Raspberry White Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

I've started Pinteresting again.  It's a huge problem.  It's like constantly window-shopping.  I have convinced myself that I need allllllllll sorts of new and exciting clothes, makeup, food, decor, etc.  Fortunately Pinterest is also a useful supplier of fitness-related guilt trips and hilarious pictures of animals.

Anyway, it's also a HUGE source of inspiration for baking ideas...of which I've attempted several in the past week or two.  I've had some successes and several total failures.  But most importantly, I have more dessert (some more delicious than others) in my house than even Jim can handle.  And that's saying something.

These are my most recent project...a pretty, colorful little farewell to summer.  Because boy am I ready for it to GO.  I mean, the warmth is nice and all, but in Georgia it also comes with 2000% humidity, daily thunderstorms, bugs the size of your head, and snakes that slither their way into your kitchen.  That's right, your kitchen.

Sunflower Wheat Bread

Let me share something with you.  I'm not the neatest nor the tidiest person in the world.  I wish I was.  I wish my "baking cabinet" was anything less than chock brimming full of a ridiculous amount of spices, flours, powders, salts, nuts, and chocolate chips...but that's just reality for you.

Let me tell you another little fact nugget.  I can be a little klutzy.  Just every now and then.  In weird ways.  Like for instance, if I'm going to drop two heavy-ish items in the course of my baking, at two separate times, from rather high up...say from that overstocked cabinet perhaps...then of course, obviously, both of those items are going to fall squarely on the exact same toe.

Who does this happen to?  Anyone?  No.  Nope, that would be me.  Anyway.  It's really bruised and hurts to walk on and cry cry cry.

But this bread is worth a little pain and suffering.  I hope when you make it there's a good deal less of both.

Eclairs with Chocolate Frosting

So the other day I watched this documentary called Kings of Pastry about these super elite French pastry chefs and...well...it made me want to bake French stuff.

Plus Jim challenged me to make some forever ago...they just always seemed so difficult.  And while it was a learning process, they shouldn't be very time consuming/labor intensive.  At least not for how impressed people will be with you.

As with many of Jim's baking challenges for me...this one tested my patience.  I dropped a couple eggs on the ground and had to try to fend Cricket off with my feet while tending to my time-sensitive dough production.

Blueberry Buckle

Last time I mentioned that I was going to talk about blueberries... yeah.  I'm doing it, big time.  So obviously all fruit tends to go crazy with deliciousness in the summer, but I think blueberries go especially nuts.  I'm so crazy about them that I'll pretty much eat them year round, even when they're less than in season...but during the summer I make it a point to use them more or less constantly.

What in the world is buckle?  Why are you calling it buckle when it's clearly some sort of cake?  These are the types of questions that I don't really have the answers to.  Yes, it is some sort of delicious coffee-cake type of confection.  All you need to know is that it's wonderful and you can eat it for breakfast or really any time.  And who doesn't like cake that somehow passes as breakfast?

Roasted Shrimp and Asparagus Scampi

It gets so hot and here in Georgia that we end up having a thunderstorm almost every single day in the summer.  They're usually super scary and full of dangerously close lightning, but they're over pretty quickly.

Anyway, as I'm sure I've said before...fall is my favorite season.  And everyone knows that by August you're just sick of summer at this point anyway and are ready for it to just get the heck out of here.  But, there are a few things I'll miss about summer.  And I'll give you a hint...it's not the fact that for some reason there are NO pools to be found in this one-horse town. 

No here's what I'll miss about summer:

Summer fruit (blueberries omg yum yum yum)

Light pasta dishes.

This recipe is primarily going to address the latter, but I'll get to blueberries later, promise.