Mini Peach Pies

I'll start out saying I never intended to make mini pies... we bought 4 peaches from the farmer's market and once we requested them he sais $8!!! Seriously he had a truck full and $2 a peach, but we were already too far in to back out so we bought them, took them home, looked at them that night and now they were 1/2 rotted and weren't going to make it much longer. So I had to use them for something since they were so dang expensive- so I made pies :)

My friend Liz came over and helped out so that also made the overpriced rotting peaches hurt less :)

2 1/2 cups flour

1 cup of butter; cold

4 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1/2-3/4 cup ice water

6 peaches; one per mini pie
1 tbs brown sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tbs heavy cream

1    in a large bowl mix flour, salt, 1 tsp sugar

2    cut in or grate in the butter

3    add 1/4 cup of ice water and mix

4    mix in the other 1/4 cup 1tbs at a time, add a little more if necessary- dough should hold together

5    shape dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, place in fridge for 1 hour

6   then diced up peaches
7   sprinkled in 1 tbs brown sugar
8   rolled out the dough to 1/8" thick
9   cut out 6 - 5 /12" circles
10   placed them in tart tins and pushed the dough up the sides
11   filled them with peaches
12   rolled out the dough again, and cut out small cirlces
13   placed them on top of the peaches and pinched it to the bottom dough
14 preheat oven to 425 degrees F, refrigerate for 15 minutes
15 brush the tops with egg yolk and 1 tbs heavy cream mixture
16 bake for 30 minutes, turn oven down to 375, bake another 25-30 minutes
     viola, Pie!

Plum Galette

Pies scare me, so I wanted to start with something I thought I could handle. I made a galette which is quite like a pie but you don't need a pie pan and it has an open top.

It turned out to be really tasty! The almonds sprinkled on the bottom of the crust really made this special. And wow it was easy- I'm feeling like I can try a pie now :)

to fold the galette easily I used the parchment paper and pulled that up and

pressed it on top of the plums so that the dough evenly pressed onto itself

all the way around and it didn't have my finger marks all over it.

Plum Galette:

serves 8

adapted from this

2 1/2 cups flour

1 cup of butter; cold

4 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1/2-3/4 cup ice water

1/4 cup almonds; toasted, crushed

4-5 plums; sliced 1/4" thick (I got a few different types)

4 tbs honey

1 tbs heavy cream

1 egg yolk

1    in a large bowl mix flour, salt, 1 tsp sugar

2    cut in or grate in the butter

3    add 1/4 cup of ice water and mix

4    mix in the other 1/4 cup 1tbs at a time, add a little more if necessary- dough should hold together

5    shape dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, place in fridge for 1 hour

6    in a small bowl mix together almonds and 3 tsp sugar  

7    preheat oven to 350 degrees F

8    pull dough out and place on parchment paper

9    roll out dough to 1/4" thick circle

10  sprinkle almond and sugar mixture evenly over dough and press in

11  place plums in the center of the dough, leave 2" border

12  fold dough edges over the plums, easiest if you use parchment paper to fold dough up and over

13  drizzle honey over the plums

14  place in fridge 20 minutes

15  place parchement paper with galette on cookie sheet 

16  whisk egg yolk and heavy cream and brush onto the dough

17  bake in oven for about 70 minutes, crust should be golden brown

Hey Seattle - Cincinnati is Awesome!

At least half the time I tell people out here I'm from Cincinnati, they reply with - "O I'm sorry"

What!?

And every time I tell them, nicely, that I love it there and it is way better than they think.

So when we were on the way to the airport last weekend Joshua's mom took us to walk around downtown and see all the new things that have been happening.

So Seattle- below is just a small small portion of what Cincinnati is, and it still looks stinkin sweet:

Music hall

Cincinnati has been doing a lot in over the rhine downtown and a lot of new restaurants are moving in, whiskey bars, vintage stores, local art stores, and the one we stopped at was a crepe restauraunt- yumm! We all had the 'Nati

One of our many cool bridges

A sculpture in the waterfront park of a steamboat wheel, s

teamboats have a lot of history for Cincinnati

The Serpentine wall along the water, yeah it's pretty cool!

