Baking on Friday: 4KP

Well, yes, it is Saturday.  And "4KP" stands for Four Kitchen Projects. 

I haven't done Baking on Friday for the past three weeks.  Yesterday, we were out on the Willamette River.  More about that in a separate post.  Last week, we were camping.  And the week before that, um, I can't remember.  (At my age, two weeks of memory is all you get.) 

So today, I made up for my dearth of kitchen time.  I should back up by saying that I went to the Portland Farmer's Market with Mae this morning and got what I needed for the first of my kitchen projects.  This one only got its start today.  I'll be finishing it tomorrow.  Here's what's required for this project:

And here's the sneak peak of my start on it:

You can be sure that I'll be picking this up tomorrow and showing you what I do with all this green goodness.  (As if you can't guess on your own.)

As for my second project, it's a mystery until tomorrow too.  But here's how it starts:

With those two out of the way, I moved along to the two must-do projects.  "Must-do" because I had fruit I needed to use.  I made some Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins, which I blogged about the first time I made them. 

Mike liked them so much that I made them again with some blueberries I had leftover from another recipe.  They're so nice for breakfast.

And finally, I needed to use the little bit of raspberries I picked the other day.  I didn't have many, but I found a recipe that used just a few:  Nectarine-Raspberry Hand Pies.

I just want to say here that I think frozen puff pastry is one of the best things in the grocery store.  It makes even the worst bakers among us into gourmet pastry chefs.  Don't these look yummy?  We'll have them for dessert tonight with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  I liked this recipe because it uses just a few ingredients and can be put together in a few minutes.  And I happen to love nectarines.  Next to cherries, they may be my favorite fruit.

My notes about this recipe:  If I make this again, I'll roll out the sheet of puff pastry to a 12 x 12-inch square.  That's what I've done in the past when I made apple turnovers.  The puff pastry straight from the box is a little small when it's cut into quarters.  There was barely enough room for the fruit, and then it was difficult to fold over without having the filling leak out all over everything.  They actually turned out better than I expected, but I think it makes sense to have a larger square of pastry so that they can be filled with more of the fruit.