 A few weekends ago - we found ourselves in an all adult house again. So we did what any empty nesters would do. We packed a lunch, gathered up the dog and headed to the mountains for the day. 😂⛰ Unfortunately, our hike got cut short because of an unable canine but I still managed to snap a couple of pictures along the way. I really shouldn't blame her for not being able to finish the walk - it wasn't her fault. She got overly excited when she saw the water, jumped in and threw out her hips. 🤦🏻♀️ I'm happy to report that after a few days of rest and lots of extra treats, she is back to herself again. 🐶
Hiking in North Georgia might just be my favorite summer weekend activity. Carbo-loading BEFORE our Saturday morning hike - is a close second. 🍝  This version of vegetable and nut based pesto is absolutely delicious. I recommend serving this pesto with a nice sturdy noodle that will stand up to this hearty sauce. Rigatoni, penne, ziti - anything along those lines would be perfect.  Pasta with Tomato-Ricotta Almond Pesto 1/2 cup almonds 1 Tablespoon canola oil 2 red bell peppers, cut into 1/4" strips 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon pepper 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced 3/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes 1/4 cup ricotta cheese 1/2 cup parmesan cheese 1/4 cup oil packed sun dried tomatoes 1/4 cup olive oil 1 pound pasta 1/2 cup fresh basil, torn
 Add pasta to serving bowl along with pesto and 1/4 cup reserved pasta water. Add additional water as necessary to thin pesto. Season with salt and pepper.  Sprinkle with fresh basil and serve.
We may not celebrate Taco Tuesday every week but we rarely miss a Friday night pasta dinner. There's no better way to kick off the weekend. Ciao!
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 Every season there's a new "must-have" trendy fashion item. It might be a color that everyone's wearing or a shoe style that's super popular. I say that like I keep up with the new fashion trends, but to be honest, I'm usually several fashion trends behind everyone else. 🤷🏻♀️ If you know me, you know that I'm anything BUT trendy. I wear my mom jeans rolled up - not because it's trendy, because I'm 5'1" (on a good day) and they don't fit any other way. 👖I've worn the same little black dress to every funeral and formal dinner that I've been to in the last 10 years. When I'm really feeling stylish, I add a new scarf or fun necklace to change up the look. Crazy, I know. 😂 I feel like I have the same relationship with the technology world. By the time I hear about the really hot and trendy new tech gear, it's already outdated. Shout out to my kids for keeping me in the loop about social media. Despite their best efforts I still can't successfully publish and Instagram story by myself. Sorry, guys. 😬  I may be clueless about the latest fashion and advances in technology but I do try and stay on top of the ever changing food trends. No doubt you've been hearing a lot about intermittent fasting and flexitarianism this year. Ingredients like pea protein and baby broccoli are popping up in my supermarket. 🥦 I don't buy into ALL of the food trends but I can't resist trying new foods and especially new recipes. I've seen several recipes for unsauced ribs lately and I don't know if that's a coincidence or a food trend but I've got to say - I'm a fan. Giving the consumer the option of adding sauce to their own ribs if they prefer is a great idea. Some will add sauce and others will prefer dry ribs.  Oven Roasted Rosemary Pork Ribs 2 Tablespoons brown sugar 4 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary 1 Tablespoon fennel seeds 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes 1 clove garlic, chopped 2 1/2 - 3 pounds St. Louis style spareribs 2 Tablespoons salt 1 Tablespoon black pepper
 Bake 2 - 2 1/2 hours. Let rest 20 minutes.   The weekend is here - give yourself a break from lengthy meal prep and let your oven do all the hard work. This no fail recipe for oven roasted ribs will fill your house with such an amazing aroma of fresh herbs that it might just become your new family favorite. Have a great weekend!
Ciao!  August in Georgia can be summed up into one word -- brutal. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who doesn't like to sweat from their eyeballs. 👀The humidity is oppressive and the temperatures are so high it forces even the most devoted outdoor enthusiast to find refuge in the air conditioning. 😅☀️ August is also the month when my daughter heads back to school, which is pretty much torture on this mommas heart and only adds to the agony of August. 😥 Don't even get me started on the torture of moving a child to college while it feels like the temperatures in Georgia rival the heat on the surface of the sun.  When it gets so hot that I don't even have the energy or desire to go jump into our chilled neighborhood pool, I know it's August. When I start taking flashlight walks in the dark of night because the heat is slightly more tolerable at the 9 o'clock hour, I know it's August. When it's so steamy that I start watering my poor dehydrated plants and flowers twice a day just to keep them alive, I know it's August. There are a lot of things that I love about warm weather but some days, this heat is too much for this girl raised in Northeast Ohio. I'm doing my best to embrace this sweltering month but definitely rethinking my decision to buy a black car. 🤦🏻♀️ I'm trying to make lemons out of lemonade - as they say. In my case, I guess you could say that I'm activating yeast out of humidity? Or baking bread out of fieriness? Or rising dough out of the dog days? Did any of those make sense? Let's just say, I'm using the heat and humidity to my advantage to make the biggest, most tender and soft cinnamon buns EVER!  Cinnamon Buns Dough 1/2 cup + 2 Tablespoons warm milk 1 egg 2 cups + 2 Tablespoons flour 1 1/2 teaspoons yeast 2 Tablespoons sugar 1 teaspoon salt 4 Tablespoons butter, softened Coating 1 1/4 cups sugar 3 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon salt 12 Tablespoons butter, melted
 Cover with plastic wrap and let rise 1 hour. Bake 25 minutes at 350. (200 degrees)
So what's the difference between a cinnamon roll and a cinnamon bun, you ask? My very unscientific and unconfirmed answer is that a cinnamon roll has the cinnamon filling "rolled" up into the dough. A cinnamon bun has the cinnamon filling on the outside of the bun. They essentially have the same ingredients and are just two versions of the same recipe. Either way you prefer to eat them, I hope you enjoy.
