We All Scream For...Madelines?

My plan was to make ice cream the low tech way, even though I could have rushed out and bought an ice cream maker with the $50 William Sonoma gift card that has been burning a hole in my wallet. But, with family in town and work constraints...blah blah blah you don't want to hear my excuses. The upshot is, I have no ice cream for you today but please enjoy these lovely little madelines instead.


It was one of the first recipes I wanted to try from Dorie's book and I missed it by a few weeks! So here they are in all their spongy lemony goodness!

Too Hot For Pancakes

Greek yogurt.
Nectarines.
Blueberries.
Almonds.
Honey.
Yum.

Zucchini Relief Initiative

It is a very dangerous time of year. It is squash season. If you grow it, you are inundated with it. If you have friends who grow it, don't leave your car unlocked or you might find a bag of them on your seat. One innocent offer to bake zucchini bread for a friend with freakish large zucchini on her hands and my desk has become the official dumping ground for all unwanted squash products! Regular zucchini bread, chocolate chip zucchini bread, chocolate zucchini cupcakes...I needed some relief but i still had 3 zucchini in my fridge! Thankfully Epicurious came to my rescue with a recipe for Zucchini Basil Soup.

I love making soups in the fall and this one was so easy to make and tastes great hot or cold. I used more garlic than the recipe called for and added cayenne pepper for a little kick. Served with a dollop of greek yogurt, this makes a wonderful summer meal. And it gets rid of a lot of zucchini!
Check out the recipe here.

Do You Banana, Take Chocolate...

This weeks' TWD was a match made in heaven. I mean chocolate and banana, in cake form? I can't think of a more delicious combination! I couldn't wait to try my hand at Dorie's Black and White Banana Loaf. I decided to make 2 mini loaves and a mini round so I could test out different marbling techniques.


I tried the original recipe's method with one of the loaves, and the layering method with the other. For the round, I tried the method my mom had always used to make marble cake-
filling the pan with the plain batter and then dropping in spoonfuls of the chocolate. All 3 were equally delicious however, the original recipe's method yielding the most marbling throughout. I love experiments when they involve cake!

Peach Melba Sorta

Saturday mornings have always been my favorite part of the week. When I was a kid, I would bound out of bed, fix myself a bowl of Lucky Charms and watch cartoons while planning out the rest of my weekend. Things haven't changed much- I don't so much bound as roll, I prefer coffee to cereal, and The Smurfs have been replaced by the Food Network. My Saturday mornings usually start with a cup of coffee and a little Food Network. With the weekend stretching out in front of me, I love to spend my first few waking hours mulling over which recipes I plan to try over the next 2 days.

One of my staples is Nigella Feasts. Nigella Lawson was my first culinary icon; "Nigella Bites" the first cooking show I'd ever watched. This morning "Nigella Feasts" was an all dessert episode and her peach melba had me drooling into my coffee mug.Poaching the peaches took less than ten minutes.

Impatiently, I removed their skins immediately after taking them out of their sugar/vanilla bath, burning my fingers in the process. So impatient in fact, I decided to forgo the raspberry sauce and leave these beauties naked in the bowl with vanilla ice cream. It was still fantastic! Check out the recipe here.