Millet Salsa Salad

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 jalapeƱos 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.
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Friday Favorites

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.
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Strawberry Peanut Butter Milkshakes

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.
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Easy Summertime Cooking

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.
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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.
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Whole Wheat Maple Banana Bread

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.
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Sweet and Salty Cake

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.
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The Summer Bucket List

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.
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A Very Late Friday Favorites

I’m in Anaheim this weekend, hanging with a bunch of librarians. It’s the annual American Library Association meeting, and I’m currently sitting in a very air conditioned hotel room right down the street from Disneyland. So far, this has been a great trip, although it would be much better if Sean were with me. I did get to sit next to a pool this afternoon, so it officially feels like summer.
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Any-Way-You-Like Salmon Burgers

Salmon Burgers

It’s summer, and totally time for grilling. And that means burgers, of course. But what do you do if you’re trying to cut back on red meat? You make burgers out of other things that are not meat. Like salmon! (Ok, I know some people do consider fish a type of meat. I consider it health food, and these are a lighter, healthier alternative to beefy burgers, even if they aren’t straight up vegetarian.)

This basic recipe is from Mark Bittman, and what I love most about it is that it’s so adaptable. I made this recipe once as written, and another time with a teriyaki and ginger bent. I’m looking forward to experimenting with many combinations of flavors this summer. We are going to stretch the limits of burgers, my friends.
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