My Favorite Meal of the Week – Kale Salad and Cauliflower Salad

Posted in Appetizers, Dinner, Gluten Free, Healthy, Salads, Vegetarian by

First of all, I want to say how happy I am to be back blogging (if you don’t know where I was, read this). Spending a week at the beach doing very little besides reading, napping, and eating gave me lots of time to do some thinking and planning for the blog. So get excited for a summer full of yummy recipes.

Ok, now onto today’s post. After nine days of heavy meals, I returned to DC very excited to eat light, healthy summer fruits and vegetables. It also just so happened that for my first night back, I was having a friend over for dinner who was about to leave for a work trip to Afghanistan (and thus would be missing out on all the same fruits and veggies I was craving). So in honor of this, I put together the following spread:

Featured:

– Homemade Pesto (with basil from our garden) and Smashed Tomatoes served on Toasted French Bread

– A Lemon Kale Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing

– A Cauliflower and Garbanzo Bean Salad

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Update

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Sadly, I’m not writing to you today with a new recipe – BECAUSE by the time you read this, I’ll be on a plane to the Dominican Republic. Dave and I are going on a week-long tropical vacation to celebrate his passing the bar, and my transition to law school in the fall.
 
But what I can tell you today is that I’ll be back in just over a week with lots of new posts AND with a big site upgrade. I’ll keep you posted on the details, but I’ll be spending a lot of time this summer working on the blog and planning the changes I want to make to the site. Since I’m starting school in a few months, I want to get a head start on some yummy new recipes – guess I’ll be baking up a storm this summer!
 
Be back soon folks!

My Favorite Meal of the Week – Zucchini Fritters

Posted in Appetizers, Dinner, Healthy, Lunch, Vegetarian by

Growing up in California, I ate a lot of home grown squash, zucchini, and eggplant. In the summers, people with big gardens were basically giving these vegetables away because they had so many. So I thought I’d seen most of the ways to use these guys.

But last summer, I discovered a new great recipe to use any extra zucchinis – zucchini fritters. And I’ve started making them again almost every week.

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Glazed Donuts

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I am on a mission. I want to recreate the classic Entenmann’s glazed donuts. I have so many fond memories of eating these guys in the back of my parent’s car on the way to ski trips, or sitting around the campfire on family camping trips!

So what this means for you is that I’ll have a lot of donut adventures coming your way. For our Easter brunch last month, I tried these guys. They were good, light and fluffy, but not like the Entenmann’s ones. I prefer the heavier cakier donuts, but for those of you who like the lighter fluffy ones, here’s a great recipe.

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My Favorite Meal of the Week – Mixed Green Salad with Grapefruit Wedges, Goat Cheese, and Candied Pecans

Posted in Dinner, Fruit, Gluten Free, Healthy, Salads, Summer, Vegetarian by

This week’s favorite meal of the week post is all about the grapefruit. I have always liked grapefruits, but I’ve recently remembered why they are so great. They seem to be the only sweet (and relatively inexpensive fruit) right now. In college, they were sometimes the best fruit in the dining hall at this time of year. And right now, they seem to be the best fruit at TJ’s (the berries are too expensive, the apples and oranges are bad, and it’s too early for a lot of other good things).

Today’s meal is a mixed green salad with grapefruit wedges, goat cheese, and candied pecans with a honey dressing. Pretty simple, and nice and light for the summer.

It Is Almost Summer Time…

Posted in Dessert, Fruit, Healthy, Summer by

With each season, I get excited for certain things I get to start making. With summer, I get excited for strawberries. My absolute, hands down favorite dessert is strawberry shortcake. I have loved this dessert for a very long time. Anything strawberry rhubarb is a close second as well.

So now that we’re starting to get good strawberries, I wanted to share some of my favorite summer desserts. And over the course of the summer, I’ll try to get a bunch of step by step recipes of my own up on the blog.

1) Strawberry Rhubarb Bars – My version is pictured below

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2) Lemon Cake with Whipped Cream Frosting and Strawberries (see my post here) – Dave’s version for my birthday last year is pictured below, as well as one I just made today for a friend’s birthday

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My Favorite Meal of the Week – Quesadillas

Posted in Dinner, Lunch, Vegetarian by
For anybody who has lived with me (especially in my single days), you know that I used to subsist on a combination of tortillas, black beans, hummus, spinach and salsa for a good portion of my meals. I’d throw in some other random items when I had them in the fridge, but the majority of the week, I’d saute some spinach and throw it, plus some salsa, black beans and hummus into a flour tortilla and call it dinner. Fast, easy, and pretty healthy.But as you know, I’ve tried to up my dinner game since moving in with Dave. And while I have definitely upgraded, I still have to go back to my roots every once in a while. The difference is that now, I get slightly more creative about what I throw in the mix, and I take the extra five minutes to turn this deliciousness into a quesadilla instead of just throwing it in a cold tortilla. So in honor of Cinco de Mayo last weekend, here are a few of my favorite combinations for quesadillas (or dillas as they are lovingly called in our house).

Lemon Drop Cookies

Posted in Cookies, Dessert, Fruit by
This year I have really gotten into making anything with lemons. I just love the smell of fresh squeezed lemons and zest. Although I like lemon bars, I always find them to be messy. So in an effort to find something similar to a lemon bar, but that could transport well, I tried these. Although they were not quite what I expected (not as strong of a lemon flavor, and they were much doughier than I expected), my coworkers and I really enjoyed them.My coworkers got to enjoy these because a genius in our office had the great idea to set up our March Madness pool so that instead of paying money to enter, all of the losers had to bring in a baked good. I obviously was a loser, so this was my contribution.
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My Favorite Meal of the Week – Spinach Salad

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I’m all for the easy salad. Lately, we’ve been eating a lot of them (still making up for our trip to Charleston and in preparation of a vacation where we’ll be spending a lot of time in suits). My newest favorite salad involves spinach, bacon, caramelized onions, apple, blue cheese, candied pecans, and a balsamic dressing. I love the combination of flavors!

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Blueberry Crumb Bars

Posted in Bars, Dessert, Fruit by

Sometimes it’s really great to have easy and yet delicious desserts that you can whip up with no planning. I have a couple items that I regularly make when I need to do a last minute dessert for a coworker’s birthday, a friend’s bad day, or just because I’m craving dessert RIGHT now. The key is really that the ingredients all reside in your kitchen. These blueberry crumb bars are about as easy as it comes, and if you’re like me, and keep frozen fruit in the freezer, you’ll generally have all these ingredients around.