cooking in my kitchen...

The other night I cooked my little tail off, before I knew it the time was midnight and dishes were piled on every counter. What I made:

Looking at the finished goods now, it doesn't look like I really did all that much, but I assure you that lots of chopping, and measuring & mixing of ingredients, and cooking of brines, and simmering of sauces, and tempering of custards went into those jars.

• bread & butter pickles with some of the plethora of cucumbers coming out of my garden
• pickled beets (again from the garden)
• custard base for ice cream. I infused it with a whole lotta mint (from the garden) and I'll add mini-chocolate chips to it after it freezes in the ice cream maker.
• pizza sauce (again with tomatoes from the garden)
• pizza dough for pizzas on the BBQ (if you've never made your own pizza dough and cooked it on the grill, you must! - it's super easy, and delicious. Tomato + Basil + Mozzarella is the best!)

I also wanted to make some type of strawberry cake, the choices were P-Dub's Strawberry Shortcake Cake and Joy the Baker's Strawberry Cake. I asked Cory to help me choose based on just the photos. I didn't tell him anything about where I had found the recipes, but somehow he knew exactly who had made each one. Those two ladies are my fave's and I think he has learned that most things I bake (or talk about baking) have come from them. Funny that he knows which based on only the photos.
Of course he wanted the more difficult, more time-consuming-to-make option of the two, but he knows that the Pioneer Woman never disappoints, and she didn't (I'm thinking about a piece right now for breakfast...)
I still want to try Joy's boxed cake mix & strawberry jell-o version.

Oh! Speaking of cakes...if you've got a plethora of zucchini coming out of your garden, you should make this cake. You must make this cake! Pleeease make this cake! It has zucchini & pineapple in it, and the frosting calls for low-fat cream cheese and only 2 tablespoons of butter...so it's practically healthy! I think it's like carrot cake on crack, and Cory likes it better than German Chocolate (which is his all-time-fave, even though this cake doesn't have any chocolate).

I baked mine in two round 9" pans to make a layered cake instead of sheet cake, but do it in a 9x13 baking dish and you can just eat it right out of the pan (which makes the recipe even easier!)

Happy Baking!