“Double Dream” is one of the daylilies blooming in my garden today. It is somehow both showy (because of it s form) and subtle (because of its peach shade). I just couldn’t help sharing.
Have a wonderful day!
Author Archives: Laurie
4th of July Cheesecake Cupcakes
An easy to make, fancy treat for the upcoming holiday!
Cheesecake Cupcakes
makes 12
12 Oreo cookies or Oreo Golden cookies
16 oz. cream cheese, softened
2/3 c. granulated white sugar
1/4 c. sour cream
2 lg. eggs
1 T. + 1 t. fresh lemon juice
2 t. vanilla or almond extract
whipped cream for topping
fresh strawberries, raspberries and/or blueberries
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with muffin papers. Place one cookie in the bottom of each muffin paper. (The cookies will be a little smaller than the bottom of the muffin cups, but they puff out during baking.)
2. Using a large food processor or an electric mixer, process or beat cream cheese and sugar until perfect smooth. Add sour cream and process or beat until well blended. Add eggs, lemon juice, and extract. Process or beat until well blended and perfectly smooth. Divide cheesecake batter between muffin cups, filling until almost full.
3. Bake for about 20 minutes or until puffy and set in the middle. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack. (The cupcakes will sink in the middle as they cool.) Once completely cool, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 3 hours before serving.
4. When ready to serve, lift cupcakes out of pan, remove muffin papers, top with whipped cream and fruit. Enjoy!
Notes: The cheesecake batter is the same batter that I use for my Miniature Cheesecakes in Confectionately Yours. Either recipe can be made ahead of time and frozen until shortly before serving, then decorated at the last minute.
Weekly Photography Challenge: Companionable
Bill and Penny enjoy a morning cup of coffee, while Peachy tries to sneak into the picture. Wishing you a lovely day …
This week’s photography challenge: companionable.
Beautiful for a Day
Hemerocallis – beautiful for a day – is the botanical name for daylilies, so called because each bloom typically lasts for one day. Much of my garden is looking a bit bedraggled from the storm that passed through here last night, but not the daylilies. Since every morning brings all new blooms, they are having their day in the spotlight. This daylily is called Anzac.
Wishing you a lovely weekend …
Easter Lilies in June
Last year someone gave a potted Easter Lily to a friend of mine. After it was done blooming, my friend didn’t want it anymore. So she gave the lily to me and I planted it in my garden. I wasn’t sure whether it would come back this year because it didn’t look very vigorous when I received it; but it did come back and it just started blooming. Its fragrance is equal to its beauty. I wish that I could include some of its scent in this post to share with you. Have a lovely day!
Happy Echinacea
It is a hot but glorious day here in Manhattan, Kansas and the purple coneflowers are just soaking up the sun. With the Linden tree out front gone, the echinacea which it had partially shaded are looking better than ever. Don’t they just seem to be loving summer? Now if only there were some butterflies out there …
Plum & Blueberry Crumbles
I bought some amazing plums at Eastside Market over the weekend and so decided to make Plum & Blueberry Crumbles for breakfast yesterday. Yum!
Plum & Blueberry Crumbles
makes 4 servings
3 T. + 2 t. unsalted butter, divided
2 lg. ripe black plums, halved and pitted
1/2 c. blueberries
1/4 c. quick cooking rolled oats
1/4 c. all-purpose flour or gluten-free all-purpose flour
3 T. coarsely chopped hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts or pecans
2 1/2 T. light brown sugar
3/4 t. Vietnamese cinnamon
1/4 t. ground aniseed
1/4 t. ground allspice
1/4 t. ground ginger
1/8 t. ground cardamom
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Using 1 T. of the butter, grease 4 four-inch glass tartlet pans.
2. Cut each plum half into 6 slices. Arrange slices in bottom of pans. Sprinkle blueberries over plums.
3. In a small food processor, pulse together remaining ingredients until crumbly and sticking together. Sprinkle crumb mixture over fruit.
4. Place tartlet pans on baking tray. Bake for 25 minutes or until bubbly. Serve warm.
Enjoy!
A Fine Morning for Quilting
Since my guests were all having late breakfasts this morning, I decide to do some photography in the garden while I had a chance. When I was out there, I noticed one of our guests sitting on the porch and working on a very handsome quilt. I decided to switch gears and photograph her instead. Abby was enjoying the morning light for working on her project while waiting for her husband to get up for breakfast. A friend had given Abby some sunflower fabric that she had purchased on a vacation and Abby was using it in a sunflower-themed quilt. So much painstaking work!
Thank you to Abby from Kansas for graciously allowing me to photograph her while she sewed and to use the photos on my blog!
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Daily Prompt: Island of Misfit Posts
For today’s prompt, participants are invited to post a story or image that doesn’t fit with the usual theme of their blogs. For mine, I am sharing one of my digital abstracts. I call this “The Rush.”
Weekly Photo Challenge: The World Through Your Eyes
This is a picture that I took this morning in between serving breakfasts. The theme for this photo challenge – the world through your eyes – calls for the photographer to use lines and light, etc. to make clear what she had in mind in taking the photo. If you look at this lily and feel like it is right in front of you, then I have succeeded in showing it through my eyes.
By the way, if you read my Wild Daylily Gin & Tonics post, you will want to note that this is an Asiatic lily, not a daylily. Asiatic lilies are not edible!
A Taste of Morning 