Avocado BLT

When we were in Wisconsin I ordered an ABLT on homemade sour dough bread.

I'd never heard of an ABLT, but when I read that it was an Avocado BLT, I knew I had to try it.

It was just as delicious as I'd hoped.  I briefly contemplated ordering one for the road.  Then I came to my senses, took note of all the details and did my best to recreate it at home.

Isn't that half the fun of traveling - trying new things and incorporating them into your everyday life?!?

Kevin and I love BLTs.  I had no trouble convincing him to go along with my plan.  He does not love avocado plain.  I ended up just leaving it off of his sandwich and he loved it.

Here's my inspiration:
ABLT from The Free House in Wisconsin

My step by step recreation:
Spoiler alert: It was a pretty great dupe!

Ingredients:
Loaf of sour dough bread
Thick cut bacon
Ripe avocado
tomato
lettuce
mayo
real butter

I attempted to thinly slice the sour dough, but that proved to be a challenge.  This was the best I could do.

Butter the bread

Toast the outsides on a hot skillet.

Fry the bacon.

Perfectly toasted.

Thinly slice the avocado, tomato and prep the lettuce.  Spread mayo on one side of the bread and start building your sandwich.

Yum!  It was the perfect Summer meal.  The extra steps of slicing your own bread, adding the avocado and using thick cut bacon really made the sandwich feel special without much extra work.

Have you ever had an ABLT??  You'll have to give this one a try!

Birthday Highlights: Fair, Fireworks and Fun!

Kevin turned 38 recently and we had a really fun week celebrating him with family and friends.  We packed in lots of Summer goodness in this month.

We have been catching and releasing a ton of lightning bugs every evening!  Our yard just fills up with them.

We went on a quick road trip to celebrate Kevin's birthday with family.  We made a stop at his favorite fireworks shop to stock up.

Red, white and blue birthday decorations.  I had the best time collecting festive party decor.

The kids helped him open gifts.

And blow out all his candles.

It was fun to see so many cousins!

Olive wrapped up tennis camp.

Kevin opened gifts on his actual birthday.

We headed to The County Fair.  It was hot, but fun.  We loved seeing the animals, the emergency vehicles, the rides and the snow cones.

Olive made her own birthday decoration - an I LOVE DAD birthday garland.

I made his #1 favorite buttermilk cake.  It's a yummy cake his Nana made and passed down the recipe to his mom and now to me.  I usually only make it once a year.

One of Kevin's presents was DATE NIGHT.  We did some organizing in his office, walked along the river and headed to our favorite mexican restaurant.

My favorites - Kev, queso, chips and lemonade.

I took the kids to our local farmer's market for Kid's Day.  There were lots of things for the kids to do.  They each painted a flower pot and then we found another vendor to buy succulent plants from.  They were so proud of their pots.  Now they live in my kitchen window.

My brother and his little girls came up to visit.  We had a great time doing our favorite things around town, baking peach cobbler and playing.

Tyler and I headed out to our favorite antique store.  Kevin watched all the kids and then we switched spots so Kevin and Tyler could go out and do some fun things.  Fletcher asked my brother, "Uncle Ty, How did all your hair fall off your head onto your face??"  He was totally serious and it was so funny.  Always enjoy hanging out with my little bro.

More late night playing with neighbors, popsicles on the deck, lightning bugs and bike rides!

I made my first fresh peach pie this week.  It was SO good!!  Did you see the recipe for it on Wednesday?  It was easy to make (easier than an apple pie) and it's definitely a new favorite at my house.

We've also been having some fun lunches!  Each kid got to pick out their favorites for lunch and we served them in an ice cube tray. 

Hope you have some fun plans for your weekend!  We're going to try to stay cool and enjoy doing some stuff with friends.

It's time to link up with my favorite blogging buddies for High Five for Friday.  Join us with a few different blog posts and be sure to look around to find some new blog friends

Becky @  By BMG Blog
Della @ Della Devoted
Tif @ Bright on a Budget
Whitney P @ Come Home for Comfort

This link party is powered by Link Party Animal

Easy Fresh Peach Pie

I've always wanted to make a fresh peach pie.

I love making pie, but was kind of intimidated to give this pie a try for some reason.

Remember last week when we picked up 25lbs of fresh Georgia peaches??

I figured this was the perfect time to share some peaches with our neighbors and give a fresh peach pie a try!  I looked all over Pinterest for recipes and settled on this Peach Pie recipe from Crazy for Crust.  It looked simple enough and sounded so good.

I made some changes to the recipe and would HIGHLY recommend it.

Here are my changes to the Crazy for Crust recipe:

Pie ingredients:
1 unbaked pie crust

5 cups fresh peaches (6-8 peaches peeled) (sliced, washed and pat DRY - make sure they aren't wet or you'll have a gooey pie)
1/4 c sugar
1/2 t cinnamon
splash of lemon juice
1 T corn starch
sprinkle of salt

Combine all ingredients in a bowl until the peaches are well coated.

Topping:
I used the Crazy for Crust crumb topping recipe with a few changes:
1 stick butter grated
1/3 c white sugar
1/3 c brown sugar
1 c flour
 
Grate a cold stick of butter into a bowl with the dry ingredients.  Combine with a pastry cutter.

Bake unbaked pie crust shell at 450 for 8 minutes.
Remove from oven and add peach pie filling mixture.
Add on crumb topping in the middle of the pie leaving a ring of peaches exposed around the edges.

Bake at 350 for 40 minutes.  Broil the last couple of minutes to ensure a crunchy sugary topping.

Let cool and serve with vanilla ice cream.

The adults at our house LOVED this pie.  We love lots of pies and decided that this pie was easily one of our very favorites.  I'll be adding this into our summer rotation for sure!

 I was expecting 40ish peaches in our 25lb box, but we actually ended up with 60!  It was a great opportunity for us to enjoy some Southern peaches and share with our neighbors.  I wish I could include a big whiff of peachy goodness with this picture.  It smelled SO GOOD!

Here are a few other ideas for how we used our peaches this week:

1. Peaches on a Charcuterie Board. 
They were the favorite item that night!

2. Fresh Peach Cobbler
I first shared this cobbler recipe last summer.  It's so good and so easy!  It's also a great recipe to make with your kids.  These cute cousins chopped up all the peaches for me and we mixed the toppings together.  Very kid friendly!

3. Frozen
We ate a ton of peaches this week and still had enough to freeze for one more cobbler.  I peeled them so they're ready to go for a cobbler or smoothies or maybe on top of some yogurt!

 The peach truck comes back to our city in August and I'm already marking my calendar!!

What peach treats are you making this Summer??