A weekend in the kitchen

I love to spend time in the kitchen because I absolutely love to bake and make things from scratch. This weekend I took some time from my day to try a few new things. All the recipes can be found in my Delicious bookmarks.

Here's a sample of my weekend in the kitchen (I know some of the photos are bad... my kitchen has terrible lighting...):

First thing I made were Oatmeal Spelt Peach Cookies: I  bought a basket of amazing, succulent Ontario peaches last week and they were ripening faster than I could eat them. Spelt is not a gluten-free grain, but it is wheat-free. I'll eat them in moderation as I react more to wheat, but still somewhat to other gluten grains.

Keeping with the peach theme and my absolute love for jam, I made Peach and Plum Jam Muffins. The recipe called for blackberry jam, but I had plum jam. I love peaches and plums, so I went with it. And it turned out great. I remember when I was a kid, my brother and I watched the Urban Peasant a lot, I'm not sure why, but the two things I remember from it was his love for sherry (he seemed to put a splash of sherry in everything!) and that he always preached that you should "use what you have". So I did.

Next up were Strawberry Mint Popsicles. Again, I screwed up the recipe, I misread. It was supposed to be strawberry basil (there was another recipe for Mint Lemonade on the same page). Again, I went with it... with good results!

And it didn't stop there. Just prior to dinner on Saturday, I whipped up my own homemade BBQ sauce. I'm not a big fan of store bought BBQ sauces. I usually read the label and then put it back on the shelf with disgust -- I can't stand the amount of sugar in it! I found a better option once when I visited Whole Foods, but given that I live 5 hours away from the nearest Whole Foods, it's not an easy thing to pick up when you run out. So I went with this one, which has no sugar at all! Bonus.

For dinner, I made this amazing kale salad. Our most recent produce delivery included a huge head of kale, so what to do but whip up a great salad. I served it with some fresh local made-in-store sausages I picked up the day before at The Piggy Market in Westboro. Nom nom nom. So good! The key to this salad is to let it sit for a while after you mix it up. The kale leaves will soften from the olive oil in the dressing making it much more palatable.

Sunday morning I tackled my most complicated recipe of the weekend -- blueberry scones (gluten-free)! I love scones and blueberry ones are a bonus. This recipe included a few ingredients I've never used before but are easily found at most natural foods stores, such as Rainbow Natural Foods, which is where I found my loot.

Ok, I know enough, right? But one more. Blueberry grain-free pancakes for Sunday breakfast, made with almond flour. The recipe didn't call for blueberries, but I had some left over from the scones, so had to do it! Yum yum. Served with some chopped strawberries and pure maple syrup. 

So now you know what I did for a good part of the weekend. What did you do??