Tag: ice cream

Make This Now: New Summer Favorites

LaurenLeave a comment

Hi, hi!  I’m currently in a stage where I only want to try new recipes and that’s okay.  Old favorites can wait till I feel inspired to make them again — lookin at you, Summer Squash and Basil Pasta! — and in the meantime, I’ll be delighting in burrito bowls, grilled chicken, punchy salad dressings, creamy desserts and elevated BLTs.  I really hope you find something new to try here and feel as inspired by it as I did!

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Spicy Black Bean Burrito Bowls with Cashew + Hemp Seed Chipotle Sauce

If you have black beans already cooked and waiting in the freezer (or heck, just a can of beans in the pantry), this recipe is such a breeze to make!  We took it up a notch by making Cilantro-Lime Rice and assembled with the beans, corn, salsa, cabbage slaw, cilantro, avocado and most importantly, THAT CHIPOTLE SAUCE, this was damn delicious.  I worship at the shrine of Illegal Pete’s but at first bite, I was like “Illegal Pete’s who?”  It was that good!

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Peruvian-Style Spatchcock Chicken with Creamy Cilantro Sauce

I pledge allegiance to the recipes of Jeff Mauro!  The directions for this chicken tell you how to do it in the oven but look, the last thing I need in my air conditioner-less home, is to have the oven on for an hour so we made this on the grill — just put the cast-iron straight on there — and it worked perfectly!  Also, it tasted incredible.  Super juicy, super flavorful and really extra good dipped in that cilantro sauce.

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Corn & Chickpea Bowl with Miso-Jalapeño Tahini

Not to dismiss this salad, because it is very good, but the shining star here is the miso-jalapeño tahini dressing.  It’s flavor-packed, creamy, and very ginger-forward.  So if you’re not that person just straight eating the pile of fresh ginger that comes with your sushi, maybe this isn’t for you.  But I AM that person, so I found this dressing to be just incredible.  It’s such a bold and bright note to contrast with the rich goat cheese and avocado in this salad and Joey and I both really really loved it, so we hope you do too!

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No-Churn Ice Cream

Raise your hand if your house is tiny and you just do not have room for yet another kitchen appliance.  I am raising my hand high.  Even though an ice cream maker sounds fun, it’s really a question of where I’m going to store it.  So, when I saw a recipe for no-churn ice cream, I was VERY VERY EXCITED.  I didn’t even know this was an option.  Turns out, you just have to make some whipped cream, fold it into some sweetened condensed milk, toss in some mix-in and let the whole thing chill for a few hours and you are rewarded with thee absolute creamiest ice cream I’ve EVER tasted.  The recipe post includes lots of flavor combination suggestions but I’m here to tell you mini chocolate chips and peppermint extract is DELIGHTFUL.

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Egg-in-a-Nest BLT Sandwich

I’m hesitant to share this recipe because, well, it’s a BLT.  But it’s better than a BLT because there’s also an egg cooked into the bread!  What a perfect mashup!  Also, you basically make a mayo-bacon guacamole to spread on the bread and it tastes pretty incredible.  Joey and I were very impressed by what seemed like a quick and easy dinner but ended up tasting like something special.  Also, I was thisclose to buying regular white bread instead of sourdough but am so glad I didn’t because it tasted extra good!

Happy Friday!

The 3rd of July

Lauren1 Comment

Right now, my brain is a jumble of thoughts like, “wait, what day is it??”  “Which member of the family has a teeth cleaning today??”  “Will I have this headache forever??”  “Were the past three days real or just a perfect dream??”  We spent two days in a tiny house village and it was the most entertaining!  Bobby and Becca got married and the wedding was SO perfect!   The 4th of July was low key, with spur of the moment dessert plans and our dog didn’t give a $&!% about firework noises.  So despite how discombobulated I feel, everything is actually very fine and good.

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The wedding was in Lyons, so Joey and I decided to make a mini-vacation of it and spend a few nights up there.  We headed up Monday night, where we proceeded to check into our tiny house and were SO delighted by it!  I think we’d been there all of two minutes when I proclaimed “I live here now!”  In all seriousness, staying here was the most fun… but only for two nights 😛

Afterwards, we walked to dinner.  We had our hearts SET on this taqueria for WEEKS but found out that morning that it’s closed on Mondays!  WHY?!  But it was okay because Oskar Blues was our back up and despite it’s mediocre star rating on Yelp, it was actually really great.  I loved my beer and the fish tacos were perfectly fried and had an amazing buttermilk sauce.  Only acted slightly like children when we got back to our tiny house but to be fair, any space with a ladder, is a space not to take yourself too seriously in.

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Saturday morning, we walked over to The Stone Cup and had an impressive-for-a-coffee-shop breakfast of Huevos Rancheros x2 then did a little bit of exploring at the LaVern M. Johnson Park.  That water was FRIGID, but it was very hot outside and we could not bear the thought of walking all the way back to our village so we forded the river, like the true adventurers we are.  We also walked into town so Joey could eat a triple scoop of ice cream (“you only let me have three scoops yesterday!” is a real thing he said to me the next day…) but mostly the day was really low-key and I even finished Order of the Phoenix and moved onto Half-Blood Prince!

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The wedding started at 4 PM and what can I say except that it was PERFECT ♥  So well organized, so pretty (The Lyons Farmette is just lovely!) and just so full of love.  Not to be too sappy, but witnessing this couple’s love for each other and all their family and friends’ love for them was truly incredible.  I felt so honored to be a part of it and just so happy for the two of them.  Also drank approximately 50 glasses of wine, danced to Backstreet Boys, petted an alpaca and just had thee most fun.

Also, Marriage Advice: Find someone who wants to act a fool on the dance floor as much as you do!

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Honestly, this 4th of July felt so weird!  Everyone on was out celebrating and I just felt like “but the big celebration was yesterday!”  Our 4th of July felt like a haphazardly thrown together afterthought, but that being said, it was actually really great.  A couple of weeks ago I was considering prepping some ribs ahead of time so we could grill but then Joey told me he’d round up a few meal options and we could just decide day-of what we felt like.  HE’S A GODSEND.

We ended up feeling like pizza so, after picking up breakfast burritos for the road, retrieving Andi from my parents, inspecting our garden (snap peas looking good!) and resting for a bit, we headed to Whole Foods for pizza ingredients and made the spontaneous decision to try no-churn ice cream for dessert.  It all turned out even better than expected!  We did one red sauce/mozzarella/roasted garlic/black olive/basil pizza and one olive oil/mozzarella/fig/goat cheese/arugula/walnut pizza (+ shishitos grilled to perfection) and I loved both so much.  Plus, the ice cream turned out SO GOOD.  It was MEGA-CREAMY and we threw some peppermint extract (1 teaspoon) and mini chocolate chips in.  This feels life-changing!  Also, our neighbors set off fireworks late into the night but Andi didn’t even lift his head at any of them.  THANK GOD.

I hope you all had the best 4th of July but for me, it was all about the 3rd 🙂