Stephanie says

Some time ago my daughter requested a home-made cake for Henry.  With Frosting.  For the adults really as she is loathe to give the baby processed sugar.  She reconsidered in the end, but it was miserably hot and he was not interested.  The adults were though! I had plenty of time to ponder the cake flavor - I considered hitting the internet for inspiration but as it turned out while I was researching a recipe for fruit curd (like lemon curd, but using other fruit) I stumbled across a white cake mixed with berry puree.  Perfect. I also found a recipe for blackberry curd.  I made it for the cake filling from my stash of berries in the freezer.  Same for the puree.  The cake turned out nicely.  I sliced both layers in two then filled each layer with blackberry curd, and was pleased there was enough as Ty and Ryan had been sneaking bites of the curd, or in Ryan's case, spreading curd on toast. Brats. Topped the whole thing off with 7-...

Recipe as promised, finally.  I found this recipe last summer, during the height of the corn harvest.  It sounded so good so I gave it a try.  Except with typical distraction, I husked the corn before roasting, then read the recipe again where it clearly states "place unhusked corn"...  The end result was delicious regardless.  I made another batch a couple weeks ago using (gasp) frozen corn as it's too early in the season for ears.  The end result was delicious. Corn season will be here very soon, at which time I'm going to follow the recipe exactly.  Really.  Here's the recipe from Two Lazy Gourmets Roasted Corn Salad with Chiles, Lime, and Parmesan Cheese Author:  TwoLazyGourmets.com Serves:  4   In this salad, deeply sweet corn kernels are bathed in rich butter and tangy lime juice; flecked with freshly picked chives, minced jalapeno, and crushed red pepper; and topped with a cloud of finely grated ...

Recipe from The Bitten Word and adapted from Food and Wine magazine. New York Steak, Corn Salad, Cowboy Beans, Grilled Romaine.  And cheese, of course. My family's arrival from Arizona prompted an early summer sort of dinner.  I'd been thinking about the menu and flashed on two things:  Cowboy beans and Roasted Corn Salad.  Cowboy beans, ala the Lord's Acre annual harvest festival in Powell Butte, sounded mighty good.  They are cooked in vats in deep charcoal pits and the flavor is astounding, not baked bean sweet.  Smoky.  I do love my beans.   I chose the following recipe because of the small amount of molasses.  That and the bacon:bean ratio.  And it is good.  I cooked the beans for an hour the first night, (step 1.)  Finished up with step 2 the next day - but cooked them approximately three hours (because I was not organized).  The texture of the beans was more baked-beanish, the jalapenos pretty much mel...

And I can't resist the hydrangea blooms.  My new phone does a fine job.  No PhotoShop here! 

How about homemade bratwurst, courtesy of my office mate John who spent the weekend grinding meat and making sausage.  Fired up the bbq (a blackened romaine leaf still on the grill from last autumn's near fiasco) Loaded on the kraut and beer-boiled onions on a toasted kaiser roll with a whole lot of mustard Burp Thank you John!

Double click for a close-up image. Thriving in door plant lobby Giant Spathiphyllum Rhododendron Western Oregon is ablaze in Rhododendron blooms.