Fountain Square in the middle of downtow. There was a concert being set up because during the summer there are concerts, movies, dancing going on every night in the square.

Since we were Porkopolis we have artists and organizations decorate

pigs that are placed all over downtown.

Washington Park downtown just got a huge makeover with playgrounds, water features and more.

Plus Cincinnati has Graeters!

A new park at the waterfront

A Cincinnati original brewery that just opened up a location down overlooking the water

Another water feature downtown, kids were running through it all day

the Purple People Eater bridge, for pedestrians and bikes only- I know cool!

Our baseball stadium!

So that's a little bit of Cincinnati, not including all the new fabulous small restaurants that have opened up that rival Ballard and Capitol Hill's, breweries are moving back into our brewery district, our baseball team is actually winning games this season, more parks not shown along the waterfront with bike paths running through them, we're getting a streetcar, we have a year round outdoor market too!

Really I love Seattle- But come on Cincinnati as you can see is also something to love! It's smaller, there are no mountains in the distance, but it still not something to apologize for :)

Homeade Granola Bars

Hubs had to work late this week and I therefore took that as me having to bake something to cheer him up for going into work early the next morning. So I bought apple juice and made these...

They are super tasty and don't take much effort.

I made them while watching Pride and Prejudice (I'm also currently re-reading it because I'm out of book, so naturally I also wanted to watch the movie, sorry girly moment)

(for the 1st 3 ingredients I bashed them with a hammer, also you could use a food processor)
1/2 cup almonds; crushed
1/2 cup walnuts; crushed
1 cup old fashioned oats

1/2 cup almonds; halved
1/2 cup walnuts;halved
2 tbs flax seeds (optional)
3/4 cup dried dark cherries; halved (or any dried fruit of your choice)
1/4 cup honey
3 tbs coconut oil
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt

1   mix the crushed nuts and oats, with the halved nuts, seeds, and cherries
2   in a small saucepan heat the remaining ingredients over medium heat, until the mixture foams
3   then let it stay on the heat for 15 seconds
4   then remove and pour over dry mixture
5   mix well to insure that the honey mixture covers all they dry ingredients
6   place a piece of parchment paper in an 8x8 dish so that the the bottom is covered and edges overhang
7   distribute the mixture evenly in the dish
8   fold the extra overhanging parchment paper over the mixture and press it down firmly, I used the bottom of a glass to help insure I pressed it down enough
9   place dish in refrigerator for 2-3 hours to set

10  pull out parchement paper with the bars and cut them to desired size

11 store with parchement paper between each bar in the refrigerator

I loved how simple this was and how I could easily mix them

together for breakfast for the week in about 1/2 an hour

Michigan beach and Dune Rides

Since my sister had a destination wedding we got an amazing beautiful wedding and a mini vacation.
The weather was very cooperative and sunny the whole time which helped too.
We played beach volleyball, ran in the sand, jumped waves, etc. It was truly a blessing to be able to spend this weekend with them before their wedding. It was so fun to relax with them and celebrate their marriage in such a whole way.

We also went on a dune ride! We drove all over the dunes and ran in the sand.

Couldn't have asked for more out of it.

this is a map from the dune place, hubs and I got to put a pin in Seattle :)

Scoping out the lighthouse Mallorie is getting married at

Laura and I doing the long jump :)

My little sister's Big Day!

My little sister is married! MARRIED!

It was beautiful and the weather turned out perfect!We spent the weekend on the beach and by the fire with friends and family. But this day was just the best! She was stunning!

The aisle was all the way from the lighthouse so it was quite a trek for us girls but walking up to it was so beautiful. There were rolling waves and a beatiful backdrop that they had designed to stand in front of. People were in bare feet and ties, it rocked. It was so much a representation of them and their personalities and that made it so special. Ah so excited she's married to her perfect man!

amazing friends that came up!

the new family, minus hubs, we put him in the next picture with us, don't worry

Seriously how cute are my parents!!!

on top of the lighthouse