Friday Favorites – Episode 139

You’ll have to excuse my lack of consistency with writing my Friday Favorites lately… Some weeks I have the energy, and it seems that some weeks I just don’t. I would say that I will do better and will stop skipping my weekly posts, but I know that things will most likely only get worse in the next few months.  So, I hope you’ll bear with me!

This week’s post almost didn’t happen… However, due to a lack of sleep on my part, I had some extra time to write this morning.  After waking up before 5am and not being able to get back to sleep (which seems to be a theme lately), I decided to just get up.  I baked banana bread, emptied the dishwasher, and then decided to tackle my RSS reader.  I’m glad I did… I found some pretty great posts lurking out there that would have most likely been overlooked otherwise. Since I don’t want you to miss them either, let’s get right to it…

• I know that not all of you follow a gluten-free diet… But, I also know that some of you do. Or, perhaps you like to be able to bake for all of your friends and whip up gluten-free recipes from time to time.  Regardless of which category you fall into, I think you should check out this post on How to Make Gluten-Free All Purpose Flour Mix from Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef. Shauna has provided a lot of great tips on how to come up with the right flour blend for baking.
• We have just started getting peaches from our fruit CSA, and there are many more to come over the next few weeks.  I am looking forward to doing some canning and giving this Peach Earl Grey Jam from Gimme Some Oven a try.  That way, I can gradually get a head start on some homemade Christmas gifts while I am up at 5am wishing I could sleep!
• For some reason, my hubby and I were discussing the details of how to make ratatouille over dinner the other night.  Yes, our dinner conversations are quite exciting, as I’m sure you can tell. I’ve been thinking about making ratatouille ever since, though, and I plan to put Julia’s Ratatouille from eat. live. travel. write. on the menu next week. I can’t think of a better way to put our CSA and garden veggies to good use!
• Finally, I had to mention this lovely Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread from Tracey’s Culinary Adventures.  It’s not a recipe that I have tried myself (yet!), but it looks like a winner.  I am trying to get back in the habit of baking bread more regularly, so I plan to give this one a try this coming week, as well!