Peach Shortcake

This past week, I had some fresh peaches, and I decided to look for a peach shortcake recipe. I found Paula Deen's recipe and made it. It was delicious! I made a few changes, so here is how I made it. Peach Shortcake

Shortcakes:

2 cups Bisquick - I used my mom's recipe, here

1/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup milk

1 T melted butter

3/4 tsp. almond flavoring

Peaches:

2-3 peaches

2-3 T sugar

Splash of warm water

Topping:

Cool Whip

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix Bisquick, sugar, milk, butter, and almond flavoring, and pour into 6 muffin tins. Bake for 15-20 minutes until done and remove from oven. Cool for five minutes and pop out of pans.

Peel, core, and slice the peaches. Sprinkle them with a little bit of sugar, and add a splash of warm water. Stir the sugar into the peaches.

To assemble, split the biscuit in half and place bottom half on a plate. Top with sliced peaches and Cool Whip. Place top half of biscuit over peaches and Cool Whip. Enjoy - we sure did!

Car Rug

Drew's latest obsession has been his car rug. I found this rug at a thrift store a few years ago for $5.00, and it has been in our hallway ever since. Drew has recently started playing there with his Matchbox cars several times a day. He loves it!

His tool bench is also kept in the hall, and we have been storing the little cars under the tool bench.

We enjoy watching Drew play with his cars and make up little scenes and stories with them.

I love great thrift store finds!

Summer Scrapbooking

I have been scrapbooking a little bit this summer, and I have a few new layouts to share. These layouts were all done using sketches from Let's Scrap.
This first layout is about this year's Fourth of July fireworks at the golf course. I scrapped this pretty quickly after the Fourth, but this sketch was perfect for my pictures!
This layout is about our putt-putting afternoon a few months ago.

This page is about a t-ball game we went to several weeks ago. Our friends' son, Nathan, is playing t-ball this summer, and we went to see one of his games. Drew loved watching Nathan play, and he can't wait to play on a team himself.

This last layout is about our most recent trip to Carl Sandburg's home when Drew and I were down visiting my parents last month. Drew loves to see the goats, and there were a few baby goats there that day.

I have a die-cutting machine, called a Slice, that I use to cut most of my titles and lots of other little embellishments. My machine stopped cutting this past week, and I had to send it back to the company for repairs. I am hoping it can be fixed! I am already missing it!

Ice Cream

It has been hot here this week! Jim's work is not air-conditioned, so when he came home the other night, he told me that he wanted me to go buy and ice cream maker. We had been given one as a wedding gift, but after a few years, something cracked, and salt was getting into the ice cream, so we had to throw it out. I started checking prices and realized that I could get an ice cream maker that didn't require ice and rock salt if I spent just a little more money. Some of them were actually cheaper! After thinking about my options and reading reviews, I decided to buy the Kitchen Aid ice cream maker. I liked that it was not another whole machine - just a bowl and a few small pieces. The bowl has liquid in its walls, and it has to go in the freezer for at least 15 hours before it is used. There is a small adapter piece that fits on the motor head, and then there is the dasher, which stands upright in the bottom of the bowl. The adapter clicks into the top of the dasher, when the mixer head is lowered. Once the mixer is running, I just had to pour my prepared ice cream mixture into the bowl, and about 10-20 minutes later, the ice cream was done!

We have used our new ice cream maker twice already this week! On Wednesday, I made Nutella ice cream. It froze up very quickly, and it had a good taste, but Jim and I thought it had a waxy texture.

Yesterday, I made strawberry sorbet. It was delicious! This is the recipe I used.

Strawberry Sorbet

2 1/2 cups strawberries (I used frozen.)

2 T water

1 T lime juice

3/4 cup simple syrup - see below

Using a food processor or blender, puree strawberries and water. Add lime juice to the strawberry puree and refrigerate several hours, until chilled.

Make simple syrup. In a small saucepan, place 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup water. Over medium high heat, stir sugar and water. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring constantly to dissolve sugar completely. Remove pan from heat and place in an ice bath. Chill in refrigerator.

After both mixtures are completely chilled, mix them together. Start the ice cream maker, and pour mixture into the bowl. (It is much easier to do this neatly if your container has a spout!) Mix for 7-10 minutes. This sorbet can be eaten immediately or frozen for a couple of hours to harden, depending on your preference. This recipe makes about 1 quart of sorbet.

If you have a Kitchen Aid mixer, and you are wanting an ice cream maker, I highly recommend this one. We are enjoying it, and it is very easy to use!

Fourth of July

We had a nice little Fourth of July. It was the first year in several years that my parents weren't here, so it felt strange not to be cooking a birthday dinner (my mom's birthday is July 4th) and spending the day with them. The Fourth is always a busy day at work for Jim, because the city of Huntington Woods does the city fireworks at Rackham, so Jim is always busy getting everything set up for that. He was able to take the morning off and go to church with us, though, so that was nice.
That evening, Drew and I had a little photo shoot in the backyard. I only took a few pictures because it was so hot! I took his annual picture by the shed with his flag. He looks so tall here to me! Then we drove out to the golf course. Jim's employees gave us some treats, and then one of the girls (a scrapbooker) took some family pictures for us.

Drew enjoyed this Icee pop, but he spilled a lot of it, and it stained up his belly, side, and back! He was a mess!

He also had some popcorn.

He had a great time playing with Nathan and Jocelyn and their cousin, Ian, while we waited for the sun to go down. Here are Drew and Nathan, ready for the fireworks.

Jim ended up surprising us and coming to get us right before the fireworks started. He took us out in a cart so we could watch the fireworks together. We don't usually get to see the fireworks with Jim, so it was nice!

They were beautiful, as usual!

We had a great Fourth of July, and I hope you all did too!

New Purse

A few weekends ago, Jim was gone overnight playing in a golf tournament. I wanted a fun little project that I could do while he was gone, and I remembered a purse pattern I had bought a while ago when Simplicity patterns were on sale at Joann's for $1 each. The pattern I used was Simplicity 2685. I wanted something that would be fun and casual for the summer, so I chose this plaid patchwork and denim. The purse came together very quickly, and the instructions were easy to follow. I was nervous to do the inside welt pocket, so I skipped it, and I wish that I had put a snap in the band (the pattern didn't call for one), but other than those things, I followed the pattern and am happy with the results.

I am enjoying this new purse and am looking forward to making another one some time.

Seven Happy Years

Jim and I are celebrating our seventh wedding anniversary today! Jim had last week off from work, so we actually celebrated early with a dinner out at Carrabba's on Friday night. We enjoyed our evening out - just the two of us!
Here we were 7 years ago - very happy and excited about our future together. Here we are more recently - still happy and looking forward to many more years together!

We are so thankful for all that God has done for us in our years together. We've been through job changes, the birth of a premature baby, and so many other challenges and joys, and God has been so faithful through it all. We are excited to see what God has for us in the future!

I made Jim a little anniversary treat today. He loves marshmallows, and he had seen this recipe a while ago and told me that he thought it looked good. I got a good deal on S'mores ingredients at Walgreens this morning, so I whipped up a batch of brownies. They were a hit!

I tried another new recipe this weekend that we loved! We had a Sunday School class cook-out on Saturday, and I made this cake. Oh, my! We loved it!

I hope you all have a great week!