I’m so lucky this week to be taking some time off work, and I’m doubly lucky that my awesome sister Lindsey is visiting me all week long!
Me and Linds in 1987. Twinsies!
And, Lindsey more recently. Ain’t she pretty? She’s got the coolest tattoos.
Linds happens to be vegan, which makes it quite difficult for her to find baked goods that she can eat without getting sick from any sneaky dairy ingredients. While she was visiting, I figured we’d make a tart that’s vegan!
It’s the 4th of July, and what better way to celebrate than with food? Holidays + food = ‘Merica! If you need a salad to offset all the grilled meat you’re sure to ingest, this quick and tasty Brussels Sprout Salad with Radish + Feta should fit the bill nicely. It’s chock-full of fresh brussels sprouts, spicy radishes, crunchy pistachios, salty and creamy feta, and … Continue reading Happy 237th Birthday, America!
Happy birthday, America! I made you some macarons. I hope you like them!
Is there any dessert more trying to a baker’s patience than the elusive French macaron? I’ve made them about 8 times in the past 3 years to varying degrees of success. This recipe comes from the always lovely Tartelette, a recipe that I’ve used a few times and decided to come back to for this 4th of July treat. I’ve tried other recipes, and while some of them have worked beautifully, others have been a sad disappointment. I find myself glued to the glass door of my oven while these little beauties are baking, holding my breath until I see the first signs of feet forming (“pieds“, if you want to be fancy, the little ruffly/bubbly edges at the bottom). The first time I made these and got feet to form, I literally jumped up and down in my kitchen, no joke.
So. It’s been hot here lately.
Like, really hot. 108 degrees, hot. If there’s one thing you can count on in Phoenix in mid June, it’s relentless heat. Sadly, the calendar still thinks it’s springtime, but you wouldn’t know that if you stepped outside here on a random day at 3 PM!
When I think of summertime, I think of popsicles, and when I think of popsicles, I think of my childhood neighbor Eric. My family moved in to the house across the street from Eric’s family when I was 5, and he was the same age as me and my twin sister. I remember standing at the end of our driveway with my two sisters the morning after we moved in, shouting to Eric as he sped up and down the street on his bike trying to impress us with his skills. All we wanted to do was introduce ourselves to him, because oh boy, here was a potential new friend! Eventually he stopped his feats of daring on his child’s bicycle, came over and talked to us, and the rest is history.
Most days after morning kindergarten, my twin sis and I could be found hanging out with Eric at his house. In the storage room off of his family’s carport, they had a big deep freezer that, to my kid brain, seemed chock-full of nothing but popsicles (because that’s all I ever saw his mom pull out of it). Among the typical cherry, orange and grape-flavored pops, his favorite always seemed to be the Flintstones sherbet push-up pops. When the weather turned warm, you could rest assured that Eric’s mom would keep him in a never-ending supply of popsicles from the deep freezer.
Continue reading “strawberry balsamic + black pepper popsicles”
Recently I’ve begun a healthier eating plan and started a workout routine in an attempt to lose about 30 pounds before my 30th birthday, which is coming up in 6 months. I’ve had this recipe in my head for a while now, several years, in fact. I first had a Vietnamese-style summer roll at Pei Wei of all places, and I know that it’s not the most authentic of restaurants to experience a Vietnamese dish for the first time, but they had the basic elements down. I made a version of these at home about 7 years ago, but I have to say, these came out much more successfully!
Continue reading “vietnamese summer rolls with hoisin-peanut sauce”
Ah, Arrested Development. Is there a more perfect, quirky comedy TV show? Sadly, it was not fully recognized as the comedic breakthrough that it deserved to be, and it was cancelled after only 3 seasons. They sure managed to pack a lot of hilarity into those 3 short seasons, and now that the show is coming back for a 4th season exclusively on Netflix on Sunday, I thought there would be no better snack to indulge in than some chocolate-dipped bananas while watching the awesomeness unfold!
G.O.B can tell you, chocolate-dipped bananas are the perfect snack for a guy wearing a $4,000 suit… come ON!
Continue reading “there’s always money in the banana stand.”
When I was growing up, my mom had several go-to recipes for meals and snacks. Her homemade spaghetti sauce with ground beef was a common sight at dinnertime, as was her braised pot roast with carrots, onions and potatoes for Sunday dinner. For weekend snacks, I fondly remember eating “pigs in a blanket”, halved hot dogs wrapped in pop-open biscuit dough, dipped into obscene amounts of yellow mustard from that little bottle that looked like a barrel.
My favorite treat that my mom would make, one I remember eating for as long as I have memories of eating, was her top-notch oatmeal raisin cookies. She has the Little Yellow Cookbook, our official name for her cookbook filled with sheets of hand written recipe cards, ideas clipped out of yellowed magazines and newspapers, and recipes given to her from her sisters. This cookbook seemed to be ever-present in the kitchen, though recalling it now, I don’t remember her cooking many recipes from it. It’s one item I hope to one day call my own, as I have lots of good memories of flipping through the book’s plastic pages and marveling at all the time-worn recipes.
For a few years now, I’ve been a big fan of the blog Smitten Kitchen. Deb’s photos and food are absolutely stunning, and her posts are really engaging. What’s not to love?
She originally posted this recipe for cream of mushroom soup way back in 2007. I’ve had it bookmarked for what seems like ages, and I finally got a chance to make it! I know right now in AZ it’s not exactly soup weather, but depending on where you are in the US, it still feels very much like winter. So, if you’re looking for something to take the chill away, or if you’re just looking for a simple and tasty lunch or dinner idea, you’ve come to the right place!
I have many fond memories of spending time at my grandma’s house as a kid. She lived right next door to us, so it wasn’t unusual to go over and spend the night at her house on the occasional weekend. When it came to meals, breakfast was one that my grandma always wanted immediately after she woke up, even it that meant sitting down at the table around 5:30 a.m. My grandma was never one for hearty breakfasts of fried eggs, bacon, pancakes and the like. She’d make little muffins that she called “breakfast cakes”, usually with healthy things like raisins and bran cereal flakes, or chunks of pineapple. My sisters and I would each get a microwave-warmed “breakfast cake” which she’d pulled from her ever-present stash the freezer, accompanied by a tiny glass of orange juice and a steaming, scald-your-lips hot mug of hot cocoa, always made with water and not milk.
My grandma’s breakfast of choice, the one that she always came back to after countless batches of tiny muffins, was a simple grapefruit half and a cup of hot tea. I never knew anyone who ate as much grapefruit as my grandma! I don’t recall if she ever put sugar on her grapefruit before she dug in with one of her little sharp-edged grapefruit spoons, but whenever she’d serve me a half for breakfast, I was sure to load it up with lots of crunchy white sugar. My favorite part? Drinking the super sweet grapefruit juice left in the rind once all the fruit had been eaten.
Fancy was not necessarily my grandma’s style when it came to breakfast, so there’s no wonder that she never sprinkled sugar on her half of grapefruit and then shoved it into the broiler to create a thin layer of caramelized goodness on top of the fruit. I’ve never tried it myself, but I’ve always been intrigued by the idea. Grapefruit? Good. Sugar? Good. Grapefruit and sugar? Gooooooood.
oven + apron 