Attack of the Baked (And Canned) Goods

When my kitchen looks like this:

And my microwave/recipe holder looks like this:

And the swamp cooler is on before it's even 9:00 am... You know it's going to be good.

Remember that baking itch? After a busy week and a grocery shopping trip I finally had a chance to do what I wanted to do in the kitchen. I wanted to beat the heat so I got an early start at 7:30. And holy sheep was I productive today.

A 24 muffin batch of Oatmeal Streusel Muffins (with the addition of 1 cup chopped walnuts. Mmmm.)...

A batch of Vanilla Scones, recipe from All Home Cooking, All Year Long (with 1/2 tsp cinnamon added to the dough)...

And a loaf of Bagel Bread topped off my baking for the day. Then I decided that since I was in the kitchen, the mess was made, and I was already hot I might as well process those peaches that Mimi gave me... So I got 2 and a half pint jars of Amarreto Peach Butter canned.

Yes. Amaretto Peach Butter. Oh my sweet woolly goodness. This is the best stuff I have ever had. It turned out so delicious and I want to put it on everything. Ev-ry-thing. Screw plain old peach jam. I will share the recipe in a bit.

I had also thought about cooking up some chocolate cupcakes from the box of mix I have in the pantry, and a batch of pizza dough. But I realized that I had to stop at some point because there really is only 5 of us, and 3 of us are small people. So I reigned myself in... I got a lot done today, as you can see above.

And then my day was topped off with a surprise visit from my sister. We got to sit and talk for about 2 hours, which was awesome since I haven't visited with her in so long. It was so nice.

And now, I don't want to see my stove for a week. We're having BBQ'd chicken for dinner tonight. ;)