Time Flies

Good morning, my friends! Welcome to June. We're nearly halfway through the year, and bearing down on summer. The nicer weather has been quite a treat. It means more time outside, but it also cuts into my sewing time. Yesterday was a busy day. We had grocery shopping to do, and the grocery store was a zoo. It has been a zoo the past several trips, mainly because they've taken our store and redistributed pretty much everything in the store. It's as if someone took the whole store and flipped it over horizontally, and then for good measure flipped it vertically as well. Folks are all congregated in the middle aisles with their baskets, looking up at the signs denoting what can be found in which aisle. And since nobody can find what they're looking for, most everybody (including us) is stopping to commiserate about how much we hate it when they rearrange the store. Sigh. As if grocery shopping weren't already the most annoying task.

Oh the bright side, I found both cherries and apricots in the produce section. That can only mean one thing: it's time to bake up our perennial favorite of Apricot-Cherry Upside-Down Mini Cakes.

The recipe was first published in Cooking Light in June, 2004, and I've been making them every year since. It's a dessert for two times two. Insofar as desserts go, this is a bargain on the calorie counter at 275 calories per serving. We had them last night with a dollop (or maybe two dollops) of Redi-Whip. So tasty. The cherries and apricots are particularly good this year.

For every year that I've been blogging, I've been able to link to the recipe here. Just now, I went to the place where it's always been published, only to find this:

Oh. My. Gosh. I'm pretty sure the planet just tipped on its axis. This is what happens when you get old. Even your favorite recipes get deleted from the internet. It's a crying shame, I tell you. Well. Vee haf our vays of taking care of things like this. I'll give you the recipe right here. Hmph.

Apricot-Cherry Upside-Down Mini Cakes

Makes 4 cakes

Recipe from Cooking Light, June, 2004

Ingredients:

Cooking spray

1 tablespoon butter, cut into 4 equal pieces

4 teaspoons brown sugar

2 apricots, halved and pitted

16 sweet cherries, pitted and halved

2/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons butter, softened

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1/3 cup fat-free milk

Redi-Whip topping

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Coat 4 (8-oz.) custard cups or ramekins with cooking spray.  Place 1 butter piece in bottom of each cup.  sprinkle 1 teaspoon brown sugar over butter in each cup.  Arrange 1 apricot half, cut side up, over brown sugar in each ramekin.  Arrange 8 cherry halves, cut sides up, around outside edge of each apricot; set aside.

Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife.  Combine flour, baking soda, and salt, stirring with a whisk.  Place granulated sugar and 2 tablespoons butter in a medium bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended.  Add vanilla and egg; beat well.  Add flour mixture to sugar mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour mixture; beat well after each addition.  Divide batter evenly over fruit in each cup.  Place cups on a baking sheet.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool in cups 5 minutes on a wire rack.  Loosen edges of cakes with a knife.  Place a dessert plate, upside down, on top of each cup; invert onto plates.  Drizzle any remaining caramelized syrup evenly over cakes.  Serve cake warm with whipped topping.

* * * * *

And with that...the world has been set to right again. You're welcome.

While those were baking, I took a little time to check out the garden. There were 7 poppies. I never get over the thrill of these bright red enormous flowers.

Here's another look from a different angle.

The Joker peony is putting on quite a show now too.

Many flowers have opened now, and there are still more coming.

This next one is the Coral Sunset peony. When I go out this morning, I expect I'll find it open.

So with all that going on, I had almost no time to sew yesterday. Only two sections of the Tiny House were completed, and then I called it quits for the day.

I'm hoping I'll have a little more sewing time today, and I'll be able to finish it off. Next up will be to quilt my challenge piece. It occurred to me that I'm going to want to use a microtex 60/8 needle when I do the quilting, and so I'll have the sewing machine set up for that. Everything else will have to wait its turn once I get started.

There was no kitty help in the sewing room yesterday. They were both 'zhausted from being outside a good portion of the day.

When I looked out the window before coming upstairs this morning, I noticed even more poppies have bloomed, and you can see there are still lots more buds. It's such a gratifying flower.

This being June 1st, it's time to choose something for June's

The obvious choice is to finish my challenge piece. Problem is...I won't be able to show it at either the start or the finish parties. I'll link up with the same peek I gave you:

At the end of the month when the finish party starts, the most I'll be able to show is the finished binding on the rolled-up quilt. It doesn't really offer proof that would stand up in a court of law, but I'm hoping folks will take my word for it, assuming I finish, of course.

Today will be another busy day. The good weather means a lot more outside time. I'll need to water the annuals and hoe the vegetable garden. Also, I found some giant strawberries at the grocery store yesterday. I need them to be large so that I can cut off their seedy sides and still have something left of the strawberry. Those will be used in some homemade strawberry ice cream. It's best to make the fruit and custard a day ahead. It needs plenty of time to chill before going into the ice cream churn. It's a drawn-out process, but worth it if you want the best strawberry ice cream of your life. So, yeah. That's going to happen. Count on it.

And here I sit, chatting away. Time for me to get going. Have a good day, everybody! Summer is gaining on us. What could be better than that?