For a few summers now my favorite thing to make (and eat!) has been a watermelon, feta, tomato, and basil salad.  Goat cheese is pretty damn good in it too. This summer I thought I’d branch out and make other fruit and vegetable salads. Every single one of them was delicious.

The basic formula is fruit + veg + herb + olive oil + salt.  Here are a few that have been extra good (they all have a glug of olive oil and a sprinkling of good crunchy salt on top):

• purple cabbage, pluot, red pepper, and cilantro–this is more of a slaw than a salad

• tomato, peach, and tarragon (pictured)

• cucumber, mango, mint, basil, and maybe a fresh chili or two  (rice vinegar or lime juice is good on this one)

Got any good ones?

School starts up next week, so I’m trying to have as many slow, lingering breakfasts as I can before it’s all, where is my backpack; oh crap I forgot to make lunches; just get your shoes on already we’re going to be late! So waffles with yogurt and apricot peach compote it is for a few more lazy mornings.

I never had frozen waffles before and bought some in college to find out what all this leggo my eggo shit was all about. They were kind of a disapointment. Homemade waffles are so much better and, really,  dead easy to make.  So make a batch before it’s all cold cereal and yelling in the morning:

just your basic waffle

adapted from Betty Crocker

• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 1 stick butter (1/2 cup) melted and cooled
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 salt

Fire up your waffle iron. In a big bowl whisk first 4 ingredients together.  Sift in flour, soda, baking powder and salt.  Mix until most of the lumps are gone. That’s it. Bake in the hot waffle iron.  Makes about 8.

If you want to get fancy you can brown the butter first before adding it–makes the waffles a little extra delicious. Also, Betty Crocker has a fantastic footnote in the orginal recipe: “Fresh bacon fat is good in waffles.” Damn straight it is! he compote I made was 2 peaches, an apricot, and a couple Tbls. sugar cooked for a bit and smashed a little.

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and now for the winner of the Tea Collection giveaway: comment number #101

sarah says:

August 22, 2011 at 7:18 pm(Edit)

your kiddos are about the ding dang cutest things i’ve ever seen. (i mean, except for mine). and your talent is above amazing. thanks for this great giveaway.

Some very lovely people from the Tea Collection contacted me and asked if I’d like to sample some of their clothes.  I very readily and enthusiastically said yes! Years ago I found a blue and white striped shirt for my (then) baby girl at a thrift store.  She looked like an adorable little Parisian in it! It was simple and classic and very well made. My daughter wore it forever and then her brother wore it and then her baby brother wore it.

this is what happens when you tell the baby to smile!

The shirt was made by Tea and not only survived three toddlers, but is ready to be passed onto the next.  And is still as stylish as ever.  Well made children clothes are sadly rare, but clothes from Tea Collection are not only very well made, but soft and comfortable and beautiful too.  Is it obvious I’m a big fan? I am and I think you will be too: I’m happy to say that the people at Tea have offered one of my readers a $75 gift certificate to their store! Just leave a comment on this post and I will pick a winner on Wednedsay (Aug. 24th) at noon central time. Good Luck!

• my daughter is wearing the Marimba Mini Dress
• my son is wearing the Sailor Stripe Tank
• and the chicken obsessed baby is wearing the Gallo Graphic Tee

I fell in love with this little sleeper when I first saw it: it’s like those nightgowns for newborns, except stylish.  At 40 bucks, it was a little out of my price range, but looked simple enough to recreate. Well, mine doesn’t quite live up to the original, but I think I got close.

The pattern came from the book Growing Up Sew Liberated (which I reviewed here). The more I use this book the better it gets.  A rare thing among craft books! Normally they are all eye candy, but look a little deeper and it turns out they are mostly errata and confusing directions. To alter the pattern I just extended the bottom bit, so it looked like it would tie up nicely. The edge really needs a rolled finish, but I’m not that handy with the serger so I left it raw.  I might make this again and try to get the knot bit right.

a few weeks back my friends and I threw a baby shower for our dear friend who was about to pop. She has since popped (!) but I thought I’d share a few of the things I made for the party. The floofs [above], as my daughter called them, were by far my favorite thing to make. There are many tutorials floating around for them–and many names–but I found this method to be the easiest.

You might recognize these painted cups from a design sponge tutorial a while back. I did exactly what they told me to do and pretty much copied their color scheme to boot.

While I had the paint brushes out, I slapped a bit of paint on some cardstock. When the paint was dry I cut circles out of the painted paper. Then invited a friend of mine over for wine and projects, so she could write (with her beautiful handwriting) all the potential baby names our friend had come up with.  We glued them together with a bamboo skewer inside and called them cupcake toppers. I thought they turned out nicely–baby shower-y, but not goofy.  And don’t worry the baby is not named Moellendorf.

I made a few desserts too. They both were less than stellar because of the oppressive heat and humidity, but the lime curd cupcakes up there were very tasty–even if they did look a little worse for wear.  All in all, it was a very nice party. No horrible torture-the-pregnant-lady baby shower games, just a table full of delicious food and a house full of lovely ladies. Tomorrow maybe I’ll show you what I made for the baby..