Peach Chevre Salad

This should have made my list for "Things I Love" in September, but I thought it deserved it's own special post. It's that good. The hus and I got a cheese plate at one of our favorite restaurants over the weekend, and two of the many items on it were peaches and chevre. Luckily, they were right next to each other on the plate or I may have missed out on this taste sensation. I decided to turn it into a salad at home, but this would also be great served on slices of baguette as a late summer appetizer. Go nuts, I won't judge.

To make this tasty Peach and Chevre salad you will need:

4 cups lettuce of your choice (I used red and green butter lettuces, spinach would be great as well)
1 ripe peach, sliced
2 ounces of chevre (for those of you unfamiliar, chevre is a tangy goat's milk cheese great for spreading or crumbling)

Wash your lettuce and gently pat dry (or use a salad spinner- woo!). Place into a large serving bowl (or divide evenly into 2 bowls). Top with peaches and crumble on your chevre. This serves 2-4 people as a side and can easily be doubled or tripled for a crowd. We are lucky enough to have peaches in season at our local Farmer's Market, so I am getting my fill while I can.

What Summer dishes are you filling up on?

Summer Fun

I'm back from another hiatus and thought I should share some of the non crafty things I've been up to in my absence, we can't be crafty all the time, right? These photos were taken from my Instagram account.

1) I participated in the Portland Heart Walk and personally raised over $200 dollars for the American Heart Association. My office had a 4 week walking challenge prior to the heart walk to challenge us to be more active every day and help break us out of our sedentary work lifestyles. Many of us still take an afternoon walk together most days of the work week. I also attended a fundraiser for the Vital Life Foundation, it is a foundation that my company founded and supports to benefit the local community and the residents in our long term care facilities.

2) The hot weather has seen the husband and I going on many a date night to avoid cooking at home and making the place extra hot (Portland is a place that doesn't seem to believe in air conditioning, almost no rentals have it and very few homes have anything above a window unit). It has been a good excuse to spend time together having fancy Happy Hour food and drinks though, so I can't complain too much.

3) Hen party with S'Mores! Leave it to me and my friends to find a great place for a bachelorette party that serves DIY S'mores with a little campfire and everything! I think I may need to get one of the little cast iron "campfire" things myself so I can make my own table top S'mores in the future.

4) Summer in Portland means lots of boats on the river and bridges being raised to accommodate them. It's kinda cool to watch on the weekends (and it makes me thankful I don't work on the other side of the river during the week).

Finally, the hus and I attended the wedding of a couple dear friends last weekend. They were married in Cathedral Park near the St. John's bridge here in Portland. We decided to use my talented husband's painting gifts and create a large painting of the bridge for them to hang in their new home. I'm pretty proud of my guy for being so talented and I know the bride and groom were really touched by the gift. I'll be honest, the only thing I had to do with this is it was my idea, I'm no painter. I just had to share this with all of you as I love the painting and like to brag a little every now and then :)

What has the Summer had in store for you so far?

Butterfly Wall Art

I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief as I am finally unpacked, with internet connected and my craft supplies all ready to go! I had some requests for Spring and Summer DIY art projects, so I thought I'd start out with something pretty easy and highly customizable!

To make a paper butterfly collage of your own you need a few supplies:

Decorative paper
Scissors or Xacto blade
Butterfly images to trace and cut out (I have provided some at the bottom of this post which can be made to any size you like, but feel free to make some of your own or image search around the internet)
Pins for mounting butterflies to the wall, or a canvas to mount butterflies to before wall mounting.

You can use any paper you like, but for butterflies you want to stand alone and mount to your wall individually, I would recommend card stock as other papers do not hold their shape as well (wings may get a little droopy, especially on larger sized cut outs). All you need to do is trace your butterfly image onto your paper, cut it out and position any way you like. For something you want to be able to move (or if you aren't allowed to make a bunch of holes in your wall in a rental) You can get a canvas to secure your butterflies to, or a magnet board (then attach magnets to your butterflies).

I also recommend thinking outside the box a little with your paper. I have some wonderful photo realistic scrap booking paper, and I think my favorite butterfly is the one with an image of a sparkler on it. Never would you find this in nature, but it sure reminds me of 4th of July cookouts and all of the other Summer activities that I just can't wait for :)

Using a more decorative paper also makes your butterflies much more interesting without having to cut out extra details. If you use a plain colored paper, you may find yourself wanting to cut out some designs in the wings to add extra visual interest (this is great but can be time consuming). The sky is really the limit on a project like this, so have fun with it!

Here are some scalable templates for butterflies. Some hand drawn, the other found on an image search at Butterfly Utopia.

Friday Food Craft: Watermelon Snack Shapes

This is, admittedly, my laziest food craft ever. In my defense, it is REALLY hot and I am REALLY not a fan of it. For those of you unaware, Portland is one of those places that despite reaching 100+ degrees for at least a week every Summer (though this Summer it has so far stayed in the mid 90's) refuses to buy into the whole Air Conditioning thing. As in very few places have it, even restaurants and apartments.

I'm trying to make the best of it though with my trips to the Farmer's Market to pick up yummy treats that require no cooking by me in my tiny sweat box apartment.

So today, you get to see my cute little watermelon cut outs! I like to refrigerate my watermelon because, well, it's hotter than hot out there and I wanted a cold snack. I just sliced a piece off my super yummy orange watermelon (I really do like it better than standard red, this one was super sweet and really juicy) and then used a cookie cutter to cut out some fun heart shapes. You could use any shape you wanted to, of course. These are a great snack on their own, or you could add your favorite fun shapes to a fruit salad.

