Now introducing the newest and cutest member of our family, June Maier. Born August 5th at 9:42pm weighing 7 pounds and 7 ounces. She’s been a joy and we feel completely blessed to have her.

Thanks to our sweet friend Helen Joy for the amazing photos!

Details to come.

A few weeks ago at the market Clif bought us an ice cold glass of this juice (or “elixir” as the seller called it) from a little stand we found there, and upon tasting it we both agreed that I had to find a way to recreate it. While I didn’t get the original recipe, the name of the drink seemed pretty self-explanatory. So I came home and gave it a try for myself. Personally, I don’t own a juicer. I’ve wanted one for a while now, but somehow haven’t gotten around to making the big leap. So for all of you juicer-less people out there like me, here is a delicious recipe for a refreshing juice, no juicer required! I’m also planning on making some sweet frozen treats with part of the juice I still have in my fridge…I’ll let you know how they turn out!:)

Speaking of fruits, baby is approximately the size of a watermelon now!

Ingredients

Peach Nectar (recipe below)
Cantaloupe Juice (recipe below)
Apple Juice (I used R.W. Knudsen Family’s Organic Apple Juice)

Directions

Honesty, this part is really up to you. Depending on which juice you like best, mix yours to taste! I personally prefer 2 parts peach, 1 part apple, and 1 part cantaloupe juice. Combine juices to your liking and serve over ice.

Juice freezes great for future enjoyment! Just pour into jars and pop in your freezer. Just be sure to leave a little room at the top of each jar for expansion as it freezes.

Peach Nectar:

Ingredients

5 cups peaches, peeled and sliced into chunks
2 cups water
honey or agave nectar to taste (optional)

Directions

In a blender, puree chunks of peach and water on high until smooth. Sweeten with a tablespoon or two of honey or agave nectar if so desired.

Yields about 6 cups of nectar.

Cantaloupe Juice:

Ingredients

1 cantaloupe, peeled, seeded & cut into chunks

Directions

In a blender, puree cantaloupe chunks on high until smooth. Strain juice through a mesh strainer to separate the thick pulp from the juice. You can discard pulp, or freeze and enjoy it as a tasty frozen treat.

Yields about 4 cups juice.

I’ve recently found that I am a million times more productive if I leave the house to do things. For example: I have a long, long list of thank you notes to write for all of the lovely gifts we received at our baby shower, and somehow I can’t make myself sit down at my desk long enough to just write them. For me, the same thing happens with blogging. I have a list of recipes and lots of photos just waiting to be published, but nope. It just hasn’t happened. Does this happen to you? What is it about sitting yourself down at a coffee shop that makes you work harder? Maybe it’s the people around that are watching…making sure you’re doing what you should be. In any case. Here I am…and guess what? My notes are written and you’re reading a shiny new blog post. Yipee! Thanks to all the encouragement of perfect strangers sitting around me.

On a side note: I’m full term today, so this baby can safely come any day now. Let’s all say a prayer and hope really hard she comes sooner rather than later. Let me know if you have any tips on making that happen.:)

Here’s a yummy new way I’ve used up my zucchini! The nice thing about this soup is that you can enjoy it hot or cold. Personally, I like my soup hot…but I hear it’s really refreshing chilled as well. However, I’m thinking the cheese would be omitted in that case.

Ingredients

1 large leek
4-6 slices of bacon
4 cloves of garlic, minced
4 cups chicken broth
1 pound zucchini, sliced (about 3 small)
½ pound small new potatoes, quartered
2/3 cup milk
2/3 cup sour cream
1/3 cup fresh parsley, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup white cheddar cheese (optional, omit if serving soup chilled)

Directions

Remove root, tough outer leaves and tops from leek, leaving 2 inches of dark leaves. Thinly slice, rinse well and drain.

Cook bacon in a large dutch oven or heavy bottomed pot over medium-high heat 8-10 minutes, or until crisp. Remove bacon, crumble and set aside for later use. Reserve about 3 tablespoons of the bacon drippings in pot.

