[chocomouse]

Blackberries in our back yard. The stick is to hold up that branch, trying to prevent it from breaking off. This is one bush in 50 foot row. We'll start picking tomorrow (photo taken July 16). We freeze them on a tray, then bag when frozen; my husband eats them on his Frosted Flakes every morning after all the fresh berries are gone and until he runs out of them next spring.

Well, I can't upload the photo; I'll try to reduce it to less than 512 KB. Now trying again, with reduced photo.

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[chocomouse]

The .58" of rain last night is really going to help the garden to grow! although we are still in a drought. And we've ended the 5 days of temps in the 90s. We cannot keep up with everything. We're picking a couple quarts of blueberries every day, and a handful of raspberries, and the blackberries are ready to pick tomorrow. We're eating zucchini, summer squash, broccoli, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, green and yellow beans, along with the every present lettuce. Purple beans will be ready tomorrow, and there are a couple of cabbages ready to eat. The planters of herbs are lush, so I need to figure out how to dry them in my countertop oven, instead of using the big dehydrator.

[chocomouse]

Peach cobbler sounds so good, Joan. I just pulled the "crust" for an ice cream pie out of the oven. It's a box cake mix (chocolate), half a container of canned frosting mix (chocolate), 3/4 cup of water and 1/4 cup oil baked in 2 pie plates. After it cools, I'll fill one with caramel/chocolate swirl ice cream. I'd never heard of doing this, but my sister rather easily talked me into trying one. I'll freeze the other for later. Maybe chocolate mint chip ice cream?

[chocomouse]

I made a Blueberries and Cream Cake that I got from the local newspaper 37 years ago, and it remains one of our favorites when we have fresh blueberries. As long as I was heating up the kitchen on this 96* day, I decided I might as well bake bread too, so I made a double batch of my basic whole wheat dough and added Harvest Grains to it.

[chocomouse]

I made chicken kebobs with zucchini and onion, plus leftover broccoli salad and tortellini veggie salad.

[chocomouse]

Dinner Wednesday evening was a spinach tortellini salad with cucumbers, zucchini, summer squash, cherry tomatoes, orange sweet pepper, onion, black olives, feta cheese and Greek dressing, with steamed green and yellow beans from the deck planter, and some leftover boneless pork chops.

[chocomouse]

Back in the kitchen! So today I made English muffins. Big mistake. It is 92* and was not comfortable standing over a hot griddle! But breakfast will be delicious! I bought a jar of Peach Amaretto jam in Maine, at Stonewall Kitchen. I used to take a class there a couple of times a year, but they've shut down that part of their business, and I miss it.

[chocomouse]

Today I made the Tick Tock Orange Sticky Rolls posted by DachshundLady on the OBC. It's an interesting recipe because it is not a yeasted dough but a "biscuit" made with baking powder. I made only one major change by adding 3 Tablespoons of orange flavored Tang mix to the orange spice filling. I also added about 3 Tablespoons of flour during the kneading process, to make the batter manageable. The rolls are delicious, very orange, tangy tasting. And they were quick and easy to make.

[chocomouse]

I made a carrot cake about a month ago - love carrot cake, with or without pineapple, raisins, nuts. It's all about the carrots, and the cream cheese frosting takes it over the top!

[chocomouse]

I do not have convection in my big oven, which is where I baked the crackers on a cookie sheet. I do have it in my countertop Breville, which I didn't use since it is smaller, so the big cookie sheet doesn't fit. But I will try that next time. Thanks, BakerAunt.

[chocomouse]

Our dinner was grilled salmon, wild rice, and steamed broccoli.

[chocomouse]

Today I made 2 loaves of my standard but adapted maple oatmeal bread, but use Harvest Grains in place of the cup of oatmeal.

[chocomouse]

BakerAunt, Thank you for your comments. I used the recipe "Motzah Everything Crackers" from Food52.com. The dough was wonderful to handle and I didn't need to add any water. But I followed PJ's directions for rolling it on parchment, adding seeds, and baking, as she wrote on the KAF blog "Crunchy Crackers" back in 2011. That worked great, also. I did separate the crackers on my baking sheet, perhaps by roughly 1/4". Most all of them were separated from each other after baking, although I did have to break a few of them. I have noticed, while crunchy on some, that my edge pieces got rolled thinner on the edge side, and are crispy where they are thinner. I think that's going to be the key to crispy crackers. I'm spending the next week or so on the beach in Maine, so I won't be making my next batch for a while.

[chocomouse]

Yesterday I tried making crackers, first time ever. They were a lot easier to make than I expected, even though the directions seemed complicated. They came out OK, but with room for improvement. They were crispy - at first, but within an hour they became chewy. However, this morning, they were crispy again. I think I need to roll the dough out a little thinner, maybe even dig out my pasta machine and use that. I estimate that I rolled mine about 1/8" thick, so I will shoot for 1/16 next time. Does that sound about right, BakerAunt? I used my Everything Bagel seed mix for the topping, and next time I will shake it on twice as thick.

[chocomouse]

Dinner was grilled chicken thighs, potatoes roasted on the grill, a green salad from the deck planters, and the last of the broccoli salad.

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