Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Summer At Its Finest And Some Stripes

Besides the corn on the cob that I love in the summer, THIS says it all.  I got this at the Saturday farmer's market.  So juicy and delicious!  The taste does not even compare to the melons you buy in the store!

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We cut it in to chunks along with some watermelon and served it for dinner last night.  The boys LOVE it.  Of course, when I say we, I mean I had a certain helper to cut it.  And he loves to be photographed! ;)

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Stripes, what stripes.  Well, I saw on Baking Bites, Nicole made a fun Zebra Cake and decided I had to give it a try.  I'm wishing I would have just made one whole cake, as Nicole did, but decided to make little bread tin size cakes to give away.  So I didn't get as nice and as many stripes as if I'd made one cake.  Still turned out to be kind of a fun thing.  On Baking Bites, she gives the recipe and some links to others who have made the cakes.  They are fun to look at.  I'm glad I tried it and whenever I make the cake again, (shhhhh) I will probably just use a white or yellow cake mix and add some cocoa to it.  I would use a dark cocoa also.  I felt like the cake didn't have enough flavor, so you could just tweak that, too, if you want.  Also just beware that this is not a low fat cake in any way (hence my reason for wanting to give it away!)  I am curious to try a white cake mix, since that only uses egg whites and is lower in fat as well as not quite so much oil.  I think it would still work.  I thought the cake wasn't very sweet, so I would definitely put some kind of topping on, like frosting, or as I did some chocolate flavored Cool Whip.  I also dusted mine with powdered sugar.  Nicole didn't put a frosting on her cake and I can't blame her--her cake is gorgeous and you wouldn't want to cover that up. 

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So, back to boy stuff for a minute.  Look at what I caught Sammie doing yesterday!  He was being very quiet (which is always trouble).  I assumed he had found some little Legos of his brother's and was getting away with playing with them, or eating them.  Here is what I saw when I went into the room he was in-----

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There had been an empty laundry basket that Sam was playing with.  He turned it upside down and used it to step up on the piano bench and then on to the piano.  That little stink!  I'm glad I caught him (and just happened to have the camera in my hand at the time).  He really could have just leaned back slightly and fallen a good one!  So, no more laundry baskets for Sam!

And the real reason Sam's hair is curly----

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Right, Matt?  Once your curl your hair, it stays curly forever.  (The real story, which I only need to clarify since Sam recently burned his fingers on my flat iron, is that this is an iron I never use and he got it out of my bathroom cupboard while I was getting ready for the day the other day.  I let him "play" with it for a minute.  Darn that face!  He's so cute and really developing such a fun and funny personality!   My younger brother, now in his 30's, maintains that he has had curly hair his whole life because our older sister curled his hair one day when he was little!

Taylor also recently has this thing for wanting to help me make dinner by cutting up vegetables (which isn't always the most convenient thing to let him do.  So the other day I let him make a salad for daddy.  By the way, in all his cutting, I only let him use a butter knife.  So he chopped away at some carrots, cucumber and lettuce and made this beauty.  I wonder if any of the Iron Chef's need a sous chef?

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Here he is loving the camera again.

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I made this yummy salad last week that I got from Judy at Judy's Kitchen for Broccoli Tomato Salad.  It was really good!  I added a bunch of other veggies to mine.  Check out Judy's salad and get the recipe on the link above. 

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I added some chopped green peppers, zucchini, yellow squash and corn cut off the cob, all from the farmer's market.  Once again, it's Judy's vinaigrette that makes the salad so yummy.  It's a simple dressing with lemon, garlic and olive oil.  Oh, I'm seeing some sugar snap peas in there as well.  I really just start chopping up whatever veggies are in the fridge.  Make this one for a great refreshing summer side salad.  I ate this with some green beans someone had given me from a co-op exchange, a few boiled potatoes and sweet potatoes (also from the market) and a bit of chicken leftover from the night before as well as a little spoonful of sloppy joe meat (which is what I'd made for everyone else for dinner--I just don't care for sloppy joes nor should I eat the bread.)

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Gonna go find some more leftover salads in the fridge for lunch right now!  Go to your farmer's markets!

7 comments:

Anne Marie said...

Love the pics of Taylor chopping food. It's so great to get your kids involved in the kitchen. your little monkey is sure cute. Laundry baskets are sure dangerous in our house too.

Sophie said...

We'd like to invite you to participate in our July berry recipe contest. All competitors will be placed on our blogroll, and the winner will receive a fun prize! Please email me, sophiekiblogger@gmail.com, if you're interested. Feel free to check out our blog for more details.

Sophie said...

I just realized that I didn't log out of my account before posting the invitation :), you can find out more details about the contest here :):
http://blog.keyingredient.com/2008/06/06/key-ingredient-cooks-kitchen-recipe-contest/

Clumbsy Cookie said...

Really nice looking healthy food! Katrina I love the 1st picture of the cake slices, it looks like a face, have you noticed it? I remember seeing it as well on baking bites. It's a good thing to put your boys helping you in the kitchen, they're doing a great job!

Pamela said...

The same thing happens to us with the bananas! My older guy has to peel it for himself, doesn't want it out of the peel, takes a single little nibble and he's done! Grrrr! Anyway, Sammy looks like a dare-devil up there on the piano. That's something Christian would do, for sure!

priscilla joy said...

that zebra cake looks great! fresh melon is so good, and i love catelope!

Judy said...

Katrina - your little Sammy reminds me so much of my David. He was always into something, and if I didn't hear him, I worried. My father-in-law once said we should tie a cow bell around his neck!