Saute leek and garlic along with a pinch of salt in the hot drippings for 2-3 minutes, or until tender. Add chicken broth, zucchini and potatoes and simmer for 20-25 minutes or until zucchini and potatoes are soft. Stir in milk, sour cream and parsley. Using an immersion blender, blend soup until smooth and silky. Alternately, you can let the mixture cool some and puree it in a food processor or blender.

Salt and pepper to taste and stir in cheese if desired. Serve with crumbled bacon and cheese and enjoy!

If you prefer a chilled soup, simply refrigerate for 4-6 hours before serving.:)

Recipe adapted from the Southern Living Farmer’s Market Cookbook

Yields 5-6 servings

Another veggie that has been making a weekly appearance in my CSA box has been zucchini. As much as I love sauteing them up with summer squash, garlic and onions, I was craving something a bit sweeter and thought it was the perfect time to bake a loaf of zucchini bread. I’ve made this loaf a little heartier by tossing in more chopped nuts and zucchini than most recipes call for, and to brighten up the flavor a bit, zested a lemon into the batter. Result: deliciousness.

What’s your favorite zucchini bread recipe? Or how do you use up the copious amounts of zucchini growing this time of year?

Hope everyone had a lovely Fourth! We made a very last minute trip to Maryland to celebrate with the family, which has been lovely. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed that our baby girl waits to come till we get home!:)

Ingredients

for a sweeter dessert-like loaf, i think 1/2 cup of chocolate chunks would be extra delicious mixed into the batter!:)

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened (1 stick)
1 1/2 cups natural cane sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups grated zucchini, tightly packed
zest of 2 lemons
3 cups whole wheat pastry flour, or unbleached all-purpose
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts, or whatever nuts you love and have on hand

Directions

Preheat oven for 350 degrees F and liberally grease 2 loaf pans.

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and creamy. Beat in eggs and vanilla, mixing well and scraping down the sides of the bowl as you go. Stir in grated zucchini and lemon zest.

In a separate medium sized bowl, combine flour, salt, soda, powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. Gradually add this dry mixture to the wet until well incorporated, then fold in chopped nuts, taking care not to over mix . Pour mixture into prepared loaf pans and bake at 350 degrees F for 55-60 minutes, or until golden and knife comes out clean when pierced.

Serve warm from the oven smeared with butter!

Yields 2 loaves

We’ve recently started receiving our local CSA boxes, and it’s been like Christmas every Thursday when a new one comes in. You never know what kind of delicious veggies and herbs are inside this week’s box! One thing we’ve consistently received weekly has been kale. I’ve talked about my kale-love here before, but I’ve been trying to get a little more creative with preparing it because of the shear mass I have to go through. Here’s a new recipe I’ve recently tried out. Clif and I loved the creamy roasted garbanzo’s and loads of garlic mixed with the sauteed greens. We enjoyed this as a main course for dinner tonight, but I also think it would be deeeelish as a side or smothered on a crusty bread. Yum!

Things have been going well on the baby-front. She still has a little over a month to go until her estimated appearance date, and we’ve been having fun finishing up her room and shopping for cuteness. I’m continually getting bigger….and the weather is only getting warmer. Which isn’t making for the best combination, but I think I will make it a little longer with the help of A/C and large quantities of water. Speaking of, I’m headed to the lake now!

Do you have a favorite go-to recipe using kale? I’d love to hear!

Ingredients

Garbanzo Beans:
2 15.5-ounce cans garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained (about 3 cups)
10 garlic cloves, peeled
2 large shallots
3 small bay leaves, preferably fresh
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Kale:

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
6 garlic cloves, peeled, crushed and roughly chopped
3 small bay leaves
2 shallots, sliced
3-4 bunches (or big ol’ handfuls) kale, center stems removed, roughly chopped

salt and pepper to taste
parmesan cheese for garnishing

Recipe

Garbanzo beans:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine first 5 ingredients in 8x8x2-inch glass baking dish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and pour olive oil over mixture. Cover dish with foil and roast until garlic is tender, about 45 minutes.

While the beans are in the oven you can prepare….

