays and she is doing an amazing job turning this old lovely historical firehouse into a shoppers delight!!  I am taking things there and also some baked goods each week.   She also has a facebook page for the shop and you can view offerings as they arrive at the shop  Chick it out!! 

I am off early this am have to go to a doctors appointment.  I have a party I am catering for this weekend so need to get things ready for that and also markets.

Hope yall have a blessed day and keep cool and hydrated out there!!

HUGS

Darlene 

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

almost weekend time~~

Yippee!  I cant wait for 3pm sat!! then I have the rest of sat and all of sunday to spend with my wonderful hubby and our "boys".   We just dont get enough time together anymore! both of us are busy and life is hectic so usually by the time he is getting home I am exhausted and am ready for bed! 
My mom and I had another busy week at the kitchen.  We did up lots of muffins, red raspberry butttermilk, blueberry buttermilk, lemon poppyseed, and some breads, my glazed pistachio, blueberry, raspberry, pine zucchini, and banana blueberry.  

I so love making muffins!!  And love BIG muffins!!  they rise up over the edge of pans making them so pretty!

These are the lemon poppyseed which were just lacking something.............yep yall know me!! added the "farmgirl bling" a fresh lemon glaze after they cooled off. 

here are some ready for packaging.

dilly beans

I so wish the beans would stay that pretty fresh green color!! and I did up some of our purple, green and yellow and of cource when u cook the purple ones they turn green!!  =( so pretty and would look beantastic in the 3 colors in a mason jar!! dangit!

My favo piece of kitchen equiptment!! the little hobart mixer making foccacia

here are a couple pans of garlic pepper foccacia cooling

My mom and I also made this yummy pasta casserole.  It has egg noodles, homemade tomato red pepper zucchini sauce, with sauteed onions, green peppers, zucchini, and then fresh pamesan cheese, and aged cheddar topped with fresh basil pieces.  YUMMY!

Ok so I am blessed to have awesome dear friends in this world thanks to my little farmstand!!  I have a couple of friends that let us walk thru their beautiful and I do mean BEAUTIFUL gardens.  While strolling around you are transformed into an enchanted peaceful place.  And it is just down the street from us.  So many gorgeous blooms and not just in one spot, they are all around their house. 

These bushes were so full and the flowers are so pretty! 

One of the many floral beds, yes as I was taking this pic the sprinklers came on and welllllllllllllll that cold water did feel pretty good!! LOL

This coleus is so pretty, looks like someone took a paintbrush and detailed each petal. 

I love these colors together.  What a relaxing place!!

Zinias are one of my favorite flowers and these were gorgeous. 

And look at the color of this rose of sharon.  My mom has one I bought her for mothers day and it is so pretty

And last is my absolutely favo pic!  they remind me of sunflowers! and I made sure to get the white rocker chairs in the pic!! LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!!

So I have a busy day tomorrow.  More zucchini bread, more pistachio bread, graham crackers, cookies, and some fruit, oatmeal and yogurt parfaits, plus more!! 

Hope yall have a wonderful evening!!

THANKS MOM for all the help at the kitchen lately!!

LOVE YOU!!  YOUR"E THE BEST!!

HUGS

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

100 plus

Yepper nearby us SW MI was over 100 degrees today and tomorrow is predicted to be 104-110 in the inland cities!!  WOW!! we are breaking all kinds of weather records in 2012! But it could be much worse so this is bearable.  I just worry about our wildlife, we havent been this long without rain in several several years and all the ponds around are so low and even the rivers are way down, the corn in the fields is showing signs of drought and even our maple/oak tree leaves are curling and turning brownish.  YIKES!! I think we are gonna see a very very early fall! which wouldnt be so bad it would bring cooler weather!  I will so miss seeing and picking those beautiful big dark red apples this fall and even the pears and the late peaches.  Will have to drive south maybe? LOL

My mom and I made up some spinach n cheese filled lasagna rolls in a homemade tomato red pepper sauce.

We put 2 peppers in each pan.  Filled with rice, sauteed veggies, zucchini, onions, carrots, corn, tomatoes, yellow squash and my blend of herbs and seasonings. 

And we made stuffed cabbage rolls in a homemade sauce.

These are may lavender lemonade jars.  Forgot my cute sign at home =( but they sold well

This is looking down the row at my newest market.  Texas Township near Kalamazoo MI.  Tues nights from 4-7pm

Love the atmosphere here and the wood beams make this pavillion so rustic.  Perfect for a farmers market!

So tomorrow inbetween being overyly hot we are making some grilling packets, pickels, cucumber tomato salsa, pineapple black bean salsa ( which is awesome on chicken or beef or with chips)_ and to keep things on the lighter side this week since it is soooo hot I am gonna make some cool strawberry blueberry shortcakes, lemon poppyseed shortcakes with fresh blueberries n cream, lemon blueberry muffins, bluebery bread and maybe some of my graham crackers.  So hope yall had a wonderful Independence Day!!  I was at market in morning then late afternoon we had a party at hubby's mom's house, alot of the family is up here from all over and then we went nearby to watch fireworks last night.  It sure was nice to see everyone and we are getting together with them again saturday before the leave to go back home.  Time just flies doesnt it!!

BIG NEWS!!**  a friend of mine opened a handmade/antique shop in Glenn so I am gonna put some of my prims in there! good time to start back at making handmade creations!! LOL I may just have time before halloween to make up some of my primitive scarecrows!! WOO HOOO just the kick in the pants I needed to make some!!  I may just take some of the osnaburg with me on sat to start cutting out the pieces of the head and bodies.  If I have time that is! 

Hope yall have a great rest of the holiday week, I will take some pics tomorrow of our busy baking day.  Be back soon yall!!

HUGS!!

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

Have a Happy Fourth!!

HEY YALL!!  My goodness what a crazy week again!!  
This coming week is really gone be nutso I think!!  I start Texas Township Farmers Market tues evenings.  I love the hours 4pm to 7pm!!  How nice that will be I have time to go to the kitchen in the am then get home and packed up and head out.  I am planning on making the following for this market: stuffed cabbage rolls, stuffed peppers, veggie kabobs, veggie burgers and some herbed foccacia slices.  I am trying to make more food items/options instead of all the baked goods since it has been so danged extrememly hot round here 90s plus and so humid!!  Plus I have been making infused lemonades.  The last 2 weeks I have made lavender infused and it is sooooooooo yummy!! It has been a very popular drink and I will make it again this week.  Last week I made pineapple mint infused lemnade and sold out of those too.  I need to take pics of them I put em in pint mason jars and in a big old round white basin on the table. 

It was pierogi making day, we did 10 dozen tater cheese and 5 dozen sauerkraut ones up for market.

Thsi is foccacia dough

In the sheet pan topped with an italian herbs

the first load in the oven

my mom stuffed the pepper 1/2s

lemon poppyseed muffins with lemon glaze

blueberry n cheese filled coffee cakes

So that is a bit of what we made last week.  I will take pics of this weeks offerings.

Hope yall have a happy and safe Independance day!

HUGS

Be back soon!!

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~