I have to start this blog post with an apology to my bestie, who is the biggest fan of my Rice Krispy treat recipe but also a total RKT purist. She texts me every time she sees me posting about new Rice Krispy treat experiments that I should just stick to the classics please, because you can’t improve this perfect, buttery, sweet dessert. So sorry buddy, I’m at it again, but I do think you might want to give these a try because I gave my favorite recipe a s’mores spin this time around.
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I think the best thing about the Fourth of July being mid-week this year is that we get to double the celebrations and BBQs and general summer festivities across two weekends. I had the best time last weekend hosting one of my girlfriends and her daughter at our house for a little mom and babies night-in while our husbands were away for a bachelor party. Since we were staying in after the kids went to bed, I decided to make homemade lobster rolls for dinner. Heading to our local fish market and grabbing a few fresh lobsters that were caught in the harbor across the street made for a tasty meal.
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I am on a Farmer’s Market kick right now and am doing well with my own personal challenge to try a new recipe each week inspired by the seasonal ingredients I’m finding there. This week, I started to see a nice variety of sweet, colorful summer tomatoes and knew they were the ingredient for me. Appetizers have been on my mind with all of the upcoming summer celebrations and BBQs. I thought it would be a fun idea to create an individually portioned starter that guests could grab and nibble on while playing lawn games.
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Once summer arrives we pretty much abandon our oven and move most of the cooking out to our grill – especially since we’ve moved to our house and upgraded our grill. We have started a new weekly tradition of making our own pizzas – usually on Friday nights just like I did with my own family growing up. When my friends at Peapod asked me to come up with a fun new grilling recipe, I knew I had to focus on pizza. Pizza on the grill has so many advantages: it cooks fast, the crust gets crispy, and the cheese and toppings get that perfect golden brown. We use an inexpensive pizza stone and experiment with all sorts of different recipes.
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Do you ever get that feeling of summer-guilt? It’s when it’s so incredibly nice and warm outside, and you have that pang in your gut that says you should really be at the beach or drinking outside on a patio or going for a walk somewhere with a nice breeze. I that feeling this weekend. I think it happens in New England particularly because summer is so fleeting here. A mere 8 weekends, 9 or 10 if we’re really lucky, of that warm air and sunshine that passes by so quickly we feel guilty if we don’t take advantage of every second of it.
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Remember my little farmer’s market weekly challenge I shared as part of my summer bucket list? Week one was a partial sucess: I didn’t make it to our farmer’s market because I’ve been spending some time at my parent’s house in New York. I did, however pop into their great gourmet grocery store and scoop up a ton of bright, fresh local produce to experiment with for my little challenge. My parents are on a health kick, so they were happy to be my taste-testers for a new veggie based recipe, and I was delighted to get to use their brand stove with a built in griddle burner to cook for them. I charred up sweet summer corn, peeled carrots strands, zucchini slices and a bit of red pepper on the griddle before tossing it with a homemade vinaigrette and fresh green onions.
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I’m so excited that Memorial Day is coming up soon, because it means that summer activities like beach days and picnics and barbeques aren’t far behind. Those summer cookouts are at the top of my to-do list when the warm weather arrives, because there’s nothing better than a casual backyard gathering with all the tasty BBQ classics.
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I have a mental arsenal of our weeknight dinner recipes; they’re so engrained in my head I never think to actually write them down. My friends at Peapod asked me if I had any easy recipes that I’m leaning on as a new mom with a busy schedule, and I knew just the one to share. It’s a quick and easy turkey burger, packed with flavor from BBQ sauce, spicy hot sauce, and chopped up scallions.
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Every year at Christmas our family friends serve these amazing meatballs as an appetizer at their annual holiday party. It’s one of my favorite food traditions, and I was thinking about how delicious they were recently. I got the idea in my head to rethink the flavors in this tasty appetizer and give them a warm-weather spin to serve at summer parties. We’re huge fans of spicy food at my house, and drizzle hot sauce on just about anything we can get our hands on, and adding some heat to a meatball appetizer seemed like just the perfect idea.
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I have been driving past our local nursery this week to scope out all of the gorgeous flowers that are out for Mother’s Day. Fittingly, gardens remind me of both my mom and my mother-in-law. When I was growing up my mom had a flower garden that ran alongside our house. All of my favorite flowers like snapdragons, black-eyed Susans and pansies were planted there each year. My mother-in-law has the greenest thumb of anyone I’ve ever met and when we gift her flowers for Mother’s Day she keeps them alive all summer long. I, on the other hand, struggle to keep a cactus alive. I love flowers but gardening is certainly my weakest domestic skill. You know what I’m really good at though? Mixing up cocktails. 
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