I also picked up some blueberries, tomatoes and a to die for salami. Portland really does have some fabulous vendors at it's markets, if you ever visit I would recommend going to one or many of the local markets, they span a good portion of the year, not just Summer like a lot of places I have lived before.

Hope you are staying cool and enjoying the last of your Summer days!

My First Signs of Summer

As I have mentioned before, the husband and I have decided to challenge our normally black thumb's this year and started an indoor garden. I'm excited to say, it doesn't appear I have killed anything yet, and were it not for our weather only warming up today, I feel many of the things I started from seeds would be much further along now than they are. I bought my tomato starts at the farmer's market, mostly because I really love tomatoes and I wanted to make sure they were started on the right track. This picture shows the first of my little Sun Gold tomatoes starting top turn orange! Yum! I can't wait to throw these onto salads and bruschetta!

Speaking of salad, here is some of our Little Gem lettuce. I have to say, if you are a novice gardener like myself I would highly recommend starting out with lettuces. All of mine sprouted quickly and have been doing just great. One of my co-workers is from Hawaii and has even given me some seeds for a Hawaiian lettuce variety, I believe Manoa. Once it is bigger, I'll be sharing that with you as well, I'm pretty impressed with myself to be making all of this grow. We even have some yummy basil getting bigger by the minute.

To really Impress you all, I may take a photo of the whole garden in front of out window. Our tomato plants are freakishly huge, the Sweet 100's are about 8 feet tall. Had I known they would get that large, I wouldn't have done tomatoes, my poor little apartment barely has room for me to move anymore.

Are any of you gardening? Are you lucky enough to have something outdoors or are you limited to indoor containers like me? I'd love to hear what kind of things you are growing and if they are having much luck this year.

Friday Food Craft: Strawberry Peach Cobbler

It must be summer, the farmer's market is finally starting to have yummy berries for me to turn into things like this! This cobbler recipe was an experiment of sorts, and again a hodgepodge of various recipes I have sitting around. Peaches and strawberries make quite the nice combo with a not too sweet crust. Yum! You can make a delicious Strawberry Peach Cobbler of your very own!



You will need:
3 ripe peaches, peeled and cut into thick slices
1 pint ripe strawberries
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup plus 1 Tablespoon Sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup chilled butter, cut into cubes
1/4 cup milk
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (optional)


Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and grease a baking dish (I used butter). After peeling and slicing your peaches, toss them with 1/4 cup of your sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla. Place them into your dish to bake for about 20 minutes, or until the peaches are tender and the sugar starts to caramelize.

Remove from oven and add your strawberries(washed and sliced if needed, I used Hood strawberries which are quite small) and another 1/4 cup of sugar. Place into the oven another 5 minutes while you prepare your cobbler topping.

To make your topping sift together your flour, salt, the last 1/4 cup of sugar and baking powder (plus cinnamon and nutmeg if you choose) and cut in your cold butter until the texture is close to coarse sand. Beat together your egg and milk and then add into the flour mixture. Spoon over the top of your fruit. Use your final Tablespoon of sugar to sprinkle evenly over the top of the crust.

Return to the oven and bake 15 to 20 minutes, until the crust is golden. Allow to cool at least 30 minutes before eating, fruit juices will be extremely hot fresh from the oven. Serve with whipped cream or a scoop of ice cream. Enjoy!

*If you happen to have a lemon laying around the house (which I did not) It would perk this up a bit to add the juice and zest of half a lemon in with the fruit, but It is yummy without it as well.

Friday Food Craft: Strawberry Lemonade Tart

So, I got a couple of new tart pans the other day and decided to break them in right off the bat. I had been planning on making some kind of lemon bars soon, so I decided to have the best of both worlds and make a lemony tart. Frozen strawberries were on hand, so viola! Strawberry Lemonade Tart. The crust is basically a shortbread (buttery and delicious!) so if you want a flakier pastry crust, feel free to use your favorite recipe instead. Also, any other berries would be fantastic, I am sure. I have plans for a Cherry Limeade tart soon. I think it's going to be an awesome tart filled Summer!

You will need:

For The Crust:
9 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup superfine sugar
1 cup of unbleached all-purpose flour
pinch salt

For the filling:
1 1/2 cups superfine sugar
3 egg whites
1 egg
2/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (about 3 lemons worth)
2 tablespoons lemon zest (about 2 lemons worth)
2/3 cup unbleached, all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
1-2 cups of frozen Strawberries, defrosted
1 tablespoon confectioner’s sugar


Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Cream butter, 1/4 cup sugar, and a pinch of salt with an electric mixer. Mix in 1 cup flour until just incorporated. Flour hands and press dough into a 9″ tart pan. Make sure to press the dough up the sides so your tart won’t stick to the pan when baking. (I like to use an extra tall tart pan, or split this into two smaller 7″ tarts in 1″ tall pans.)

Bake crust for 20-25 minutes, or until slightly golden brown. While it cools, prepare the filling.

Whisk remaining 1 1/2 cups sugar, egg whites, egg, lemon juice and zest, remaining 2/3 cup flour, and a pinch of salt in a large bowl. Pour strawberries into a sieve and press through to extract all the pulp and juices. Whisk into the lemon mixture and pour into the crust. Bake for 30-35 minutes until filling is completely set. Let cool completely. (I help mine along in the freezer for about an hour.)

Sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar before serving.

I find that sometimes frozen strawberries lack the bright red color I want, so I have been known to add a couple of drops of red food coloring if necessary.

Also, if you do not have or cannot find superfine sugar, you may use regular granulated sugar, or process granulated sugar in a food processor for a few pulses.