Monthly Archives: July 2012

Friday Favorites, summer

Friday Favorites

6 Comments

Images of beverages

This week I want to celebrate a few of my favorite summer beverages. When I dream about summer afternoons I always imagine myself sitting somewhere in the sun with a cold drink in my hand. These are some of the things I’m loving this summer.

Blue Print Cleanse Gold. BPC started selling their juices at the Whole Foods down the street. This made me super happy. This didn’t make my wallet super happy, but their beyond-refreshing Pineapple Apple Mint juice is worth it. I crave this juice. It has just the right amount of sweetness and tartness, and the mint wakes you up and cools you down and you find yourself wondering how they got so much good stuff in one bottle.

Lemonade. I got into lemonade this summer, and especially love the flavored varieties. The Cherry Lemonade and Strawberry Lemonade from Santa Cruz Organics are superb. I had a Rose Lemonade that was intriguing, but I think it could be better than the variety I tried. Lavender lemonade? Thyme lemonade? I want them all. Lemonade makes me feel like a carefree kid again, and if summer isn’t the time for that, I don’t know what is.

Rosé. Some people think Rosé is best enjoyed in spring, but I love it all summer long. It’s festive and elegant and light and refreshing. It’s pink. It makes me smile. It makes me feel French. Bring on the rosé.

Sparkling water, preferably with a splash of bitters. This makes me feel like I’m having a cocktail even when I’m not having a cocktail. I’m not brand loyal, but I like glass bottles. I prefer bigger bubbles to smaller, fizzier bubbles. I totally want one of those Sodastream machines so I can have fizzy water at the push of a button.

Deschutes Brewery Twilight Summer Ale. This is quickly becoming my favorite beer this summer. It’s light and easy to drink, but still full of flavor and body. I’m not a beer connoisseur, and I can’t talk to you about balance and hops and malts and bitter body whatever. But I like this beer, especially if I’m sitting outside and maybe just about to eat a hot dog.

What libations are you enjoying this summer?

recipes, summer

Grilled Pizza with Eggplant and Pesto

2 Comments

Grilled Pizza on a Cutting Board

Pizza night is the best. A round of crispy dough topped with melting cheese and salty meats and fresh, just-cooked vegetables? It never fails to bring a smile to my face. I went through a period a few years ago when I might have been a tad bit obsessed with making the perfect pizza. I was obsessed enough to crank our oven up to 550 degrees in the middle of a Boston summer, making our apartment basically uninhabitable. I did not care. It was all in the service of pizza.

We might not be dealing with record temperatures and humidity here in the Bay, but I’m still wary of forcing the oven to its highest limits in the summer. But pizza on the grill? Totally do-able. I’ve been wanting to try making grilled pizza for ages, but…gah, it seemed so finicky. Pizza dough can be insufferably sticky, and visions of grill grate disasters plagued me. I was worried for no reason. Pizza on the grill is way easier than you might imagine. And fun, besides.
Continue reading Grilled Pizza with Eggplant and Pesto →

recipes

Millet Salsa Salad

2 Comments

Bowl of salad with millet, tomatoes, jalapenos, onions

Our cupboards are overflowing with grains. Sean and I went on a bit of a bulk aisle shopping spree, and we’re fully stocked up with millet, spelt, kamut, barley, kasha, rice…it’s a good thing I love grain salads so much. It’s going to be a whole grain kind of summer.

Last I week I was inspired by the tomatoes and jalapeños that came in our Full Belly Farm box. I thought about making salsa, but I’m trying to stop pretending that tortilla chips are health food. Then I had a sudden salad brainstorm. I’m so glad I did. This salad tastes exactly like summer. I served it with some grilled salmon and little smidgen of chipotle crema, and it was the most standout dinner of the week, hands down.
Continue reading Millet Salsa Salad →

Friday Favorites

Friday Favorites

2 Comments

This week I’ve been thinking a lot about inspiration. Sometimes inspiration is hard: the days become filled with the mundane and necessary tasks of living and the things about which we’re truly passionate can get lost in the shuffle. I like to keep a mental list of the things that inspire me, so when I feel myself drowning in the day-to-day, I can look to those things and bring my focus back to what matters. This Friday’s favorites are all about inspiration.
Continue reading Friday Favorites →

recipes, summer

Strawberry Peanut Butter Milkshakes

2 Comments

strawberry peanut butter milkshake

I am a person who re-reads. I will read a book over and over again if I love it, whenever I need something familiar and comfortable, when I want to escape into a favorite place or remind myself of something that I think is important and meaningful. The details of these stories become part of the fabric of my own life, they weave themselves in in sometimes unexpected ways. This month, I decided I need to read something magical and transporting and very, very familiar: I picked up Harry Potter again.

