Snapshot Sunday: July 14

You guys! Hey! I leave for vacation in 2 days! Sorry about the exclamation points! I'm just really excited! Here is my week, which turned out pretty awesome because of a last minute visit from my parents.

Iced vanilla lattes are my jam. 

Love warm weather so I can drink these

Went raspberry picking. May have gone overboard.

7.5 lbs

After we wandered around aimlessly in this state park.

Aimless wandering is not my jam.

My very American breakfast.

Biked to a park.

These ducks got up in our business.

So glad to have these guys visiting!

Have a great week everybody!

Mediterranean Cous Cous Salad

I'm not a huge recipe repeater. In fact, in my first year or marriage I don't think I made the same thing twice, except for pizza. I just really love trying new things and mixing it up.

I've mellowed from that a little bit but not a ton; I'd rather make something new most days. 

The reason I told you that is to emphasize that when I say I've made this four times in a month and a half you realize that's a big deal. This salad is REALLY GOOD. It's become my go to potluck, picnic, lunch thing. Try it. You'll see.

Also big news! I found a can opener I don't loathe! It's kitchen aid and I got mine at TJ Maxx.

Back to the salad. It's got some great ingredients and is perfect for summer. It doesn't involve a stove, is good warm or cold and you can use fresh basil and tomatoes. If you add some grilled chicken you've got a main course too. 

You also combine the flavors or sun dried tomatoes and marinated artichoke hearts. You can't go wrong. 

Tip: Don't spill the cous cous. It's messy to clean up.

Hop on the cous cous salad train! (Oh and feel free to add some red onion, I'm not a huge fan so I skip it, but if its your jam just go for it).

Mediterranean Cous Cous Salad

from Shutterbean

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Trader Joe's Cous Cous
• 1/2 cup feta cheese
• 1 jar marinated artichoke hearts
• 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, in olive oil
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 can garbanzo beans
• 1 cup fresh basil
• juice from one lemon
• Olive oil

To Make:

1) Prepare cous cous according to directions on the box. Or you can boil the water in a large glass measuring cup, then pour in olive oil and cous cous and cover with pastic wrap. Let sit for 15 minutes then fluff with a fork. 

2) Prep your ingredients: drain and rinse garbanzo beans. Cut the marinated artichoke hearts into smaller pieces. Halve the cherry tomatoes. Chop basil into bite sized pieces. 

3) Pour cous cous into large bowl. Add in the rest of the prepared ingredients and feta cheese and mix well. Squeeze lemon juice on top and add a little bit of olive oil. Toss and enjoy!

Bran Muffins

Do you remember the movie Stranger than Fiction? It's Will Ferrel as an IRS auditor and his real life is being narrated by an author writing her latest book. One of my all time favorite movie scenes is from that movie. 

Will Farrell is auditng a woman who own a bakery, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. She's a hippie and has arm tattoos (read: I want to be her) and has totally messed up her taxes for years. Will Ferrel, the typical boring, number-obsessed auditor, is assigned to her, while having his life narrated. A fantastic romantic, comedy, drama ensues.

After insulting her during several of their interactions Farrell's brings Maggie Gyllenhaal's character flours. Not flowers. She's a baker and he gifts her fancy types of flour. It's punny, adorable and involves baking. I love it.

I realize that was the worst description of a movie scene ever. Just go watch it.

This bran muffin recipe sort of reminds me of that movie. We've got oat flour, barley flour, flax meal and oat bran. Our intestines are going to love us.

It also makes a massive amount (read 24) muffins which makes it perfect for refrigerating some  of the dough so later on this week you can get up and bake yourself some fresh muffins for breakfast in the morning with minimal effort.

It's also adaptable, you can use shredded carrots or smashed bananas, or blueberries, or raisins as filling. And the flour mixture is pretty flexible as long as you keep the same amount of flours equal. Pretty sure you could bust out with some gluten free oat flour and be in business as well.

A couple other tips: use muffin liners as these are pretty moist and a little oily when they come out so are better for handling with liners. And err on the side of baking a little longer than you think necessary.

Get on it today and make these muffins. You'll be glad you did.

Also real life, I stress ate too many of these while planning my trip to Greece. Booking hotels is hard.