Kale:
Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add garlic, bay leaves, and shallots. Saute until shallots are tender and garlic is fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add half of kale and toss until it wilts and volume is reduced by about half, about 2 minutes. Add remaining kale. Toss until chard wilts, about 2 minutes. Cover and cook until chard is tender, adding a little water if needed to keep greens from drying out, stirring occasionally, about 7 minutes.

Once garbanzo bean/garlic mixture is finished cooking toss the kale and garbanzo mixtures together and season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a serving dish and garnish with fresh ground pepper and grated parmesan. Serve and enjoy!

Yields 4-6 servings
Recipe loosely adapted from Epicurious.com

On my drive back from visiting family in South Carolina there are tons of little roadside stands just South of the North Carolina state line. This time of year, I can never pass that strip without stopping at one to pick up at least one basket of peaches. They have to be one of my favorite things about the season. It takes a lot of restraint for me to resist eating them all before I can bake up something delicious, but I always try and set a few aside.

If you’ve been a reading my blog for very long at all, you may have noticed that I love my cast iron skillet. I’d definitely say it’s my favorite kitchen tool, and I’ll use it every opportunity I can. Something about it’s rustic, old timey feel maybe? Whatever it is, if you don’t have one, I encourage you to go out and buy one pronto.

Here I’ve made something similar to a cinnamony-peach loaf, but thrown it in a skillet and topped it off with an oat and sugar crumble and sweet drizzle. It turned into more of a desserty dish (hence the “cake” in the title), but we also enjoyed it as a next-morning breakfast.

Ingredients

I think this would also be extra delicious made with any kind of summer berries or fall apples. Just use what fruit you love!

1 cup all unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups diced fresh peaches (i left mine unpeeled, but you can remove the peel if you prefer it)
3/4 cup natural cane sugar
1/2 cup coconut oil or unsalted butter
2 eggs

for oat crumble:
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup natural cane sugar
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon flour

for powdered sugar drizzle:
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon milk

Directions

Preheat oven for 350 degrees F. Lightly grease 10″ cast iron skillet, or whatever baking dish you prefer.* In a small bowl combine all ingredients for the oat crumble, set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. In a separate large bowl, mix together the peaches, sugar, eggs and oil/butter. Gradually stir dry mixture into the wet mixture until just combined. Pour mixture into prepared baking dish and top with oat crumble. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until knife comes out clean and cake has poofed up slightly.

Whisk together powdered sugar and milk until smooth. Cut cake into slices, drizzle away and serve!

*You can easily bake this in a loaf pan or prepare as muffins, just keep in mind that you’ll need to tweak your baking time accordingly.

I’ve been on a bit of a pizza kick lately. We have a little brick oven bakery close to us that has the most amazing pizzas ever on the most delicious crisp whole-wheat crust. And since we can’t exactly afford to go there daily, my kitchen has sort of turned into a pizzeria. My biggest challenge has been the crust. After trying recipe after recipe and being let down over the bland, chewy crust, I think I’ve finally found the perfect one. I prefer a light and crisp crust, so for me, this one hit the nail on the head. I topped it with a pesto base along with left over veggies and cheeses I had from the market last weekend (I’m currently trying to clean out my fridge before heading out of town!). We went a little on the lighter side with the toppings, so that we wouldn’t weigh down the crust too much. Alongside a salad, It was a perfect and simple dinner for two, and we have leftovers for lunch today. Woohoo!

We are headed out of town this weekend to celebrate Clif’s sister Evelyn’s wedding, which happens to also be Clif and my 3rd wedding anniversary. Celebrations all around! Can’t wait to soak up family time and celebrate a weekend full of love. This will probably be the last big trip we take before the baby arrives, so we’ll enjoy the long car ride with just the two of us while we can.:) Talk to you next week!

Ingredients

for crust:

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (i used half whole wheat/half AP)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon honey
3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons lukewarm water
1 tablespoon olive oil

topping:

1 cup grated mozzerella
3 ounces goat cheese
3 tablespoons of your favorite basil pesto
1 medium tomato, thinly sliced
1 cup loosely packed chopped arugula (or your favorite green)
olive oil, for drizzling
fresh cracked pepper

Directions

Stir dry ingredients, including yeast, in a large bowl. Add water and olive oil, stirring mixture into as close to a ball as you can. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead it for about two minutes and form into a ball once again. Lightly oil the bowl that you used to mix the dough in, and place dough back into bowl, turning to coat all sides of the ball. Cover and leave in a warm environment for 1-2 hours, or until doubled in size.