Ciao!  1362 - That is exactly how many weeks I've been married to the love of my life. That's how many weeks I've been picking his socks up off the floor, stealing his covers and sitting across from him at the dinner table. It's also the number of weeks that I've been planning his meals, shopping for the groceries that fill our kitchen cabinets and preparing our meals. In the world of household chores, menu planning isn't my least favorite - cleaning bathrooms is top of that list - but I wouldn't say that it's my most favorite either. I enjoy fixing dinner and I really don't even mind grocery shopping but menu planning has always been somewhat of a struggle. I want to make yummy meals that my family will love but I have to balance that with the fact that we need to eat more vegetables and lean protein. 🥦  Last week, I got overwhelmed with catering orders which meant that I had to transfer some of my domestic responsibilities to my partner. It's not uncommon for him to step up and take over laundry and vacuuming duties but I've never turned over the menu planning. 😬 I must admit that when I tasked him to come up with a menu and a grocery list, I was a little nervous that we'd be eating filet mignon and kobe beef all week. 🥩 To my surprise, my carnivore planned a very well balanced menu for the two of us. There were fish dishes, chicken meals and even some meatless meals on his food plan. My only problem was that there were 14 pages of recipes for the week. 14! I think I may need to cancel all my orders for the week so I can make time for all this cooking. 😅  On Tuesday morning, I headed to the store with his ingredient spreadsheet in hand. (Honestly, I would expect nothing less from my technical thinking spouse.) #wireddifferently Despite my hesitations that his menu might be overly ambitious, I bought all of the necessary ingredients to prepare his menu - right down to the cremini mushrooms and marbled rye. 🥖💁🏻♀️ After 1362 weeks, I was grateful for the break from menu planning because I feel like I'd gotten into a dinner rut. Now I had 14 pages of new recipes to try and the groceries to make them all. No problem. 😅 Some of his dinner recipes were more complicated than others so I decided to start with the simple. This one was compliments of Taste of Home - adapted to better suit my own tastes. Chicken Quinoa Bowls 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar 2/3 cup water 1/3 cup quinoa, rinsed 1 cup brown rice, cooked 2 boneless chicken breasts 2 teaspoons olive oil 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon pepper 1/4 cup plain yogurt 1/2 teaspoon spicy brown mustard 1/2 medium ripe avocado, peeled and sliced 6 cherry tomatoes
Serve with dressing.
Now don't I feel silly for thinking my better half would plan meals that only he would like. Of course, he chose some healthy grilled chicken dishes to balance out the more indulgent meals on his plan. I'm not sure the he would admit that he enjoyed these quinoa bowls as much as I did but at the end of the meal, his bowl was empty. Just sayin. Ciao!  Ah, France. It's another place on my travel bucket list. #Imisstravelling I would really like to see the Provence countryside, the French Rivera and the Pyrenese Mountains. Who wouldn't? 🏔The scenery looks spectacular and, let's be honest the food sounds extraordinary. Something that I definitely need to taste for myself. Classic french food like cassoulet and coq au vin, crepes Suzette and buttery French pastries. 🥐 I'm not a professionally trained chef. I'm just a housewife and a mom who has a love (borderline obsession) with food. 🤣 I learned how to cook from my mom and my grandma and sometimes - the internet. I am so thankful for the foodie family that I was lucky enough to grow up in and the fact that these amazing women invested in me and my passion for food. They were deliberate and patient when it came to teaching me how to cook longstanding family favorites like ravioli and meatballs. 👩🏻🍳 Quite honestly, I was probably the worst student in the kitchen. My grandmother would portion out handfuls of flour onto her perfectly seasoned wooden board for homemade raviolis and I would go behind her and scrape it into a measuring cup as fast as I could so I could record her exact measurements. She was trying to teach me to "feel" the dough and I was focused on taking accurate notes so I could recreate the dish on my own. 🤦🏻♀️  My grandmother shared a lot of recipes with me but I think the greatest thing that I learned from her was to cook from feeling instead of from a recipe. After years of watching her prepare and serve great Italian food, I finally started to develop some instincts about what to add to a dish and I had to learn to trust those feelings. Because of her, I feel like my cooking style is much different than it would have been if I had attended a fancy cooking school. Don't get me wrong, I would love to be professionally trained and I have mad respect for anyone who goes through the rigorous training to earn the title of "chef." The most prestigious of chefs in my book are French trained chefs. They're masters of all things butter, chicken, herbs, cheese and all foods comforting. Provençal cooking refers to dishes prepared from ingredients in a specific Province in France. Olive oil, garlic, rosemary, sage, thyme, basil and marjoram are traditionally found in Provencal dishes. That speaks to this Italian girls heart right there. Chicken Provencal is one of the first things that I'm going to try when I finally make my trip to France. 🇫🇷  Chicken Provencal 4 bone in chicken breasts 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon pepper 1/2 cup flour 3 Tablespoons olive oil 2 shallots 3 garlic cloves, minced 3 sprigs fresh thyme 1 Tablespoon anchovy paste 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes 12 ounces cherry tomatoes, halved 1/2 cu kalamata olives, halved 1/2 cup dry white wine 1/2 cup fresh parsley
 Serve chicken with parsley.
Winner, winner chicken dinner! If you've got an overabundance of tomatoes in your garden this summer and you're looking for a great way to use them - I suggest this dish! 🍅 Ciao! |
