Can I confess something? Meal planning and prep is one of my guilty pleasures, which I think stems from love of both organization and talking about food. My husband and I started the habit casually a few a years ago, talking about new recipes we might want to try for the week. Recently, we’ve got a bit more serious about it, and sit down to make a plan for the week – usually on Sunday mornings – before we purchase our groceries for the week.
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A few weeks back I had a little night-out on the town with some of my blogger buddies at Boston Magazine’s Best Fest. It was a much-needed evening of adult interaction! That evening it happened to be pouring rain, and about 95 degrees outside — I can’t fully explain how hot and humid the air felt, other than that the one saving grace of the weather was a popsicle cart serving Patron Tequila-infused frozen treats. They were amazing. I tried a few different flavors — the paloma popsicle was my favorite — and vowed to find a way to recreate them at home. Luckily the folks at Patron were kind enough to share some of their recipes with me, and I tweaked one of the, to make own batch this week!
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We have a few summer traditions that are absolute essentials in our family, and one is particularly tasty: making my grandma Ida’s homemade blueberry cobbler recipe. It’s simple and fairly quick to make. We’ve done it so many times I can almost assemble it blindfolded. Most importantly, each bite tastes like a burst of summer memories; the warm blueberries scooped out onto a plate with vanilla bean ice cream melting over the top. We had family visiting recently, and with the plethora of blueberries available this time of year it was the perfect time to pull out the weathered recipe card. It’s always such a hit, in fact, as I was taking these pictures, my sister’s boyfriend was hovering nearby wanting to know when he could snag a plate to dig-in. 
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When a box arrives in the mail from my friends at Martha Stewart Living, I always know there will be fun times to be had. This particular mail day I was excited to find they shared some adorable Martha Stewart glasses from Macy’s with me, and Kerrygold® Irish Cream Liqueur to experiment with! Given our recent heat wave and general summer celebratory mood, I decided to try my hand and mixing up a batch of spiked milkshakes for a simple dessert-cocktail.
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I’m keeping pace with my summer Farmer’s Market challenge (in fact it’s the one thing I’ve marked off my summer bucket list – I need to tackle my summer reading list and some of our day-trips before summer slips away). So far I’ve made a charred summer vegetable salad, mixed in tons of fresh veggies in a farmer’s market pasta dish, and made use of those first summer tomatoes with a fresh bruschetta mixed with brine-y olives. The berries are starting to show up on the tables at our little Farmer’s Market and I had to scoop up some bright red strawberries to play with, and I ended up with a tasty strawberry goat cheese crostini recipe this week. 
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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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