Place dough back onto the floured counter, and gently press the air out of the dough with the palm of your hands. Form a small disk shape, then allow dough to rest for 20 more minutes, covered.

Pre-heat oven to 550 degrees F, and if using, place pizza stone into pre-heating oven so that it stays warm.

Roll out the pizza to about a quarter inch thickness, and spread pesto base. Top with cheeses, sliced tomato and arugula. Drizzle with a little olive oil and a few grinds of fresh ground pepper. Place onto pizza pan or stone and bake for 10-12 minutes, watching closely, until it’s crisp, lightly browned and blistered.

Crust recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen.
Yields 2-3 servings.

I’m back! Hopefully you haven’t all lost faith in me by now.:) Between moving and getting the baby’s room ready…my poor little blog has been ignored. If you are still reading…thanks for your patience.:) We’ve been enjoying living in our new town and exploring local restaurants, shops and farmers markets. Which by the way… there are so many of! I think I’m in dream land. We are mostly all settled in now, with the exception of the yard and guest/baby room. But we still have a couple more months to tackle those things, thankfully.

I’m usually a pretty healthy eater, and being pregnant has motivated me to watch what I’m eating even more, but I think there is something about knowing I really shouldn’t eat 5 cookies that makes me crave them even more. I came across this recipe last week and I have to admit that I was pretty skeptical at first. Does a vegan, gluten-free*, healthy cookie sound like it equals not-yummy to anyone besides me? But in my desperation to satisfy my cookie craving I whipped some together, only making a half batch…just in case. Once I pulled them out of the oven and took a bite I was in awe. These cookies truly are magical. So magical that I ate 5 and felt no guilt. Who could with this ingredient list?

Ingredients

*for gluten-free cookies, sub with GF oats

Directions

Lots of big things have been happening around here. For one, we’re in the process of moving closer to Clif’s job in NC. We recently have found a place that we love that’s not only close to a downtown area, but also has a guest room! This is very exciting, considering we’ve always had only a couch to put guests on. Also, it has a yard. This is big… I’ve never had a yard of my very own. I have high aspirations for gardening, and I’ll keep you updated on how that actually turns out for me.:) But needless to say, between the pregnancy and the move, my time in the kitchen has dwindled somewhat.

When I saw Laurie from Simply Scratch post her granola recipe last week, I loved how yummy and simple it looked. Perrrrfect. I’ve tried a handful of granola recipes in the past, but I’ve never been completely pleased with the outcome. But I knew anything Laurie makes wouldn’t disappoint, so I went for it. I took her granola recipe base and just replaced some of the ingredients with what I had in my kitchen. So amazingly delicious. I highly recommend bagging this up and bringing it to friends or people that you want to be friends with. I’ve tried it and it works. Next on my granola-making agenda: I plan to try the original Honey Almond Granola. Doesn’t that combo sound amazing? Mmmm.

Ingredients

1/2 cup roughly chopped nuts (I used a combo of pumpkin seeds, pistachios and cashews)
1/2 cup roughly chopped dried fruit (I used a combo of dates, cranberries and currants)
2 tablespoons flax seeds
1/4 cup agave nectar (as always, I recommend Madhava!)
4 tablespoons coconut oil, melted (plus extra, for greasing pan)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. With a small amount of coconut oil, grease a small baking sheet.

In a small bowl, combine agave nectar, coconut oil and vanilla. In a separate large bowl toss together the oats, flour, salt, nuts, fruit and flax seeds. Pour agave mixture over oat mixture and stir until well combined. Spread granola into the prepared pan and bake for 10 minutes. Remove and toss, and then bake for an additional 5-8 minutes, until golden but not too toasty. Enjoy as a snack, cereal, or sprinkled over yogurt!:)

Yields approximately 3 cups.

Recipe adapted from Simply Scratch