Bran Muffins

Makes 24

Ingredients:

• 1 1/8 cups oat flour
• 1 1/8 cup barley flour
• 1 1/8 cup flax meal
• 1 1/8 cup oat bran
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 1/8 cup oil
• 1 1/8 cup milk
• 1 1/8 cup applesauce
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 cup fruit - blueberries, raisins, shredded carrots, chopped bananas

To Make

1) Preheat oven to 350*. Combine all flours, baking powder, salt, sugars and cinnamon. 

2) In separate bowl combine all wet ingredients. Stir into flour mixture just until combined. Lastly fold in fruit.

3) Line muffin pan with paper liners. Bake for about 25-30 minutes. Let cool for a few minutes in the pan and finish on a rack. Repeat with rest of batter or store leftover batter in the refrigerator. Enjoy!

Observation Tuesday: Volume 57

Book Titles With One Letter Missing. The Rave by Edgar Allen Poe? I would totally read that. 

I'm obsessed with the song Cups and this version is awesome. 

Kitchen confession: I don't wash my cooling rack unless they're visibly dirty after using them. Go ahead, be horrified. I feel free after telling you. 

Also, I'll be flying here a week from today! so excited I can hardly stand it.

(source: http://www.whereis-istanbul.com/En/homepage)

Snapshot Sunday: July 7

Another lovely week! The pacific northwest has been treating us well. 

Sunset from the view at Port Susan

Love when it's light in the morning when I get up

Japon Dog in downtown. 

Dried seaweed, carrots, mayo, scallions, hot dog. 

Poutine (french fried, cheese and gravy) for a 4th picnic!

Clouds during the picnic. 

More 4th. We didn't stay there. We left and had a great view from a friend's apartment

the pictures were terrible of the fireworks so I'll save you those.

Walk around Greenlake

And fro yo. 

Cap'n crunch for the win.

Blueberry picking for an awesome Saturday.

Made preserves already.

Anyone have an exciting week coming up?

Blueberry Crumb Cake

I feel like holiday breakfasts are underrated most of the time. Who gets excited about Thanksgiving breakfast? No one, you just end up snaking on those weird onion things all morning long. Gross.

Anyway. You should make this for your 4th of July breakfast! Embrace the fact that you have a whole day off (or not, if you work retail or in health care...wah wah).

It's a scrumptious, blueberry filled breakfast treat. Anything with crumb in the title works in my book. Or anything you put streusel topping on at all really.

It's a pretty basic crumb cake batter, flour, cinnamon, sugar. You get the idea. Mix all that stuff together. Follow the recipe below.

Start with fresh blueberries if you've got 'em. And it's summer so they're actually popping up in stores now. I splurged and got a large box at TJ's for $5.99. You could also use frozen as TJ's has those for like $2. You're going to coat them with a little bit of flour.

Fold them into the batter. And spread that in a greased and floured baking pan. Make your streusel topping and spread that on top and you're in business and ready to bake. If you have a crowd to feed and want to make a 13x9 just double the recipe.

Finally, lets take a minute to acknowledge that I got my stuff together in time to make a holiday recipe and post it before the actual holiday. Happy Holiday Week!

Blueberry Crumb Cake

Serves 9

adapted from Everyday Food: Good Food Fast

Ingredients

For cake:

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour, plus extra for pan and blueberries
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup milk (or buttermilk)
• 1 1/2 cup fresh blueberries

For Struesel topping:

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup cold, unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons

To Make

1) Preheat oven to 350*. Grease and flour a 8 or 9 inch sqaure baking pan, dust with flour.

2) Using a mixer, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, then add in egg. In another bowl, whisk flour, powder, soda, salt and cinnamon in a bowl. 

3) Now, alternate mixing in the flour and milk just until combined.

4) Wash and dry the blueberries. Stir 1 tsp of flour to cover them. Once down, fold in the blueberries to the batter. Spread the batter evenly in the plan.

5) Make the streusel topping but mixing all ingredients together until moist crumbs form, using your hands or a pastry cutter. Sprinkle topping over the batter. 

6) Bake for 45-50 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out cool. Let cool completely before serving. 

Observation Tuesday: Volume 56

I'm not one to find hilarious new you tube videos on my own, but you're welcome for this. 10 New Bets You Will Always Win .

I may be just a tad excited for our trip in 2 weeks, I've already started packing. I'm reverting back to my 10-year-old self that was ready for trips at least a week in advance.

16 Tips from the Depression that are Actually Life Hacks (buzz feed). I'm all about #8 and #10 but I just killed by 4th basil plant so #6 needs some work.

Also, it's my birthday month. YES! and Happy 4th of July!