A Minnesota Summer Day

It is summer salad time; my favorite type is fruit salads made from fresh fruit with orange juice. This morning I made this recipe:
1 peach, sliced
1 nectarine, sliced
1/4 cantaloupe, sliced and cut into bite size pieces
1/2 cup fresh blueberries
 2 kiwi, peeled and cut into small pieces
1 banana, cut into quarters and sliced
Mix together with 1/2 to 3/4 cup orange juice.
Serves four.

We attended Erin Lee and Ryan Murray wedding on Saturday afternoon. Erin was a lovely bride and they make a cute couple. It was so hot though, I went home and then on to the city center for the dinner at four. Ardmore went out and cut CRP after the wedding. I sat with Roxann and Don and some of the Lee family. Very nice and would have been a fun wedding if Ardmore would have come and we could have danced a bit. Good meal!

My turn to bake cookies for choir tomorrow. I wanted to make chocolate drop cookies and headed for Joanne Fluke's Lake Eden Cookbook and found the best recipe. I did a little embellishment as I am a chocaholic.
I doubled this recipe.
CHOCOLATE MINT SOFTIES
Bake 350 degrees for 5 minutes, turn pan and bake additional 5 minutes, you know your own oven, do what you need to do!
2 one-ounce squares of unsweetened baking chocolate (I used choco bake, just set them in a cup of hot water to soften)
1/2 cup butter at room temp
2/3 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/3 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg
1 tsp peppermint extract, I use Watkins
1/2 tsp chocolate extract, I used 1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
3/4 cup sour cream
3/4 cup coarsely chopped pecan pieces
1.5 cups of large dark chocolate chips
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips.
Cream sugar and butter until smooth, add the baking soda and salt and beat, add the chocolate and beat, add the egg and beat, add the extracts and beat.Scrap bowl often.
Add half the flour and mix, add the sour cream and mix well, then add last of flour. Mix in chocolate chips and nuts.
Drop with small ice cream scoop, but be generous. Makes about 3 dozen, depending how big you make them. 
You can also frost them with the following frosting, use a 4 cup measuring cup.
Microwave Chocolate Frostening
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup milk or cream - mix it up
add 1/4 cup butter, cut into chunks.
1/2 cup miniature marshmallows
Microwave one minute, stir to get the marshmallows melted, microwave until the marshmallow all dissolve.
Add 1/2 cup dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips to the above and let set for about 30 seconds. Stir and pour over cookies as you desire. You can pour a little and go back and pour more later! I also used mint choco chips when I can find them, usually they are available at Christmas.

Incidentally, Joanne Fluke's cookbook has the greatest recipes and they are all from her mystery books. Have you read her books? If so, you know what I mean.

So what am I reading now? I finished all of Joanne Fluke's books and am waiting for the next one. Right now I have just started reading Minnesota author William Keith Krueger's first book, Iron Lake. I highly recommend it. His books were recommended by one of the guys from my class reunion. I can see I am already hooked! The best  thing is that this author is coming to our Roseau MN library soon!