I’ve read all seven Harry Potter novels so many times it’s actually a little embarrassing. What can I say? At least I know I’m not alone. Reading Harry Potter has become a certain kind of custom for me, in some ways. I appreciate re-reading these books for so many reasons: for the story, but also for the things it makes me remember, and even for the aesthetic experience of lifting each heavy volume off the shelf smoothing the pages. I even love the fonts, dude. I’m a dork.
Continue reading Strawberry Peanut Butter Milkshakes →

summer

Easy Summertime Cooking

2 Comments

It is definitively summer. I hear in some parts of the country it’s hot or something? I often find that when the days get longer and warmer, my creativity in the kitchen gets proportionally smaller. This is the time of year when I rely on those tried-and-true, quick and easy recipes that I don’t even have to think about. It’s when I do things like open jars of spaghetti sauce, or put some fish on the grill and call it a day.

These are some of the recipes I rely on in the summertime. Most of these aren’t even recipes, they are just vague suggestions of some things you could do with food and then feed to people and call it dinner. Works for me.

Fish Tacos!

Fish tacos are becoming a serious staple. I have a recipe that I’ve been using, more or less, since college. I don’t think I ever make these exactly the same, though. The tacos you see above were made with petrale sole. I sauteed the fish in some butter and olive oil with onion, jalapeno, garlic, and some chopped tomatoes. I shredded cabbage and dressed it lightly with lime juice, oil, and salt. I think there was some salsa in there.
Continue reading Easy Summertime Cooking →

recipes

Summer Tomato and Feta Salad

Tomato Salad with Feta

Do you ever do that thing where you buy tomatoes before it’s really and truly time, because you just want it to be summer so badly, but you end up sad and disappointed because they’re inevitably mealy and flavorless? Yeah, I did that a few months ago. It was a bummer. So when tomato season hit for reals, I knew I had to make up for that earlier sad scene. I had to showcase these beauties in a way that was deserving. This salad is so deserving.
Continue reading Summer Tomato and Feta Salad →

recipes

Whole Wheat Maple Banana Bread

1 Comment

Banana Bread on a White Plate

When I’ve been away for awhile, and my routines are out of whack, and I feel a little ungrounded, I like to bake something homey and simple to bring me back home. Banana bread is perfect for this. It feels like slipping on that worn, comfortable sweater you’ve had for 15 years and won’t ever get rid of. And it also has the virtue of being a baked good that can be mostly healthy. This version is a case in point.
Continue reading Whole Wheat Maple Banana Bread →

goals, recipes, summer

Sweet and Salty Cake

3 Comments

Chocolate Cake on a white Cake Stand, garnished with sea salt

It was on my summer bucket list: Make my first layer cake. And I did it! My birthday was this past weekend, and I made myself a cake. I had in mind a pretty little chocolate peanut butter number, but when it came time to start making grocery lists, I spied a cookbook on my shelf that I’ve often drooled over, but never used: Baked: New Frontiers in Baking. And after perusing it for a few minutes, I knew the Sweet and Salty cake was the way to go. This is a rich chocolate cake made even more decadent with salted caramel and caramel chocolate ganache. For reals.
Continue reading Sweet and Salty Cake →

goals, summer

The Summer Bucket List

3 Comments

An image of the beach and ocean, box with text that read Summer Bucket List

Do you listen to the Joy the Baker podcast? I was never much of a podcast person, but then I discovered that they are perfect for running. Now I listen to Joy the Baker and Tracy Shutterbean (two of my favorite bloggers) talk about important unimportant things while I jog around Lake Merritt. A few weeks ago (or longer, really, I’m not quite caught up), they talked about summer bucket lists.

I’ve never really thought about lifetime bucket lists, because, geez, I am only 32. But I can totally get behind the idea of a summer bucket list. And while I’m a bit late with this homework, here’s mine.
Continue reading The Summer Bucket List →