Today we get to talk about two of my favorite topics: tasty seafood and sustainability! I have a delicious new recipe to share along with a really cool program that helps recycle denim and cut down on waste going into landfills. Cotton’s Blue Jeans Go Green™ program was created in 2006 by Cotton Incorporated to help divert textile waste by recycling old denim that is made from at least 90% cotton and turning it into something new like natural cotton fiber insulating materials.
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Please note: This post was created in paid partnership with Christmas Tree Shops AndThat!. All opinions, images and content are my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that support this site.
My top summer bucket list item, year after year, is always to entertain and eat outside as much as possible. The season is fleeting in New England, and I do my part to make the most of it while the weather cooperates! A recent visit to Christmas Tree Shops AndThat! filled me with inspiration for my summer table – I left with a treasure trove of festive, stylish (and affordable!) al fresco entertaining pieces. As I zig-zagged up and down the aisles, some really fun outdoor lawn and tabletop games caught my eye and gave me the idea to have family game night in the garden.
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Macaroni salad is always a staple at our summer gatherings, if the grill is full of hot dogs and hamburgers then you can bet that I’ve made this is a side dish! I gave my traditional macaroni salad recipe a bit of a refresh with a buttermilk-herb dressing that coats each bite of pasta with tons of tangy flavor. It’s also full of colorful, crunchy veggies like broccoli florets, bell peppers and carrots (and my favorite ingredient – the green olives!). Get the recipe below and give this a save for your next summer grilling side dish!
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My garden is just starting to produce a few of my favorite spring-summer ingredients — the basil plants are looking robust and my English peas are climbing the trellises. I’m jumping on the opportunity to pluck the basil and blend up a batch of simple, fragrant homemade pesto sauce with a twist — this version has peas blended into the sauce as well as tossed whole with al dente pesto-coated pasta. The benefit of pesto is that even loosely following a recipe will yield good results, you can always play around with proportions and it’ll almost always taste good! Mix it with any pasta shape of your choice, I love these long curly fusilli that capture the pesto and peas in each twist of the fork. Get the full recipe below:
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Earlier in the spring we did a little room-swap, our playroom off the kitchen and our formal dining room did a switcharoo! The space flip gave me some more space for a desk since my husband and I have both been working home full time, and a better play area for Jane. And our old playroom nook got a grown-up upgrade with all of our dining room furniture. I’ve been trying to tie the space together with some fresh curtains and artwork, and finally got the last pieces installed this week. A pair of oversized hydrangea prints gifted from Urban Garden Prints and a DIY painted oar (see the how-to on my IG stories!) were the finishing touch!
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I am feeling so hopeful that some al fresco entertaining is in my near future with all of my friends and family on their way to be vaccinated. You better believe this party-loving-extrovert is going to be ready to host once it’s safe again! I’m honing my cocktail skills (tough work!) to get ready, and this Blackberry-Ginger Moscow Mule is going straight to the top of my menu when it’s time to gather again. It’s seriously crisp and refreshing, perfect for sipping around a picnic table on a warm summer night, and an ideal way to use up juicy farmer’s market blackberries. Get the recipe below: 
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The Beautycounter Friends + Family sale is running this week, so I’m sharing my top 10 favorite products in this round up today! From makeup to skincare to sun protection, these are all of my tried-and-true clean essentials beauty essentials. You can read more about how I started my clean beauty journey and became a Beautycounter consultant in this past post, and get my top-ten list below! 
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Now that grilling season is back in swing, I’ve been revisiting my favorite recipes and this simple grilled shrimp dish is a perennial favorite (it’s adapted from my cookbook New England Invite!). The fresh citrus and garlic flavors that pair so well with grilled seafood flavors, and just a hint of paprika adds a fragrant peppery note.
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A big hearty breakfast sandwich is the way to my heart, and I made a special, savory cheddar waffle version in partnership with EatingWell magazine for their May issue to get inspired for Mother’s Day brunches. The waffles are full of the flavorful Kerrygold Reserve Cheddar, made with milk from grass-fed cows that are raised on small, family-run Irish dairy farms. I used more of the cheddar to melt in between fried eggs and crispy bacon — the best ingredients make for the best tasting dishes. Get the full recipe below, and catch it in the EatingWell issue on newsstands now! 
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Over the last few years, I’ve put a big focus on reducing food waste at our house. Being a food writer and stylist, there are weeks when we have a veryrandom assortment of leftovers and ingredients from various client projects taking up space in our fridge. I’ve developed lots of little tricks to make the most of what’s on hand to reduce the amount of food waste we create. It’s a great way to save money, but more than that, it’s better for the environment. The EPA estimates that in the United States, more food reaches landfills than any other single material in our everyday trash. And when food decomposes in landfills the nutrients in the food never return to the soil — the wasted food rots and produces methane gas.
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