What'll I Do?

Heavens to Betsy.  Will ya look at that?  I don't remember temperatures this high--especially so early in our 8-month summer.  :) 

Well, y'all know that I'm not an outdoor boy, but it's still warm.  So here's what's new in my mostly-air-conditioned world lately.

Ummm.  Breaking Bad.  In preparation for the upcoming season, AMC has being running old episodes late at night, starting with the pilot.  About two weeks ago I set my DVR, and the rest is history.  I had never seen the show before, although a teacher friend (shoutout to Lana!) highly recommended it.  The show's about cooking meth, so 'highly' is a bit of a pun.  Now I'm all caught up on it, and it's excellent.  Definitely TV-14 to MA, so no kids!

And I recently visited local restaurants Sloco and The Pharmacy.  Yum.  If you're in town, you should definitely try them out.  Sloco features local and sustainable sandwiches at affordable prices.  The Pharmacy is an old-school soda shop/beer garden.  A group of friends from work met there one Sunday afternoon for lunch and a board game.  What could be better?

On that note, I'm also back to working on my fitness.  It's good for baby.

And I'm continuing to volunteer at Gilda's Club.  This July 19th I'm teaching my third crafty class there.  It's really rewarding and fun.  If you're in town, you should definitely join us! 

How is your summer going?  What's on the agenda?

DC Treats

Red velvet cupcake from Baked & Wired.  More than one person told me to avoid that bakery from the TLC show and go a few streets over for these.  Wise advice!

A few days later I had a chocolate cupcake with vanilla buttercream from CakeLove.  This one was from Tysons Corner, but they have locations all over the area.

I also enjoyed a cookie, some brownies, and candy from various institutions, but the other standout was an insane piece hunk of chocolate blackout cake from Serendipidty 3.  It took four days to eat.

 

I'm not kidding.

Siri-ously Good Camera

Yum. My new iPhone camera or this sweet treat?  Umm...both.  This lil' jewel is from a local place called Nothing Bundt Cakes.  Unfortunate name.  Delightful product.

A pesto/chicken panini from Bruegger's Bagels. 

It's no secret that I'm a fan of a good homemade pizza.  Well, sort of homemade.  Here was tonight's dinner-in-a-hurry.

I used store-bought crust, pre-grilled chicken, mozzarella, and (squeezable!) pizza sauce.  It took about 15 minutes total, including oven time.

I finished it off with some freshly cracked black pepper.  Nums.

Definitely Late 20s Now. And Austin?

Well, my 20s are almost officially over.  My birthday happened over the weekend, and I'm now 29.

My twin bro and I met up at our older sister's house, and along with her family and our mom, we had a big lunch.  If it wasn't a simple carb, we weren't eating it.  For dessert we had cupcakes.  They were most delicious.

The picture above shows my placecard for the meal, handmade by my younger niece.  She did one for everybody and then thought it would be hilarious to turn them around so that we all had to guess where we were sitting.  Isn't little kids' handwriting the best?!

I'm going on a weekend trip to Austin to visit some friends, so I'm extra excited about that, too.  Does anyone have any must-sees?!

Nums.

I just tried this snack, and it's insanely delicious.  It's kettle corn plus dark chocolate plus chocolate chips.  How bad could that be?

Trading Up

I may have mentioned before, but I love Trader Joe's.  Just love it.  I took today off and treated myself to a little TJ sweep.  Yum.

Here are some of my Trader Joe's all-stars. 

1. Chicken drumettes.  They're like frozen chicken nuggs but way tastier.

2. Dark chocolate peanut butter cups.  Smooth and creamy.  And antioxidant-y.

3. Organic peanut butter sandwich cookies.  Imagine Ritz Bitz but with flavor.

4. Gone Bananas! Frozen, chocolate-covered banana bites. 

5. Fudge and/or Caramel Sauce.  ...

Sorry.  I'm back.  :)  Trader Joe's is just so beyond.  Everything is so neatly packaged and extremely well priced.  Most of you know that I'm not a big veg-eater, but they have such a nice selection that it's almost tempting.  

If you're into fresh flowers and plants, they have you covered, too.  What are some of your favorites?

Sights of the Season

I've been meaning to post these few pictures from the last month or so.  Here are: a pumpkin spice Bundt cake, homemade mashed potatoes, and mini-loaves of banana nut bread. 

Happy New Year, dear readers.

What's For Lunch?

I guess it wouldn't really matter if it were carried in this.

Isn't it nifty?!  I saw it from one of my daily Real Simple e-mails, I do believe.  It's reusable for hundreds of times, dishwasher safe, and $7.95.  Right now I take sandwiches to work in my plastic Wonder Bread sandwich cozy, but this would be a nice change of pace. 

Birthdays, Bananas, and Blue Bells

This weekend my cool pal Ann Marie came to town.  Guess what.  It was her birthday.  And we had a really fun time.  It started out with an Italian dinner out and the most delicious (non-Ben-&-Jerry's) ice cream ever.

Whoa.  Up.  It really does taste just like banana pudding and includes vanilla wafers.  Whew.  We showed that bucket a thing or two.  I know I just posted about sweet frozen goodness, but I can't help myself.

On Saturday we headed out to Franklin and stopped by one of the coolest stationery stores ever.  It's called Rock Paper Scissors.  I got to chat up my fellow paper fiend/blog friend Lauren.  (Check out her blog.  It's really stylish and fun.) 

I have another friend's birthday coming up, so I picked up a few stationery items for her.  Despite my best attempts to persuade her otherwise, she's not a blog reader, so the secret is safe here. 

Then Ann Marie and I headed down the street for some cupcakes from Ivey Cake.  She got The Crazy Ex (banana walnut with cream cheese icing), and I picked up a Gold Digger (chocolate with peanut butter icing).  Good call, Lauren! 

