Last night Mr. Handsome came home from work and went straight upstairs and cleaned up our room. I didn’t even tell him to do anything. It was that bad.

He put away the clothing that was strewn across the sofa, put the freshly-washed mattress pad back on the bed,

picked up the potted tree (who’s beautiful blue ceramic pot had mysteriously been broken and was leaking dirt and water all over the floor—I had just stuffed a towel under it during one of my mad dashes in and out of my room) and hauled it out to the porch, vacuumed the floor (and the floors of the other upstairs rooms, too, I believe),

and he cleaned out the corner of the room where the pack-and-play used to be and where we now toss all the junk that we don’t know what to do with or don’t want to take care of right then. He brought in stackable plastic shelving that had been in the barn, put them back in the corner of the bedroom, spread newspaper over the shelves and then laid out the peaches (I had just picked up two more bushels that afternoon) on the newspaper.

Normally, we just spread an old cloth on our floor and lay the peaches (or whatever other fruit needs to ripen, such as apricots and tomatoes) right there on the floor (and yes, in the dead of the night we occasionally forget about our produce-carpeted floor and roll and slip and shriek our way in and out of our room), so this is an enormous improvement. (Thank you, my Handsome Hunk of a Honeyman!)

Now I need to cease typing and run upstairs and study the peaches lolling about on the handsome shelving unit, checking to see if there are some ripe ones ready to go under my knife. They aren’t going to can themselves, you know.

There has been a tragic shortage of sweet things around our house lately. I know, that’s rather hard to believe, considering the intensity of my sweet tooth, but it’s true. There are no cupcakes, cookies, pies, tarts, cakes, puddings, sweet rolls—nada. The disappointing chocolate chip cookies and last wedge of Mile High Chocolate Cake that are stashed in the freezer do not count. They will sit there for a respectful amount of time and then I will toss them to the chickens (who should then start to lay Cadbury eggs).

So yesterday afternoon, in an effort to remedy our grave situation, I mixed up another chocolate beet cake (which, by the way, I took one to Sunday’s potluck and it got rave reviews), but this time I baked it in mini-muffin tins as well as large muffin tins. The mini-muffins I cut in half and filled with leftover frosting so they kind of resemble whoopie pies. The large ones I left unadorned and just stuck in the freezer—I’ll ice them later, if I ice them at all.

I also mixed up a double batch of granola bars.

I made these specifically for Mr. Handsome because he has been floundering around the kitchen in the mornings, searching for food to pack in his lunches—now he just needs to go to the freezer in the mornings and grab a couple of the pre-wrapped bars and he’s all set to go. The rest of us will enjoy them as well. I take them along for the kids when we have to run errands, they make a good dessert, and they become a powerful breakfast when served alongside fruit smoothies.

Granola Bars
I think this recipe came from a cookbook called Breads From The Old Mill, but since I don’t have that cookbook, just a card in my file box, I can’t be for certain.

1/3 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup peanut butter
3/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons hot water
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 ½ cups rolled oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup wheat germ
½ cup chopped nuts
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1 cup chocolate chips
½ cup dried fruit
½ cup coconut

Mix the first five ingredients together in a medium-sized bowl. Mix all the other ingredients together in a large bowl.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well.

Grease a 9×13 glass pan and dump in the crumbly mixture. Using your hand, firmly press the mixture down hard. The more firmly it is pressed, the more solid and non-crumbly your final bar will be.

Bake the pan of granola bars at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. Just the edges should be lightly browned, but nothing more. Over-baking causes the bars to be difficult to cut, dry, and crumbly—the goal here is for a chewy bar.

Cut the bars while they are still warm, but allow them to cool totally before removing from the pan and wrapping each bar individually in plastic wrap or little baggies.

Put the individually wrapped bars in a big bag and store them in the freezer.

Happy snacking!

Remember all that Swiss chard that I put in my freezer for us to eat come winter for our family’s scurvy prevention plan? Well, I anticipate that I’ll prepare that chard by adding it to quiches, so on Saturday I made three quiches, just to experiment with how it tasted (I was using fresh chard, not the chard I had frozen, so I guess it wasn’t a very accurate experiment). One was for my Balding Bro’s family’s supper because they had just moved the town that very day, the other one was for my family, and the biggest one was for the church potluck.

Quiche is a wonderful dish because it is flexible in regards to ingredients, is packed with protein, and it stores and reheats very nicely. The only problem is that it needs to be baked, and no one likes to crank up an oven in the middle of summer, but if you prepare three quiches at a time, then it doesn’t feel quite so bad—then you’re getting a lot of food for just one hour of suffering.

Quiche
Adapted from Simply In Season


I use the recipe from Simply In Season to figure out the how much custard to mix up, but I just compile the rest of the filling ingredients based on what I have in the refrigerator—breakfast meats are tasty, a variety of cheeses (ricotta, Parmesan, cheddar, etc), and something green to round it out (spinach, chard, broccoli, asparagus, zucchini). Mushrooms, onions, and roasted tomatoes are all great add-ins. For Saturday’s three quiches, I used a giant skillet (pre-cooked) of chopped chard, stems removed, one pound of sausage, about four cups of cheese, and three giant onions, caramelized.

Custard:
3 eggs
½ cup cream
½ cup milk
1/4 teaspoon each of salt and black pepper
one 9-inch pie crust

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, cream, salt, and pepper.

Filling:
Prepare your other filling ingredients. For example:
*caramelize the onions in olive oil
*saute the spinach, chard, mushrooms, zucchini
*brown the meat
*steam the asparagus or broccoli
*grate the cheeses

In a large bowl, toss the cheeses together with the cooked meats and greens. Aim for about one quart of prepared filling.

Assembly:
Lay your pie pastry in the pie pan and crimp the edges. Put the veggie-cheese-meat filling in the crust. Pour the egg custard over top. Sprinkle the quiche with black pepper.

Bake the quiche at about 375 degrees for 40-50 minutes, until the filling is set (it doesn’t wobble when you jiggle the oven rack). If you have trouble with the edges of your crust browning too quickly, then lay some tin foil over the quiche for part of the baking time.

Allow the quiche to cool for at least 15 minutes before serving.