June 2015 – Page 2 – Life as Lauren

For the most part, life without air conditioning isn’t so bad. (Though you wouldn’t know it based on the reaction people have when you tell them your house is stuck at a permanent 85° in the summertime.) Still, when you could probably advertise your house as a bikram yoga studio, doing things like brewing beer ON THE STOVE for three hours or TURNING THE OVEN ON to bake cornbread feel absolutely insane. And sometimes you will go out of your way just to avoid creating any extra heat in the house. Like grilling your entire dinner!

We had twice baked potatoes and green beans on the menu and the thought of roasting those potatoes in a 400° oven for 45 minutes sounded HORRIBLE so I said “why not” and just tossed them on the grill. Yeah the skins got ~~burnt as hell~~ a little crispy, but otherwise this was so dang easy. Just poke with a fork, toss on the grill over medium heat, flip every 15-ish minutes for an hour and bam, fully cooked sweet potatoes!

For the green beans, I decided to go the cast-iron skillet route. Mostly because we don’t own a grill basket, but partly because I felt all “home, home on the range” sautéing in a skillet over a flame. Do you think cowboys in the Wild West chopped up fresh tarragon to add to their butter-roasted green beans?? Alls I did was melt some butter and sauté the beans, then I added about 1/2 cup of vegetable broth, salt and pepper, closed the lid and let that liquid cook out before turning off the heat and tossing in a couple tablespoons of tarragon. Seriously, once you add tarragon, you’ll never go back.

I ended up splitting the potatoes open and mashing butter, Greek yogurt, cinnamon, maple syrup and a generous pinch of salt together right inside the skins, then served it up al fresco. Because it’s summer and that means it’s time to eat all meals outdoors. I’m not going to lie, I was pretty impressed with myself. Especially because there was a point when I saw those charred potato skins and thought we were going to end up ordering pizza for dinner.

And the best part was that I didn’t make the house hot! Or, at least any hotter than it already was…

Here are the makings of a perfect weekend:

Pulling three black and white dresses out of your closet for Friday, Saturday, Sunday outfit perfection
Friday dinner plans that combine family, pizza and a Moscow Mule
Up close and personal seats at Wicked
Jenn’s Birthday!
The Spice Girls, Will Smith, Hanson AND Whitney Houston playing in the bar you’re at and the hell with it, all of us girls are gonna dance
Saturday morning at the coffee shop when a girl biker gang shows up and they’re all just so cool
When “Buy beer” is the first “appointment” in your calendar
Biking to an amusement park in a dress and wedges and feeling like you’re just as cool as a girl biker gang
A Summer Shandy + a company picnic where you’re able to sweet talk yourself into winning the raffle Rockies tickets
Cutting into a pan of perfectly sweet and soft cornbread (yeah it may have been 85° degrees in our house and yeah I may have turned the oven on anyway, but that cornbread was worth it)
Summer BBQs, live bands, pulled pork and the coolest red truck, because no farm would be complete without one
Standing over your kitchen island to share a chocolate cupcake at midnight
Nieces that love to pose for the camera and enjoy Magna-Doodles just as much as you did when you were a kid
When you’re entrusted with the task of cutting the first piece of the world’s largest layer cake
Father’s Day cards that nail your relationship with your dad
Sprinklers that water your grass for you
Reading on the porch
Having the awareness to realize how super sweet summer is and soaking up every second of it