The rest of the weekend was a blur of laughing and music and a few more sweet treats.  Times like these make the sometimes irritating days at work completely worth it.  I hope that yours was equally nice.

Making Memories with a Spoon

Well, I guess this weekend officially kicked off summer, huh?  While I'm not wild (at all) about the oppressive heat that is sure to plague us fair-skinned, indoor types for the next 5 months or so, this product almost doesn't make me mind summer. 

The other day at Whole Foods I picked up a carton of Ciao Bella Belgian Chocolate gelato.  Oh.  Wow.  It is so good. 

It was the perfect accompaniment to a quiet Memorial Day with a stack of Redbox DVDs.  I feel like I was eating this every time I turned around, but the funny thing is that there's still plenty left.  I think it's so rich that it only seems like you're eating a lot. 

And isn't that only more more reason to celebrate?  Now I'm looking forward to trying their other flavors, including the sorbets.  Hold me back.

I hope you all had a great weekend.

(Image from freshtomarket.com)

Mais Oui!

Late last week for a breakfast potluck at work, I made this French Toast Casserole. 

It's one of those stale bread/dozen eggs/quart of heavy cream deals.  But doesn't this look worth it?

In the words of Ina, how bad could that be?  (It's not her recipe, though.  I found it in this book.)

A True Food Fight

Have you seen this show yet? It's The Naked Chef, Jamie Oliver, and he's come to America to change the way we eat and think about food.

It sounds gimmicky, I know, but it's really good. He went to Huntington, Virginia, which is (by some reports) the least healthy city in the US. So far (over about four episodes) he's tangled with a hard-nosed local radio jockey, fought with down-home lunch ladies (hint: they don't like that term), and headed up a flash mob of cookin' fools. It's a lot of fun, but it's also frustrating (pizza is healthier than roasted chicken and vegetables, according to public school regulations) and inspirational (an overweight teenager who only had three years to live has decided to change her lifestyle).

Jamie's not crazy. He doesn't propose super-expensive or extensive ingredients or cooking techniques. He simply suggests cooking--not reheating, not buying fast food, not devouring packages of processed food. It makes sense, and he has a way of making it look really easy.

The only downside to this show is that it comes on Friday nights at 9/8 Central. This is not usually a problem for me, but I don't think it's found the audience it deserves. I recommend setting a DVR session or visiting abc.com.

Weekend Recap

So here was my weekend in a nutshell.

My niece dropped by for a visit, and she brought her dinosaur house. It started out as a shoebox, but after some arts and crafts time (and a few pieces of cereal, which she calls the dinosaur's eggs), she came up with this:

Please check out his nametag.

And then I made pizza with chicken, marinara, mozzarella, and some herbs and spices. Oh, and some Italian Herb Flat Out bread. It was something new, and I am digging it.


I also made brownies but did not take any pictures of them. My pal Holly gave me her top-secret recipe a while back, and I finally got around to trying it. Whew. I'm glad I did. What did you get into?

Ciabatta? Don't Mind If I Do

Recently I whipped up a ravioli lasagna and served it with a side of ciabatta bread. But there was a lot. Of both.

So the next day I turned about a third of the bread into a stuffed sandwich by scooping out (and eating) the delish bread flesh and jamming in some chicken and mozzarella. Then I baked it at 350-ish for about 10 minutes. A side of Newman's Own honey mustard completed the nosh. I recommend it.

Not Exactly Half-Baked

You know how I loves my pasta, right?

Well, this is a new recipe that I tried the other night for baked ziti with ricotta and parmesan.

It's from The Best Casserole Cookbook Ever--not even kidding--by Beatrice Ojakangas. That name is a mouthful, but so are the dishes.

This one could not have been easier, and it was delish, I have to say.

It called for spinach, but I left that nasty stuff out and put an extra handful of parmesan (and love). I'm guessing you could improvise and add chicken, sausage, breadcrumbs, and/or any number of vegetables, if you're into that sort of thing.

What have you been cooking lately? I know it's cold out, but at least the residual heat from the oven will make the house warmer. Bonus!

Gimmie s'more 'a that, please!

Remember how I endorsed Archer Farms last year?

Well, I still do. Even more now.

<---- This stuff is heavenly. It's so good, even though my picture leaves a little to be desired. The bag is half-full because I couldn't stop eating it long enough to dig out the camera.

It has little chunks of chocolate, dehydrated marshmallows that are a bit chalky (but strangely addictive), graham cracker bites, chocolate covered peanuts, and seasoned pecans. Yum, yum, gimmie some.

In other news, I haven't really seen tons of specs-worthy ads lately. I will cop to loving the Gap cheerleader ones at Christmas, though. They cracked me up and made me a little nostalgic for the Gap spots of old. Are any commercials or print ads tickling your fancy lately?

Why, Thank You!

Recently I was asked by the lovely Jenn over at Department of the Interior to guest-post on baking, and I was only too happy to oblige. She published the post today, and I love the way it turned out. It has some pictures of what I baked, along with a recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks.

Give her blog a whirl if you like cool things and great design. Thanks again, Jenn!

Batchin' It Up

Trader Joe's Mini Ravioli + boiling water + Prego + mozzarella = delish.

Sated

Today I celebrated Thanksgiving proper with my fellow only-off-work-for-today Nashville friend Emily. And, I have to say, we turned it out in the kitchen. Here are some pictures of the table, side dishes, what was left of the turkey (with herbs, butter, wine, and lemon, no less!), and so on...

I hope you enjoyed these, but I doubt it will be as much as we did. Thanks, Emily!

This weekend I'm heading home to partake in the family meal. I'm pretty stoked about that, too.