Garden Goodies and Bread Gone (Slightly) Wrong

 [Reminder! Friendship Bracelets are due to me on the 20th! Don't forget to send yours in- I don't want you to miss out on potential friend making and new accessory wearing this summer!]

I have been a little shocked by all of the rain that we've been having lately, and that I've so frequently woken up to pounding thunderstorms during the past week. But I would officially like to put out the word to Mother Nature that we've had enough—the ground is completely saturated and there's just no where else for the water to go. In any event, the weather gave me a good reason to stay a little closer to home this weekend

As you can see above, the lettuce is holding its own and is growing pretty well. Thankfully we did get a solid dose of sun on Saturday afternoon, so these guys were able to dry out a bit. We actually picked a few to give the bigger plants more space—I just love the mottled color.

The other exciting news from the garden is that there are two tiny green tomatoes on one of our plants! Here you can see one of them, to which I say, YAY!

I also made a batch of Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies from Kim Boyce's Good to the Grain, my new favorite cookbook (thanks Josh!). I shared most of them with friends, but kept a few for home since they are just so delicious.

On Sunday I was out of bed earlier than planned (blame the torrential rain and thunder), so I decided to make bread using the new cookbook and the Oatmeal Sandwich Bread recipe. I like the recipe a lot, though I learned that you really shouldn't go out to lunch in the middle of the last rise of bread making—the bread rose so much that it almost spilled over the sides and then when I baked it, I couldn't get a knife around the edges. Which meant that the top broke off :(

Thankfully, we don't mind eating our bread in chunks, and when topped with butter and honey, this stuff is divine and I can imagine that had I not tried to do so many things at once, this would have been an impressive loaf of sandwich bread. (I'll post the recipe when I next make this and, fingers crossed, have a proper picture to share with you.)