It's almost the end of July...

I'm sorry, blog, did we forget about you? You know, it was just so hot last week... the heat makes motivation extra hard to come by. Hence, we didn't really do anything worth blogging about. We tried to keep up with our walking as well as we could, but even that was too much of a task at times last week... it was just so darn uncomfortable! Last night was the first night in a while that we've been able to sleep without the air conditioner running. Yesterday it also cooled down enough for me to do a little baking!


I've made s'mores brownies before, but these are just as good, if not better (gasp)!
I whipped up a graham cracker crust using about 1 cup of butter and 1 1/2 cups smashed graham crackers, pressed that into the bottom of a 9x9 pan and topped it with brownie batter made from this amazing recipe. Baked everything for about 40 minutes then turned up the heat to 450 degrees, threw a nice layer of mini marshmallows on top and let those get nice and toasty. Once cooled, the result is a fudgy chocolatey center sandwiched between bouncy marshmallows and graham cracker. (Cute plate not included...) So yummy! I even had one for breakfast this morning...


This bread recipe has been on my recipe to-do list for a while now... and I finally made it! It's an incredibly dense yet moist loaf, and it's HUGE! The top of it almost hit the top of my oven before I noticed and moved the rack down...


It's slightly heavy on the molasses, but maybe I'm the only one picking up on that taste because I know it's there. I've been slicing it thick and slathering the slices with local wildflower honey or Nutella and sometimes strawberry preserves. It holds itself up well; this isn't a flimsy bread recipe!


If I remember, I'll post the recipe for this macaroni and cheese next week. I bought heavy cream, sharp cheddar, and pasta then went home and looked at a few different recipes to see what I could come up with using other ingredients I already had on hand. The result was wonderfully creamy and soft - not overly cheese-y and just the right ratio of sauce to pasta. I used orecchiette instead of the traditional elbows because that's all I could find and I figured it surely couldn't turn out badly (I was so right!).

Oh, we had a visitor the other day when I was making a batch of dog treats for an order!


We haven't had too many squirrel visitors this summer... certainly not the daily visits we got last year! But the smell of baking dog treats always seems to bring them to the window. Don't worry, we never feed the little buggers! The smell is just to entice them so we can exploit them for photographing purposes. Peanut butter baked goods always do the trick.


Farmer's market goods purchased earlier today... various heirloom tomatoes, a pound of zucchini, and some juicy yellow peaches.

Funny story! I actually went to the market with only $9 cash in hand, hoping to make the most of it. Once I noticed the tomatoes, I knew I had to get those so I picked out a small basket of them and asked for some zucchini because I knew Shawn would appreciate that more than tomatoes. All of that should have cost me $6 but the farmer said $5 so I happily set off towards the fruit stand with the $4 I had left. They had donut peaches (my favorite!) for sale but a basket cost $5, so I was $1 short. The woman standing next to me noticed them too and was asking the farmer about them, so I casually snuck in a "Oh those donut peaches are so good! They're amazing and sweet and just the perfect snack. I would get some myself if I had another dollar!"... long story short, the woman bought some donut peaches and I bought some $4 yellow peaches but ended up getting a donut peach for free because I helped promote them! Gotta love good peach karma.


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PS! That donut peach was really tasty! Velvety sweet!
PPS! The thing that makes those brownies so good is the brown butter called for in the recipe. Brown your butter, people!